MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER EWING.*

Tins is an admirable biography of a noble-hearted and highly gifted man. Bishop Ewing's great aim throughout his too brief existence was to see into the life of things. He fought for truth, not for dogmas ; he cared little for theological definitions, and much for everything that brought God nearer to the human soul and gave a fuller meaning to life. own cry was for more light, and it was not the painful cry of doubt or of despair, but of a man who held with undoubting faith the fatherhood of God, and believed that all things were working together for good, not for a few elect souls, but for the world which Christ had died to redeem. Alexander Ewing acknowledged Erskine as his spiritual father, and there can be no doubt that he was also greatly influenced by the teaching of Maurice, Macleod Campbell, and Robertson of Brighton. Of a Church which is generally regarded, and not without justice, as holding " high " views of priestly au- thority and sacramental efficacy, he was a liberal-minded bishop, and in a country in which the dust of a carefully defined theology has been too often suffered to deface or conceal the blossoms and fruit of faith, he shook himself free from the trammels of a spiritual caste, and was eager to welcome truth, from what quarter soever it might come. And Bishop Ewing combined, we think, in exquisite proportion, a due re- verence for the past, with the belief that God is teaching men new and even higher lessons as the world advances. Instead of "trundling back his soul," and following blindly the dictates of Church authority, he trusted to the light that lighteth every man, and while far from being an iconoclast, possessed the Protestant spirit which animates every religious reformer. "Unless," he said, we can commend God to men apart from authority, we are but beating the air," and he is emphatic in the belief that the divine method to be presented must be in harmony with the conscience Any professed revelation which dispensed with the existence of the absolute law of righteousness in the Supreme Being—i.e., in our accept- ance of the term—would at once derogate from that which, in the regard of creatures fashioned as we are, constitutes His highest glory ; and if logically followed out would be subversive of all ieveronee and love towards Himself, while it would petrify the springs of those deeper feel- ings, of which, indeed, we are not always conscious, but which all the same in reality sustain the freshness and purity of our thoughts and actions in our intercourse with our follow-men. Any declarations con- tained in the Holy Scriptures which seem to affirm a contrary doctrine must either be interpreted' non-naturally,' or we must acknowledge that

we do not in tho least understand their moaning God n

himself, and there must be some great mistake somewhere, cannot nsoot ri pdteunryo ever seems to us to announce as divine a mode of procedure which our consciences would never accept as a warrant or guide for the conduct of our daily life."

This belief, which strikes at the root of Calvinism and of all creeds which allow a morality to God which good men would reject, led Bishop Ewing further in the same direction. God, as a Father, can never destroy one of the children whom he has created * Memoir of Alexander Ewing, D.C.L., Bishop of Argyll and Ma lam By Alexander J. Roes, B.D. London: Daldy, Iebieter, and Go. 1877.

and redeemed. All mankind are God's children, and therefore by some means, he held, all will be brought under the influence of divine love. This was his belief, and instead of making him apathetic, it stimulated his energy, so assured was he that the recollection that man ie God's child and God's creature, however far he may have wandered from the Father's house, is on "the lines of the highest theology."

We shall not attempt to follow Mr. Ross step by step in his interesting details of the Bishop's life. The book is one that should be read by all who follow truth rather than authority, and are not afraid to go wherever honest and devout inquiry may lead them. All we can attempt to do is to draw from the biography a few particulars of Bishop Ewing's life, and to extract, with or with- out comment, some of the opinions expressed in the correspond- ence. Here, however, we may remark that the strong personal im- pression made on those who knew him, by the handsome, energetic, earnest Scotchman, who united the bearing of a Highland chieftain 'with the gifts and graces of an accomplished gentleman, cannot be transferred to print. Those who did not know Alexander Ewing can but dimly guess what he was even from these animated pages, but we must be thankful that so much of what was deepest and truest in the bishop's life is hero accurately described.

The outward circumstances of the man are not, perhaps, of any special interest, at all events in his younger days. Alexander Ewing was born in Aberdeen in 1814, and like most Scotehmen, traced his descent back to a distinguished clan. His father, who was an advocate, died when his eldest son was only thirteen years old, and not very long afterwards the mother passed away too, a woman of warm affections and deep piety, whose strongest wish was that her two sons should become clergymen of the Church of England,—a wish, Mr. Ross observes, that was substantially ful- filled. A sister died when quite young, and the brothers, who were not without private property, seem to have been allowed full freedom at an age when most youths are under tutors and governors. Alexander's health was always delicate, and it is amusing to observe how frequently he shifted his quarters, not only in the early days of manhood, but throughout life. His education at school and at the University seems to have been often interrupted, and the scholarship neglected at this period was not acquired to any large extent in later days. At least, if we understand the biographer correctly, Alexander Ewing, although well read in some of the Latin poets, was never entitled to the praise of great classical learning. At one-and- twenty, he married a young lady of eighteen, whose "presence was fair to see," and who was alike charming and accomplished. In his early married days he was laid prostrate with bronchitis, a complaint that was destined to trouble him severely and frequently in after-life. The first attack kept him a prisoner for months, and at one time his life was despaired of. To take orders in the Church of England was now his half-formed purpose, but circum- stances led him to join the Scottish Episcopalians, and at the age of twenty-four he was admitted into deacon's orders. Then followed, for health's sake, a long residence in Italy. Two winters were spent in Rome, and on returning to Scotland, strong already in the views which lie afterwards believed and preached, Ewing undertook the charge of the Episcopal congregation at Ferree. His intellectual activity was great, he read on almost all subjects, his accomplishments were varied, he used the pencil as well as the pen, his conversational powers were of no mean order, and it was a special treat "to listen to his rendering, with his rich mellow voice, of some of his favourite Scottish songs." Mr. Ross notes, also, among Ewing's accomplishments a faculty for verse-making, but the specimens given of his poetical skill are by no means remarkable. His first publication was an essay entitled "Episcopacy in Scotland," and the biographer affirms that next to the sagacious action of Dean Ramsay at a

crisis which threatened the unity of the Scottish Episcopal Church, Mr. Ewing's "compact and luminous advocacy" saved it from disruption. In 1847 he was ordained Bishop of Argyll and the Isles,—a diocese which comprehends the shires of Argyll and Bute, a considerable portion of the county of Inverness and the whole of the Western Isles, extending for about two hundred and thirty miles from north to south, and about one hundred and twenty from east to west, and it may interest those who grumble at the cost of bishops to learn that the gross revenues of the See amounted to £,370 a year. The labours and anxieties of his bishopric occupy of course many pages of Bishop Ewing's bio- graphy. His great desire was to remove the barrier caused by the Scottish Communion office, in order that there might be complete union with the English Church, and on this object he expended much thought and labour, which during the Bishop's life-time failed to produce fruit. His portrait as a Bishop has been drawn by Dean Stanley, in his lectures on the ecclesiastical history of Scotland, where he is described as one "who in all the graces and honours of his race is a Celtic Scotchman to the back- bone; who has always, though a Bishop, acknowledged the Christian character of his Presbyterian brethren ; who, though a Dissenter, has always borne his testimony against the secularising influences of the Voluntary system, of which he is an unwilling victim ; who has always lifted up his voice in behalf of those wider and more generous views of which the grand old office of Episcopacy was intended to be the depositary." Bishop Ewing possessed the wonderful art—an art due, in largo measure, to the frankness and sincerity of a noble nature—of winning the confidence and admiration of men of all classes and schools of thought. Not only did he attract Dean Stanley and Mr. Jowett, he also enlisted the sympathies and affections of Dr.

Sumner, the Bishop of Winchester ; of Archbishop Tait, who has

said that of all the letters he ever received, none came up in their unique charm and raciness to those of Ewing ; of Thomas Erskine, who, from the first day of meeting, became a fast friend for life ;

of Bishop Wordsworth and Dr. Campbell. "But the Bishop never seems to have been conscious of the trust with which he

inspired other people, any more than he was of the atmosphere of light and sweetness which he shed around him,—the sense of room in which to breathe and expand which he imparted to all capable persons with whom he was brought into converse."' Nothing probably was more striking in the Bishop than his liberality of spirit, and the interest he felt in the free, if honest, expression of opinion. "I look," he said," upon all distinctive dogmatic marks as so many barriers to union," and he was always rejoiced at any signs of Christian unity. Thus, on hearing that the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Winchester had preached in the parish church of Glengarry, he wrote to the Archbishop, expressing hie satisfaction that lie had taken this step in the right direction,—,, a step towards that great goal to which he hoped all Churches alike were tending, where the distinctions of their various ministries, would be lost and swallowed up in the common objects for which they were instituted ;" and he bitterly regretted the timid policy which ultimately led them to apologise for so doing, "for is not fellowship the end of the Christian ministry, and is it not the work of a true ministry to achieve its end by producing union on the way ? Episcopacy, while claiming superiority of degree for the well-being of the Church, never did among us claim to be necessary for its being." Bishop Ewing had thought too deeply and felt too strongly te regard as of supreme importance many of the Church contro- versies which create so much bitter feeling in the present day. He had no sympathy with the symbolism of the Ritualists, or- with the unhealthy and narrow piety of the Evangelicals, though he could sympathise with good men of either party, and it was but natural that he should wish to give expression to the faith which was the joy of his life in a practical and permanent form. The publication of the Present-Day Papers enabled him to do this,, and in them, either by his own pen or by the help of contributors, , he was enabled to express his views of the great questions on which he had been meditating for years.

Bishop Ewing took an independent course, not because he liked to be eccentric, but because he thought for himself, and acted up to his convictions. He had no sympathy, for example, with Dr. Colenso ; but he declined to endorse the deposition of the Bishop sent to him by the Primus, on the ground that the Bishop of Natal had not broken the laws of the Church with which he was in communion. "I do not know," he writes, "where to find the Church of , England, save by the laws of the Church of England," and it was because the Bishop of Capetown exceeded the warrant of the law" that Dr. Ewing distrusted his action. And while holding firmly the belief that the Bible is in its essence wholly unique and divine, and that modern criticism has not in the least affected the ultimate basis of faith, he was- ready to admit that the progress of science must correct many theological misconceptions, "Are we prepared," he asks, in allusion to the Coleus° case, "to make the Church of England occupy the position which the Church of Rome assumed towards

Galileo?"

"I have been thinking over my past life," the Bishop said, when lying on his death-bed, "and what a joyous one it has been. I must, I suppose, have had much more of enjoyment out of my life than most men from theirs ;" and it was with this feeling of joyfulness, and with an unswerving trust in the eternal goodness, of the Almighty Father, that he went to his rest. It was a beauti- ful life, and in spite of much pain, a beautiful and tranqui)

death. The "sweet peace that goodness bosoms ever" rested on the Bishop, whether living or dying, and the divine charity which filled his life gives to this volume a charm which is too often lacking in the pages of a religious biography.