Dr. Hook, the Dean of Chichester, who died on Wednesday,
was perhaps the most vigorous and efficient clergyman of his generation. Speculatively, his mind was not large or sympa- thetic. There was an imperious side to his mind, and he was not amiable towards Dissent. But he was capable of large ad- ministrative views and great personal sacrifices. His earnest support of the principle of secular State education, leaving re- ligious teaching to the religious bodies, was an early anticipation of the principle of the National Education League,—a wrong prin- ciple indeed, but still one which it took great zeal for education in any clergyman then to hold. But it was in the administration of his great parish at Leeds that he showed the measure of his personal disinterestedness and administrative capacity. At great pecuniary sacrifice he got the parish of Leeds divided by Act of Parliament in 1842 into 17 districts, and during the next twenty-twoyears there were built in Leeds 22 churches, 17 parsonages, and 21 school- rooms, providing for over 7,500 children, and the number of the clergy was raised from 25 to 60. The man was a giant in his way, —not a flexible-minded one, quite the reverse, very inflexible,— but mighty in strength and in sell-devotion.
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