A REMINISCENCE OF CAN ON TAYLOR.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SP ECT ATOR."1
Sia,—When the late Canon Isaac Taylor spent some time at Biarritz twenty-one winters ago I had the following anec- dote from his own lips. He related that, while some valuable books which he had put into his church library were neglected, there was an extraordinary ran on a second-rate book of Evan- gelical theology bearing some such name as Adam's "Religious Thoughts." On inquiry, he found that his simple-
minded parishioners imagined that the volume of their choice embodied the meditations which divine or angelic tuition had called forth from the father of mankind. The anecdote re- calls one contained in Bishop Walsham How's "Lighter Moments." The Bishop received a letter from a man who, having been advised to study Daniel on the Book of Common Prayer, "had read the Book of Daniel all through, and found no mention of the Prayer-book." Your readers may be amused by a somewhat similar experience of my own boy- hood, which I forestall from my (ttit on tard) forthcoming Memoirs :— "One of the entertaining books which made its way into our Evangelical schoolroom was, if I remember rightly, called St. John's ' Highland Sports.' It was the author's name that chiefly attracted me; for I remember with what eagerness I took up the volume, and how my wondering sympathy was stirred by the healthy outdoor relaxations of the versatile Evangelist. But I was much disappointed when a kinsman of my own age—why may I not say a kinsboy ' ?—suggested that perhaps the sports- man was not the Evangelist after all, but merely a holy man who had been canonised ' ! May not this odd fancy have been in part suggested by the Biblical phrase, a mighty hunter before the Lord' ? "
To us boys such a beatified sportsman might have seemed an English counterpart of St. Hubert, the patron saint of hunting, on whose festival (November 3rd) the huntsman— sometimes here at Biarritz—enters the church with a single hound in leash, and kneels before the altar untiVat the end of the service, he rises and blows his horn in the presence of the congregation.—I am, Sir, &c., LIONEL A. TOLLEMACRE.
Htel d'Angleterre, Biarritz, France.
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