LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
[Letters of the length of one of our leading paragraphs are often more read, and therefore more effective, than those which fill treble the space.]
THE LATE BISHOP OF DURHAM.
(To THE EDITOR or TELE " SPECTATOR.") 511'4— Your notice of the late Bishop of Durham was so appre- ciative of his life and work that I shrink from seeming to correct or even to complete it; yet the Church will not fully realize how great has been her loss in losing him unless some one is permitted to dwell, if only in a brief letter, upon certain aspects of his character which were and could be fully known to none except his own long-standing friends.
He was not only a fine classical scholar—probably the most accomplished classical scholar on the Episcopal Bench—but he retained his love of scholarship throughout his long life. He took his degree as Second Classic in 1864, the year of the M's as it was called; for the Senior Classic was then the late II. W. Moss, who held for so many years the Headmastership of Shrewsbury School; the late .Bishop and the late F. W. H. Myers were bracketed as Second Classics; and the fourth, or one of the two men who were bracketed fourth, was my tutor at Eton, G. E. Marindin. Up to the last the Bishop was fond not only of reading Greek and Latin authors, but of writing Greek and Latin verses. His lectures on the Greek Testament were models of insight into the exact significance of phrases and even of single words. So far as I was able in many conversa- tions with him to form a judgment there was no point of classical learning about which his scholarly instinct ever failed.
It was not always realized that his humour was scarcely less characteristic 'of him than his humility. He was led by his habit of self-depreciation to set an almost exaggerated value upon small services rendered to him even by the lowliest people who came across him. His humility arose from his comparison of himself—as, indeed, it arises in all true Christians—not with other human beings, but with the Divine example of Him who "humbled Himself " even to the Cross. But he could show, as I recollect, an almost malicious pleasure in one clause, which he looked upon as a trap for unwary Bishops, in the Prayers read at the opening of Convocation. How well I recall, too, his delight in hearing that a local magnate, who was introduced by the chairman at a meeting as our principal educationist, had expounded, as a chief educa- tional need, the provision of a series of useful vade msca, or in telling how he had himself been called to 'visit a dying Socialist in the North of England, and, as he stood by the bedside, had offered some suitable prayers, and at the end of each prayer the man, being more accustomed, I suppose, to political meetings than to prayer meetings, Shad fervently if feebly exclaimed not "Amen," but "Hear, hear."
There lies before me, as I write, the letter of a clergyman who relates that after a bad air-raid in 1918 the Bishop visited the village which the Germans had devastated, going on foot from house to house and speaking words of sympathy to the inhabitants, until•one of the miners who had watched him said to the clergyman, " Look here, Sir, I do not belong to your Church, but the Church of England is all right so long as she has men like Bishop Moule."
It was the Bishop's sympathy, which, indeed, was part of his humility, that widened and softened his ecclesiastical views as the years passed over his episcopate. He was always a con- vinced Evangelical or Low Churchman, although it is as diffi- cult to say why the name "Evangelical" should be the name of a party as why the Evangelical party should be called the Low Church Party. But as the Bishop gained experience he came to be tolerant of the desire for the wearing of a special vestment at the celebration of Holy Communion, and still more of the longing which the 'tragedy of the great war evoked for prayer in behalf of the dead. The result was that he enjoyed, I think, the confidence of all his clergy, and the great attendance of the clergy at his funeral was a remarkable evidence of the widely-spread affection entertained for him. There were many of his friends who felt that a peculiar atmosphere of sanctity lay around him. About it I would rather cite the testimony of others than my own. I have known a prominent High Church- man say that of all persons he could most wish the late Bishop to be near him at his death. I have known a guest of his at Auckland Castle say That he felt as though he must "put off the shoes from his feet, for the place whereon he stood was holy ground." It will be enough, perhaps, as an expression of the thoughts suggested by his life, and now, alas! by his death, to quote the beautiful lines of one of his own poems, for he was always a sacred poet of no mean order :—
" What joys are lost, what hopes are given, As through this death-struck world we roam! We dream awhile that home is Heaven; We find at length that Heaven is Home."
He was laid to rest on Ascension Day, the Venerable Bede's death-day, in the quiet cemetery at Durham beside his wife and daughter and brother, within view of the cathedral which he had so long and deeply loved. You will do a kindness not to myself, I hope, alone, but to his many friends as well, if you will allow me, through this letter, to lay, as i•t were, my personal wreath of affectionate respect and regret for his
memory upon his grave. am, Sir, &c., J. E. C. WELLDON.
The Deanery, Durham. •
Previous page
