The Dean of Westminster (Dr. Bradley) preached on Inno- cents'
Day, in the Abbey, a sermon to children worthy of his predecessor, partly, no doubt, because it said so much about him, and made what was said so simple and interesting. The late Dean, he said, had the sort of gift, which in books of fairy- tales would be called a fairy-gift, of making young and old fond of him, and that, too, in whatever region of the world he tra- veiled. He had a manner of caring about things and people which made those things and those people seem brighter and better when he was with them, than they appeared at other times. And yet he attained this gift only by struggling with an exces- sive shyness, which haunted his youth,—a shyness which he -contrived to conquer only by so fixing his mind on the interests which concerned other things and people, as to lose the remem- brance of himself. No doubt, the truth is that the stronger attractions which most draw the inexperienced mind out of itself, do startle it into shyness, by the very intensity and novelty of the interests they arouse. It was not because Dean 'Stanley was self-absorbed that he was shy, but because he -desired so strongly to penetrate other natures, and felt so keenly the difference between remaining in his shell and pene- trating the life outside him, that at first he hardly recognised himself, when he had most truly found himself. He was at home in the nature of others ; he was hardly so much at home in his own.
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