Canon Harford - Battersby and the Keswick Convention. Edited by Two of
his Sons. (Seeley and Co.)—One would not willingly sneer at anything of earnest religious life, manifested in whatever shape ; yet there is always something peculiarly repulsive in people who are continually " haein' their doots aboot the meenister." " I watched with eagle eye," says Dean Close to Mrs. Battersby, "to see if there was any false doctrine " (in her husband's paper), " but I did not find the faintest trace of anything of the kind." This is the tone of the book. It may be called "technical," and recom- mended to those who knew and appreciated Canon Battersby in life, or have remembrances of the Keswick Convention ; yet surely even such readers in these days would be better pleased with a less weari- some style, fewer regrets that " too often he relied upon self-effort and legal methods," and just a touch of human nature, at least sometimes, for a change. Whether in dealing with the " Oxford Movement " of Battersby's youth, or the less famous (!) " Oxford Convention of 1874 " (notable as being a curious crisis in the life of a " minister " of twenty-seven years' standing), there is no sign that the writers are dealing with flesh and blood, let alone mind and spirit. Probably the only way of doing justice to Canon Battersby's character is to quote from the charge of the Bishop of Carlisle in 1883 :—" If it be necessary, as I think it is not, to classify men according to the particular light in which the same great truths of the Gospel and of the Church are viewed by them, I presume that Canon Battersby and myself would not be found in the same class ; and on that account I am all the more earnest in expressing the deep and loving reverence with which I ever contemplated his character and conduct. He was in a true sense a shining light."
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