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EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D.,
LORD BISHOP OF WINCHESTER,
AND PRELATE OF THE MOST NOBLE
ORDER OF THE GARTER.

A MEMOIR,
By G. W. KITCHIN, D.D.,

DEAN OF DURHAM.

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Ignatii Ep. ad Trail., t. iii.

LONDON :
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1895.

PriEted by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.

PREFACE.

T ^ ^HEN, at the request of the late Bishop of Win-
* ^ Chester's family, I undertook to write this Memoir
of our dear and honoured friend, my heart was far from
light. Apart from the very heavy responsibility which
must ever rest on one who tries to interpret the nature
and life of a man of mark, I had a special cause for
anxiety in the knowledge that to many I must seem, as
indeed to myself I often seemed, unfitted for so serious
a task. Nor was it long before this feeling found expres
sion. " The selection," said the Occasional Note of one
of the weekly papers, " is not altogether satisfactory to
many of the late Prelate's friends, who are of opinion
that a Cambridge man ought to have been chosen." And
yet the worst was not told ; an Oxford man writing a
Cambridge man's life may be, as the Article says, " an
anomaly " ; but what shall we say to a Broad Churchman
dealing with the problems of a High Churchman's mind ?
a liberal in politics with those of a person instinctively
conservative ? a Dean with the story of a Bishop's
activities ? The more I thought of it, the deeper was my

PREFACE.

sense of obligation to those who so indulgently, in spite
of these great divergences, pressed me to undertake the
task ; the more I was determined to accept their proposal
in a spirit of watchfulness against myself It is his life,
not m\' colouring of it, which is the essential matter ; his
view of things, not my private sentiments, which had to
be portrayed. And, after all, there was a large common
ground. I had known and honoured the Bishop from his
professorial days at Cambridge, some forty years ago ;
I had been entrusted with the education of three of his
sons ; even when I had become the Dean of his Cathedral
no breath of variance had ever severed us. Above all,
I felt strong in the support I received from Mrs. Harold
Browne in my effort to depict the singular beauty of his
life and character : and if she was not displeased, I cared
little for the rest. My aim has been to do justice to one
of the truest representatives of the Church of England ;
to a man who could with equal dignity and simplicity sit
by the bedside of a dying cottager or stand in the pre
sence of kings. The mainspring of his power was the
love of Christ his Lord and Friend.
His was a long and consistent life of faith and practice
answering thereto. As Horace says of the iambic line, in
all his career he was " Primus ad extremum similis sibi ; "
the exact rhythm of his eighty years of sojourn here
below was saved from monotony by the harmonies which
penetrated ahke his home-life and his public career.
Truthful, faithful, and fearless, he bore himself bravely
and placidly in the storm and stress of our time, and has
left behind him an example which must be helpful for us.

PREFACE.

as we strive to adapt the English Church to the new
requirements of these later days.
I owe heartfelt thanks to Mrs. Harold Browne and Miss
Gore Browne for their invariable kindness and help ; not
least, for their goodness in relieving me from the task of
compiling the Index to this volume. I must also express
my obligation to many friends of the Bishop, vi\io have
thrown much light on his acts and character. I wish I
could have made the book as good and interesting as it
ought to be ; it falls far short ; yet I have done my best,
such as it is, and dedicate this effort to his ever-cherished
memory.

CONTENTS.

BOOK I.
INTR OD UCTOR Y
1811—1853.
CHAPTER I.
PARENTAGE AND YOUTH

PAGE 3

CHAPTER II.
HOLY ORDERS AND PARISH WORK . . . -41
CHAPTER III.
VICE-PRINCIPAL OF LAMPETER COLLEGE . . ¦ 1^
CHAPTER IV.
VICAR OF KENWYN AND KEA ... . . 102

CONTENTS.

BOOK 11.
1853—1863.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
NORRISIAN PROFESSOR . ... 165
CHAPTER II.
THE TROUBLES IN THE CHURCH : " ESSAYS AND REVIEWS ; "
BISHOP COLENSO . ...... 200
CHAPTER III.
LIFE AND WORK IN CAMBRIDGE, 1853 — 1864 . 224

BOOK III.
ELY.
1864 — 1874.
CHAPTER I.
APPOINTMENT AND ADMINISTRATION . . . 247
CHAPTER II.
BISHOP COLENSO, AND THE CONSECRATION OF BISHOP TEMPLE 290
CHAPTER III.
ORGANISATION OF THE DIOCESE . . 337
CHAPTER IV.
LATER YEARS IN THE DIOCESE OF ELY . -363

CONTENTS. x
BOOK IV.
WINCHESTER.
1874 — 1891.
CHAPTER I. PAGE
APPOINTMENT . . . . . . 393
CHAPTER II.
THE ANGLO-CONTINENTAL SOCIETY, AND THE REUNION OF
CHRISTENDOM ... . 407
CHAPTER III.
THEOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES AT WINCHESTER . . 420
CHAPTER IV.
ADMINISTRATION AT WINCHESTER, 1873 — l8go . . . 443
CHAPTER v.
RESIGNATION AND DEATH .... . . 484

ILLUSTRATIONS.
PORTRAIT . . FronUspiece
KENWYN CHURCHYARD . . . . To face p. 114
THE EAST ANGLIAN PRELATES . „ 282
THE BISHOP IN HIS STUDY, FARNHAM . ,, 460

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

I. "The Fulfilment of the Old Testament Prophecies relating
to the Messiah." A Prize Essay for the Norrisian Medal
for 1836. Deighton's ; Parker's, Cambridge, 1836.
2. "On the Catholic Doctrine concerning the Nature and Person
of Christ." A Sermon preached before the University of
Cambridge, Feb. 9th, 1840. Parker's, Cambridge, 1840.
3. " Daily Prayer and Frequent Communion." A Sermon
preached at St. Sidvvell's Church, Exeter. 1842.
4. "On the Doctrine of the Trinity and the Duty of Belief."
Two Sermons preached at St. David's College, Lampeter.
Parker's, Cambridge, 1846.
5. "An Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles, Doctrinal and
Historical." Vol. I. Parker's, Cambridge, 1850.
6. " The Gifts of the Ascended Saviour." A Sermon preached
at St. Mary's, Truro, on May 27th, 1851, being the
Triennial Visitation of [Henry] Bishop of Exeter. J. H.
Parker, 1851.
7. " Religious Excitement." A Sermon preached in Kenwyn
Church, on Nov. 23rd, 1851. Netherton, Truro, 1851.
8. " Peril of Popery and Peril of Antichrist.'' Three Sermons
preached in Kenwyn Church, i. On the Papal Aggression ;
ii. On Antichrist ; iii. On the Prospects of the New Year.
Netherton, Truro, 1851.
9. "A Letter on the Revival of Convocation," addressed to the
Right Honourable Spencer Walpole, M.P. London,
1852.

^ly BIBLIOGRAPHY.
lo. " Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles." Vol. II. Parker,
London, 1853. [Of this work thirteen editions have been
published.]
Ti. "Thoughts on the Extension of the Diaconate." A Paper
read before the Clergy of the Ruridecanal Synod of
Powder. Netherton, Truro, 1854.
12. " Letter on the Eastern Bishoprics." 1856.
13. Two Sermons preached in Kenwyn Parish Church, on Easter
Day, 1857 (being farewell discourses on the occasion of
Mr. Browne's leaving Kenwyn for Heavitree). Netherton,
Truro, and J. Parker, 1857.
14. "Seven Sermons on the Atonement and other Subjects,"
preached before the University of Cambridge. London,
1859.
15. "Holy Ground." A Sermon preached in Waltham Abbey
Church on the 800th Anniversary of the Foundation of
that Church. Deighton, Bell & Co., and Bell Sz Daldy,
London, i860.
16. "The Case of the War in New Zealand." An Appendix in
defence of Mr. Browne's brother. Sir J. Gore Browne.
Cambridge, i860.
17. "The Self-dedication of the Minister of God," an Ordina
tion Sermon on Acts v. 4. Cambridge, i860.
18. "Life in the Knowledge of God." A Sermon preached for
the Societies for the Propagation of the Gospel and for
the Promotion of Christian Knowledge in Aylesbury
Parish Church. Deighton, Bell & Co., and Bell & Daldy,
London, i860.
19. " On Inspiration ; " being Article No. 7 in "Aids to Faith."
London, 1861. Third Edition, London, 1862.
20. " Messiah as foretold and expected." A Course of Sermons
preached before the University of Cambridge. Deighton
& Bell, and Bell c^ Daldy. London, 1862.
21. " The Pentateuch and the Elohistic Psalms." (A Reply to
Bishop Colenso.) Five Lectures delivered before the

BIBLIOGRAPHY. xv

University of Cambridge. London, 1863. Second
Edition, London, 1864. [The Second Edition was
issued after Professor Harold Browne had become
Bishop of Ely.]
22. An Article on the Conversions to the Church of England,
in the October number of the Quarterly Review. Murray,
1863.
23. "TheMission Work ofSt. Paul;" being the Ramsden Sermon
on Acts xvii. 23, before the University of Cambridge (May
8th, 1863). Cambridge, 1863.
24. " The Clergyman in Social Life." An Address by Edward
Harold, Bishop of Ely, to the Candidates for Orders, on
Trinity Sunday, 1864. Deighton & Bell, Cambridge,
1864.
25. " An Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Ardcles ; " being an
American reprint of the Fifth English Edition, supervised
and edited, with additional notes, by Bishop Williams of
Connecticut, U.S.A. i Vol., 8vo. New York, 1865.
26. " A Charge to the Clergy and Churchwardens of the
Diocese," by Edward Harold, Bishop of Ely, at his primary
visitation in Oct. and Nov., 1865. Longmans, 1865.
27. "The Altar, and Lights on the Altar." A Correspondence
between the Bishop of Ely and the Rev. W. H. Molyneux.
Longmans, 1865.
28. " Sacrifice, Altar, Priest." A Course of Letters. Longmans,
1865.
29. Preface to W. M. Campion and W. J. Beaumont's Prayer-
Book interleaved. Cambridge, 1866. [Has gone through
eleven editions.]
30. " A letter on Diocesan Synods,'' addressed to the Ruridecanal
Chapters of the Diocese of Ely. Hills & Sons, Ely, 1867.
31. " Sobermindedness." A Sermon preached at an Ordination
in Ely Cathedral. Longmans, 1867.
32. "Exposicion de los trenita e nueve Articulos de la iglesia
Anglicana, traducido por Juan B. Cabrera." Parts i.— vi.
London, 1867—1877.

-^yi BIBLIOGRAPHY.
33. "National Responsibility and National Prayer." A Fast
Sermon on i Kings viii. 30. London, 1866.
34. "The Retrospect of Forty Years." A Sermon on Psalm
cxlvi. 5, preached at the 40th Anniversary of the Consecra
tion of St. Mark's Church, North Audley Street, London.
Longmans, 1868.
35. "The Witness and the Maintenance of the Truth." Two
Sermons preached at the Consecration of the Parish
Church of Woburn and Woburn Sands. Longmans,
1868.
36. A Memoir of Dean Lowe, of Exeter, in the Guardian
newspaper.
37. "A Letter to the Bishop of Tennessee on the Natal Question."
4 pp. Spottiswoode, 1868.
38. "A Charge to the Clergy and Churchwardens of the Diocese
of Ely," delivered at the Second Visitation of Edward
Harold, Lord Bishop of Ely. Longmans, 1869.
39. "A Speech not Spoken." A Letter addressed to Lord
Hatherley, Lord High Chancellor of England, on the
Irish Church Bill. Longmans, 1869.
40. "Visions of Peace." A Letter to C. L. Higgins, Esq., on
Revision, Communion, and Comprehension, and the
Church of the Future. Spottiswoode, 1870.
41. " El reino di Cristo sobre la tierra : discurso del Obispo de
Ely en una junta de la Sociedad Anglo-Continental en
Feb. de 1867." A Speech by the Bishop of Ely at the
Meeting of the Anglo-Continental Society, translated into
Spanish. Rivingtons, 1870.
42. General Introduction to the Pentateuch, and Introduction to
and Commentary on Genesis (in the " Speaker's Com
mentary "). 1871.
43. " Conference between the Archbishop of Syra and the Bishop
of Ely " (on the points at issue between the Eastern and
Anglican Churches). London, 1871.
44- "The World and the Man." A Sermon on Acts ix. 15,

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

XVll

[preached at the Consecration of St. Paul's Church,
Gorsfield]. Hills, Ely, and Longmans, 1871.
[New Edition of the Thirty-Nine Articles, supervised by
the Rev. J. Gorle of Whatcote, 1871.]
45- "The Parish Deaconess." A Sermon on Rom. xvi. 1,
preached at St. Michael's, Paddington. Longmans,
1871.
46. A Letter to Rural Deans. Ely, 1872.
47- " Bishops and Cathedrals." A Letter to the Dean of Norwich
(Dr. Goulburn) on Cathedral Reform. [Noted in Bodleian
Catalogue as not published.] Longmans, 1872.
48. "The Strife, the Victory, the Kingdom." Three Sermons
preached in Great St. Mary's, Cambridge, before the
University of Cambridge, with an Appendix on Primitive
Episcopacy. Longmans, 1872.
49. An Address at the Ely Diocesan Conference. 1873.
50. "The Old Catholic Movement on the Continent of
Europe." A Paper read at the Church Congress at
Brighton, 1874. London, 1875.
51. "Christ with us." A Sermon preached on Matt, xxviii. 20
[at the time of the restoration of the lantern of Ely
Cathedral]. Longmans, 1875.
52. "The Position and Parties of the English Church." A
Pastoral Letter addressed to the Clergy of the Diocese of
Winchester. Longmans, 1875.
53. " The Bonn Propositions." Speeches of the Bishops of
Winchester and Lincoln, and of the Prolocutor of the
Convocation of Canterbury in the session of Convocation
commencing Feb. 15, 1876. London, 1876.
54. "La doctrine de I'Eglise Anglicane sur les Saintes licritures,
ou I'exposition du VI""' Article de religion de I'eglise
Anglicane." Being a translation of the sixth Article of
Religion issued by the Anglo-Continental Society. Riving
tons, 1878.
55. " Charges to the Dean and Chapter, and to the Diocese of

xviii BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Winchester." Read at the Primary Visitation of Edward
Harold, Lord Bishop of Winchester, in April and May,
1878. Longmans, 1878.
56. A Sermon (on Rom. xiv. 1) preached at St. Peter's Church,
Eaton Square, London, 1876. [Home Reunion Society,
Occasional Papers, No. 37.] London, 1878.
57. "A Charge to the Candidates for Holy Orders at Farnham "
[printed in a collection of addresses delivered in the
Advent Ember Week, 1878]. Nichols, Farnham, 1878.
58. " St. Matthew iv. 8, 9." A Sermon preached at the opening
of the Church Congress at Swansea on Oct. 7th, 1879.
J. Hodges, London, 1879.
59. An Address in New College Chapel (Oct. 14th, 1879), on the
500th Anniversary of the Fecundation of the College.
(Privately printed.) Oxford, 1879.
60. " A Pastoral Letter on Parochial Organisations for Foreign
Missions," addressed to the Clergy of the Diocese of
Winchester. S. P. G. Clay & Son, 1880.
61. "The Practical Working of Cathedrals." A Paper read at
the Church Congress at Leicester in 1881. J. Hodges,
London, 1881.
62. A Sermon preached on the occasion of the visit of the Old
Catholic Bishops to Cambridge and Farnham. [Printed
in the account of the visit drawn up for the A.-C. Society.]
Rivingtons, 1882.
63. " Antichrist." A Sermon preached at the opening of the
Church Congress at Reading, 1883. Bemrose & Son,
1883.
64. "Sowing and Seeding." A Sermon preached in Emmanuel
College Chapel, Cambridge, on the 300th Anniversary of
the Foundation of the College. University Press,
Cambridge, 1884.
65. "An Address on the Advantages of an Estabhshed Church,"
delivered at the Church Congress at Carlisle. Church
Defence Association, London, 1884.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. xix
66. " An Address on Some of the Difficulties of Working Men,"
delivered at the Church Congress at Portsmouth.
Bemrose & Son, 1885.
67. " The Doctrine of the Church of England on the Holy
Communion re-stated as a Guide at the Present Time,'' by
F. Meyrick, with a Preface by the Bishop of Winchester.
London and Oxford, 1885.
68. " The Difficulty of Private Devotion, and the Aids to it."
[In " The Spiritual Life," p. 87.] London and Derby.
6g. " Clergy Preaching in Nonconformist Chapels," a Cor
respondence between the Bishop of Winchester and
Canon A. Basil Wilberforce. Hodder & Stoughton, 1887.
70. " Evil in the World." A Sermon preached on St. John xvi.
6, 7. [In "The Anglican Pulpit of To-day," p. 35.]
London, 1886.
71. "Pastoral Address to the Clergy of the Diocese of
Winchester on the Present Crisis," 1888. 4 pp. 1888.
72. "A Farewell Address to the Diocese on the Occasion of the
Resignation by Bishop Edward Harold Browne of the
Bishopric of Winchester." 1890.

INTRODUCTORY.

O OON after I had promised to write this Memoir of
' Bishop Harold Browne, I received the following note,
which I desire to inscribe on the forefront of this volume :
— " We should wish the more clerical and episcopal work
of our dear one to be the prominent characteristic of
his Life ; he had such a wonderful talent for organising
work, and for bringing laymen and clergy together, and
making peace, that anything bringing this forward would
be perhaps the most valuable."
The late Bishop was by habitual manner of thought, by
natural kindliness and sweetness of disposition, by educa
tion and by the force of his surroundings, a man of peace.
He knew his own mind, — no one better ; his principles, if
somewhat wanting in breadth and largeness, were intel
ligible, coherent, logical ; he moved in a well-marked
middle course, ceaselessly mediating between those whose
temperaments carried them into one extreme or other;
and he was therefore always open to the adverse criticism
of more impatient souls.
Men of power may be broadly divided into two classes :
first, those who through life are open to the impressions of

xxii INTRODUCTORY.
the day, — inductive souls, ever ready to add to the stock of
their knowledge, to test their convictions, to modify their
judgments ; and, secondly, those who early in their career
grasp some general principles, and use them throughout
life as bases unshakable, to which they can always resort,
and by which they judge all questions as they arise :
these men steady themselves on a priori principles, major
premises unalterable, laid down as solid foundations on
which belief and life are built. The more inductive minds,
on the other hand, sensitive to the changes of tone and
feeling around them, seem often to be swayed by the current
of events ; they get the credit of being unstable, " ever
learning, never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."
Their openness of mind, their honesty of purpose —qualities
of the highest worth, and rarely met with — naturally
make them distasteful to good average people, who cannot
appreciate their sympathetic and broad way of regarding
things ; to the thoughtless, and to the conventional, who
are only the thoughtless well developed, they seem quite
unintelligible, visionaries, who, unsettled themselves, would
readily unsettle all around them. The more conservative
minds are either puzzled by them, or have them in horror.
Men of deductive minds, the other class, when they
are also men of strong qualities, gain great power over
their generation, alike by force and by limitation of
character ; the fact that they have laid down their bases
of controversy, and fearlessly follow their convictions, lead
them whither they may, secures for them the respect and
admiration of the world. In a fluctuating, uncertain
Society, they are felt to be firmly rooted in their principles ;.
we turn to them with hope and \^-ith a sense of relief.

INTRODUCTORY. xxiii
when doubtful questions rise and the world as it rolls
along seems near a crisis. These men set out their views
early in life with incisive clearness, seeing what they see
without confusion or complexity ; they follow a well-
marked, coherent course all their days. No wonder that
they are most highly respected. The more impatient spirits
are, it may be, somewhat chafed by them ; but they win
the confidence of the multitude. If they are masterful
and ambitious, they become strong party-leaders ; if they
are gentle and retiring, they are mediators and peace
makers, and often have to pay the penalty of those who
take and commend the middle course ; for they arouse
the anger and scorn of the eager and vehement ; though,
in the end, all recognise them as benefactors, and acknow
ledge the good work they have done.
Our Bishop, in the main, was one of these last. His
disposition enabled him to sympathise with many with
whom he did not agree. His eminent fairness, his sound
ness of judgment, his perfectly clear intellect, above all, his
Christian charity, won for him the affection of thousands
who knew nothing about his views, and would have
differed from them fundamentally had they known them.
It was one of the permanent sorrows of his long life, that
there should be so many good and lovable Christian
people with whom he could not act in harmony. It is
not often the case, but in him it was so,— that in true
dignity and nobleness his character was higher than his
principles. Those principles tended towards a certain
narrowness and limitation of relationships, and prompted
him to stand aloof from those, however good, who did not
come up to his standard, whether of orthodoxy or of

xxiv INTRODUCTORY.

Church government ; and yet so loving and so charitable
was he, that he refrained from pushing his principles to
their logical conclusions. He loved his fellow-creatures
as he loved God ; and was content to hope even where
he was unable to feel assured. And so, while happily he
never sought to be a party-leader, his influence over the
opinions and actions of others was always great and whole
some : men felt that here was a genuine Christian spirit,
moving with a dignified simplicity through the mazes of
the world ; they discerned something of the character and
impress of Him who stilled the tumult of the sea.

BOOK I.
1811—1853.

CHAPTER I.
PARENTAGE AND YOUTH.
EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE was born on the
6th of March, 1811, at Aylesbury in Buckingham
shire, where his parents had been settled for several years
past. It was an Anglo-Irish, not a Celtic family, a branch
of the Brownes of the Neale ; they claimed descent from
Sir Anthony Browne, K.G., standard-bearer to Henry VI I.
and Henry VIII., and one of the executors of the latter
king. Early last century Bishop Harold Browne's great
grandfather, Mr. John Browne, lived on a good estate in
County Wicklow. This property, with the profusion and
easy-going carelessness of an Anglo-Irish landlord, he ate
up entirely in the course of his life ; and this, as is not
unfrequently the case, with excellent results. For his son
Thomas, our Bishop's grandfather, a handsome man of
great energy and of a wholesome independence of character,
saw that after idleness work must follow, and resolutely
set himself to stay the imminent downfall of the family.
He therefore became an architect, with so much success
that he not only provided comfortably for himself and
his children, but was able also to come to the help of
his poor thriftless father, whom he bravely supported
with all filial piety during the last years of his life, in
spite of the scriptural precept to the contrary.
3

4 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
The architect had four sons : Robert ; William, a barrister ;
Gore, afterwards General and Governor of Plymouth ; and
lastly, Thomas, Vice- Admiral. Of these the eldest, Robert,
was the father of our Bishop. He was born in 1754, and,
after being educated for the Bar, at the age of twenty-one
married the beautiful Mrs. Barrington, General Barrington's
widow. She was nearly twice his age, and brought him
no children, but died after nine years of wedded life, spent
for the most part in France.
Bishop Barrington of Durham, a kinsman of his wife,
befriended the young Irishman, and brought him under
the notice of the Marquis of Buckingham, then Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland. Lord Buckingham treated Mr.
Browne with much favour, and when he left Ireland,
persuaded him to follow him to England. He also secured
him a post about the King's person, and got him a com
mission in the Bucks Militia, in which service he presently
rose to be Colonel. While his regiment was quartered
at Weymouth, he became acquainted with the family of
Mr. Gabriel Steward, M.P., of Nottington and Melcombe
in the county of Dorset, and on June loth, 179S, was
married to Sarah Dorothea, second daughter of Mr.
Steward. Shortly after his marriage. Colonel Browne bought
a house in Aylesbury. In those days it was called
" Aylesbury House," but is now styled " The Prebendal,"
because it was formerly attached to the prebendal stall
of Aylesbury in Lincoln Cathedral. Here, and afterwards
at Morton House, near Buckingham, he lived for about
forty years. He was a man of ample means, fine presence,
and courtly manners, much liked and respected in those
parts; he was made Justice of the Peace and Deputy
Lieutenant for the county.
Colonel Browne was father of five children two

!•] PARENTAGE AND YOUTH. 5

daughters and three sons, of whom the youngest was
Edward Harold, the future Bishop of Ely and of Win
chester. Of the two daughters who came before the sons,
the elder, Louisa, was an invalid from her childhood ; the
younger, Maria, outlived the Bishop by a few weeks,
retaining to the close of her long and beautiful life the
grace, sweetness, and bright intelligence of her youth.
Some souls never grow old, and bear their years as a crown
of glory ; they seem to have a hidden power over the
frames in which they lodge. Maria Browne was a girl of
fourteen when the future Bishop was born into the world ;
from his birth to the end of his life she dedicated herself
to him with a sister's love and almost a mother's devotion.
It began with the tenderest care and affection in the
Aylesbury days, and by slow, almost imperceptible degrees
changed in character, though it remained unchanged in
depth and warmth. At first she was his protector, his
teacher and adviser ; in later life she became his most
devoted and reverential admirer and follower. Nothing
could surpass the beauty of the daily life led by this
couple, so deeply attached to one another, so inseparable ;
" she came to look up to him," says one who had the
opportunity of watching their daily life, " with a love that
was truly reverential, which deepened and strengthened
as time went on, until hand in hand at last they crossed
the bar."
When Edward Harold Browne was born in 1 8 1 1 , all things
in England were well-nigh at their worst. Napoleon was
at the height of his power, bestriding Europe ; Wellington,
his great reputation as yet unmade, lay in the lines of
Torres Vedras ; English home politics were dark and
uneasy; the old King was again threatened by mental
trouble. Men's hearts must have sunk within them when
they thought of the genius of the French Emperor and

EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

the vast resources at his command. To the English his
potent ideas seemed like the breath of a volcano before the
breaking of a storm of doom ; the instinctive conservatism
of our insular race regarded Napoleon, his power and his
ideas, as a kind of incarnation of blasphemy, religious and
political. It was into this troubled and anxious life
Edward Harold Browne was born, at the Prebendal House
in Aylesbury.
Here, shielded by the devoted care of parents and
sister, the delicate boy spent a happy and peaceful child
hood, surrounded by all the blessings that loving hearts
could give. It was when he was only three years old that
the first incident in his life which has been preserved took
place. Not far from Aylesbury, at Hartwell, the exiled
King of France, Louis XVIII., with his amiable consort
and a tiny Court, had settled down, watching in the
twilight of a not unpleasing retirement the progress of the
vast drama then being enacted on the Continent of Europe.
At Hartwell, Colonel Browne, who had lived some years
in France and spoke French with ease, was a welcome
and frequent guest. One day the King expressed a wish
to see the little Harold ; and accordingly, at his next
visit, the child accompanied his courteous father to
Hartwell. As they entered the room in which Louis, who
at this time was enormously fat and flabby, was seated
awaiting his guests. Colonel Browne whispered to his little
son, " Now go up and kiss his Majesty's hand ; " whereon
the child, after one glance at the monarch in his chair,
looked up earnestly into his father's face, and said out
loud, with the clear voice of an unconscious infant, perfectly
audible to the astonished King, " No, father, I can't ; it's
too fat." It cannot be said that, however well seen he was
in high places in after life, his first presentation at Court
was an unalloyed success, except perhaps in so far as it

^•] PARENTAGE AND YOUTH.

enabled a monarch to hear that rare thing, the truth, out
of the mouth of a babe. The child's revolt against the
fatness of the King did not create any coolness in the
friendship which existed between the royal exiles and
Colonel Browne's family ; among the heirlooms which the
Bishop cherished in after years are two engraved por
traits, the one of Louis XVIII. and the other of the
Duchess of Angouleme, which were sent to the Prebendal
House by the grateful royalties after their return to
France. When he was between eight and nine years of age
Harold was sent to a school at Warfield, in which young
lads were prepared for Eton. This school, kept by Mr.
Faithfull, was very strict and hard ; yet the little lad did well
there, and Mr. Faithfull used to say that he was " the best
boy in the school." The child-life at Aylesbury remained
for him a fond and cherished memory to the very end of
his days. In a letter to his dear friend Bishop McDougall
he tells him that the Duke of Buckingham, who had paid
him a visit at Farnham Castle, had "engaged us to spend
the Sunday on our way to Carlisle at Stowe. I shall like,"
he adds, " to revisit scenes which were like fairyland to me
in boyhood." (September 8th, 1884.)
We learn that at this first school " little Harry," as his
kinsfolk lovingly called him, showed a clearness and quick
ness of intelligence which gave promise of great future
excellence. These qualities, in truth, after having stood
in his way in his schooldays, became most helpful to him
afterwards. His quickness both tempted him to idleness
and made him impatient of dulness and drudgery. He
found the work of teaching very irksome. He reversed
the usual order of things ; for his pupils were much more
appreciative of the lucid order, the clearness, the fine
scholarship and transparent earnestness of their gentle

8 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
tutor than he was of the privilege of arousing and guiding
their somewhat apathetic minds. This is why, in an age
when, thanks to Dr. Arnold's great example, the most
eager and open-minded of the young men sent forth from
the Universities were turning their whole energies into
the new field of school work, yearning to carry forward the
new gospel of " moral earnestness " and " high-thinking,"
Harold Browne deliberately turned his face away from
scholastic openings, refused tempting offers, and dedicated
himself heart and soul to the study of Theology, and
especially to that which was nearest his heart all the days
of his life, the earnest fulfilment of the duties of a parish
priest. In 1823, a slim and gentle boy of twelve, Harold Browne
was transferred from Warfield to the larger life of Eton.
Here he remained for four years. The School Lists of
that period show that the College contained a remarkable
gathering of boys destined to play a part in their country's
history. In 1826, a year before he left Eton, Harold
Browne's name appears about halfway up the middle
division (for he never rose to school-eminence), and the
name next below him is that of the well-known Christ
Church tutor, W. E. Jel£ The same list shows, among
the seniors of the school, the great name of Mr. Gladstone.
It contains also that of the late Duke of Devonshire, a
man whose high powers were equalled only by the kind
liness and genuine nobility of his personal character.
There were also two future Governors-General of India,
Elgin and Canning, and the late Duke of Newcastle,
Secretary of State for the Colonies in Lord Palmerston's
Ministry of 1859-65, with other men of note, such as Mr.
Spencer Walpole, Home Secretary under Lord Derby,
Mr. Ricardo, Lord Blachford, and Sir George Rickards.
In addition to these statesmen and politicians there were

I.] PARENTAGE AND YOUTH. 9
also men destined to make their mark in the Church,
foremost among whom was Selwyn, Bishop first of New
Zealand and afterwards of Lichfield, of whom Harold
Browne, in his last public speech at the Diocesan Con
ference at Winchester, spoke warmly, calling him " one
of the greatest Bishops this Church of England has ever
known." There stands also the name of Lord Arthur
Hervey, whose recent death has deprived the diocese of
Bath and Wells of a much-loved Bishop ; and the original
and vigorous Bishop Abraham, first Bishop of Wellington,
New Zealand, one of our Bishop's closest friends, who is
still living in a ripe old age. To these should be added
the late Bishop of Tuam, Dr. Bernard ; the Rev. George
Williams, — " Jerusalem Williams '' as he used to be called ;
and Dr. Goodford, Headmaster afterwards and Provost
of Eton. There were also some men of letters, though
none of the highest rank of authorship, such as Lord
Lindsay, author of the " History of Christian Art" (1847) ;
Mr. M. J. Higgins, better known as " Jacob Omnium ;" Mr.
J. H. Jesse, the historical writer ; Latham, the etymologist ;
C. D. Yonge, the lexicographer; and Dr. Badham, who
edited Greek plays. Among these we may very well place,
for he came into close and daily connection with Harold
Browne, the celebrated actor, Charles Kean.
Very few of these are still living. It is consequently
difficult to fill up the picture of our Bishop's school-days,
or to reproduce the delicate, sensitive boy, who had
already begun to outgrow his strength. One, however, of
his old friends still retains a vivid recollection of those
early days ; for Bishop Abraham, writing from Lichfield
a short time ago, says :—
" I had the good fortune to be in the same Dame's
house at Eton in 1824, and we had the same tutor
that dear good man. Bishop Chapman. Edward Harold

lO EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

Browne was a quiet, retiring, high-principled boy ; and
there was he plunged into a house which, without being
at all ungentlemanlike, was rather Bohemian. Only
fancy a knot of boys where Charles Kean, the actor,
was supreme in the school of arms and the school of
arts. He kept us all alive. He was the best boxer and
fencer in the school ; accordingly all the aspirants to excel
lence in these departments came to our Dame's to learn
fencing and boxing, and in the evening we youngsters had
lessons. But then also he was supreme in the ' School
of Art,' — that art being acting ; and he would act for our
amusement. Woe betide us if we laughed when we should
have cried, or failed to catch and applaud his best ' hits ' !
Charles Kean was a very good-humoured fellow, and was
very kind to us. And then Harold Browne had a pecu
liar position towards him ; he was more of the same age
and place in school, and if Kean was his tutor in boxing
and acting, Browne could repay him as tutor by construing
the ' Homer ' and ' Horace ' lessons to him, and by doing
numberless verses for him. Therefore, while I and others
were admitted to the ' Galleries ' in the improvised theatre,
Browne had a ticket for pit or boxes. Anything that now
seems more incongruous could hardly be imagined than
the life that went on for Harold Browne's first year at
Eton ; but then he passed from the Dame's house to my
tutor's, which was the most orderly and studious house
in College. It must have felt like passing out of the
' still-vext Bermoothes ' into the Gulf Stream.
" But one trait that he showed at the Dame's he no
doubt retained at his tutor's, and it was recognised in
all his afterlife — that was \\is goodness. I can bear witness
to his thorough simplicity and singleness of character all
along." It may be gathered from this glimpse of the Bishop's
boyhood at Eton that he was not on the road towards
any brilliant success ; nor did he look back on the time
with that enthusiasm with which elderly men speak of
their old school and review their happy, careless boy
hood. Indeed, as he surveyed it from the secure vantage-
ground of high reputation and accumulated honours, and
with the long experience of actual life, he felt keenly the

I-l PARENTAGE AND YOUTH. II
waste of opportunities, and consequent loss of power. No
man ever worked harder to repair that loss and to make
good the gaps in his early training. Some men work to
the end and are ever learning, and our Bishop was one
of these. With his linguistic gifts and power of ordering
and expressing knowledge, and his trustworthy, tenacious
memoiy, he probably repaired the waste as well as any one
has ever done. And yet, in the judgment of one specially
well qualified to have an opinion on the point, the Eton
days were by no means a complete failure. Writing in
1845 to ask Mr. Browne to preach his consecration sermon,
his Eton tutor. Dr. Chapman, just appointed Bishop of
Colombo, speaks of him as '' so esteemed a pupil in former
days," and he certainly would not have so written had
Harold Browne been a mere idle, gentlemanly boy. Still,
it is certain that the easy-going ways of school and college
were a real source of regret to him in after-Hfe, and were
ever deplored by him with a beautiful frankness and
humility. And yet it is also true that the idleness, so
largely caused by weakness of health, had its advantages.
The specially English notion that at a pubhc school and
in college a man learns more from his friends and amuse
ments than from his tutors and masters, if rarely true, was
as nearly true as it ever has been in his case. For his mind
was finely built, and had the quality which Spenser gives
to Una : he could walk uprightly in a careless world ; his
pure heart assimilated only what was good and true ; so
that the time spent under Charles Kean's friendly eye,
though it may not have advanced the elegance of his Latin
verse, or drenched him, like Erasmus' Pedant, in Ciceronian
phrase, and though it tempted the boy to be often content
with superficial preparations, still was in itself an education
of a high kind. It is a great thing to kindle the dramatic
instincts of a boy ; it was a revelation to the shy and

12 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
somewhat silent lad to discover, by help of Kean's genius,
that plays are bright gems of language and true works
of art, — not merely so many hundred lines of dull poetry
to be deciphered and rendered into baldest prose. The
hints and interpretations with which Kean favoured his
young comrade must have thrown a flood of light on
many a difficulty, illuminating the quickly receptive mind
of the future Bishop. Throughout his life Harold Browne
retained an innocent and antiseptic sense of humour ; and
he saw, as few schoolboys ever see, the comical contrasts
which come into the way of those who have eyes to see.
There is one example of the manner in which he recog
nised the queerly inverted view of the value of things
which prevails at school. There was an old " sock-woman "
who used to sell tarts at the College gates, and if her wares
did not go off to her mind, she used in set manner to
harangue the youths as they came out of school, on the
relative merits of her tarts compared with those dry
crusts which they had been munching in pupil room or
school. " Now, boys," she would cry to the merry circle
round her stall, " come, buy some of my sock ; how you
do waste your money ! You go and buy books, and when
you have read them, there's an end of it ; or spend it on
a row on the river, and then it's soon over ; but if you buy
a little good sock, why, that's something solid, that does
a boy good ! " The Bishop used to narrate the old lady's
oration with a twinkle in his eye and the keenest relish of
the lively scene.
It is probable that his kindly humour, which made him
excellent company, formed a wholesome antidote against
the forced solemnity of life which is often a snare to one
who is surrounded by the ceremonial of episcopal state.
The Bishop's face, to the very end of his life, was wont to
light up with merriment if any one alluded to his boyish

I.] PARENTAGE AND YOUTH. 13
friendship with the great actor. If children were in the
room — and he could never resist children — he would
delight to show them how Kean taught him at Eton to
put a paper skirt on two of his fingers, and then would
imitate on a table, amid the merry laughter of the
little ones, the graceful dances and pirouettes of the
ballet girl.
Harold Browne also acquired in his school days a power
of the highest value to a man immersed, as he was, in
continual business. He learned how to attend to two
things at once ; so that while he was working at his
books or, later on, preparing a sermon or a charge, he
could follow and even take active part in the conversation
going on around him in the room. As he bent over his
copy of verses or translations in his room at Eton, while
Kean stood by reciting and declaiming passages from his
favourite tragedians, Browne would work on with un
clouded mind and unruffled temper, looking up from time
to time with a smile or an appreciative nod, or answering
briefly and pertinently to some appeal from his enthusiastic
friend. It was when he was just about halfway through his school
days that his loving mother — surely one of the sweetest
and best of women— wrote of him on the 6th of September,
1826 (he was then fifteen years old, and at home for his
summer holidays) : " I must not omit to say that I think
Harold is sweeter than ever, so amiable and obliging to
every one, and amuses himself so nicely that it is quite
delightful. Chemistry is at present his great delight"
He never let us know that he had pursued this fascinating
branch of physical study, though it explains how he got
many of his best illustrations. No doubt this enthusiasm
for chemistry was but a passing phase, an interesting ex
pression of that general keenness and relish for knowledge

14 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
of any kind which marks the development of the mind
of every quick-witted and gifted boy.
So passed his school life, side by side with a youth
destined to win fame on a very different stage ; the one
boy doing the verses and translations for the other,
who repaid him fourfold with brilliant declamations and
friendly enthusiasm for art and poetry. So far as school
work went the two boys helped and hindered each other
every day. Thus happily in school and study, by road or
river, passed the bright Eton days, in which, though from
lack of physical health and strength he was far from being
a school hero, he won the goodwill of all. After four years
of it his parents thought it wisest that he should leave
Eton and break with the habits of school-life, and obtain
a quiet year of direct and serious preparation for Cam
bridge. He had passed smoothly and rather listlessly
through these halcyon days, in which he shot up rapidly,
till he was over six feet in stature ; he spent so much
vital energy in the process of growth, that there was little
of it left for lessons. In 1883 the aged Bishop, after a visit
to Eton, thus refers to his delicacy of constitution in
youth : — " I had outlived most of my contemporaries. It
is sixty years since I went there, a fragile boy, twelve
years old ; for some years after that hardly expected to
grow up to manhood." Like all public school boys, he
cherished throughout his life a deep-seated pride in Eton,
and, with his usual humility, blamed not the lax and
antiquated system of the school, but his own idleness, for
his shortcomings during these years.
His farewell to Eton impressed itself deeply on his
mind, and he loved to tell the tale of the Headmaster's
last speech to him. Every boy leaving Eton, as is well
known, was expected, in obedience to school usage and
tradition, to call on the Headmaster to take leave of him.

I.] PARENTAGE AND YOUTH. 15
and to bring with him in his hand (in accordance with an
ancient custom now happily no longer in force) a paper
or envelope containing a couple of .£"5 bank-notes. As
a rule, after a boy had placed this leaving-tip on the Head
master's table, and had received in return the finely-bound
volume which in after years was to remind him of those
happy days, he retired as speedily and gracefully as he
could from the uncomfortable interview, glad that he had
got through the heartless and expensive formality. But
what was Harold Browne's astonishment (he used to tell
the story, his face brimming over with amusement) when
he had duly presented himself with his offering, and was
endeavouring to escape out of the dread presence of the
Headmaster, to find himself solemnly addressed by Dr
Keate with, " Go back to your Dame's, boy ; and, when you
leave, if I find you wringing off knockers or painting
doors, I'll have you back, sir, and flog you ! " And with
this queer piece of fatherly advice the future Bishop, as
much amused as astonished, at last made his escape from
the room, and saw the mighty pedagogue no more.
The omnipotent birch-rod reminds us of a little story
of the Bishop's school days. When he had been for some
time at Eton, a senior boy asked him, " How often have
you been swished ? " " Not once," was the reply in proud
humility. " Oh ! how long have you been here ? " Harold
replied, " Just eighteen months." " Humph ! then you
ought to be ashamed of yourself"
He was now sent to a very different scene and to a life
the opposite of that which he had just been leading.
Instead of the teeming school, the lively games in playing
fields, the fascinations of the river, the companionship of
Charles Kean and Shakespeare, there came a time of
absolutely serious quietude. His tutor and guide was the
Rev. R. Holt, who prepared one or two pupils for the Uni-

l6 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
versify at a lovely spot called Postford House, about a mile
from Albury, nestling under the south side of the Downs
which run from Guildford to Reigate. Postford House
stands on a little hill not far from the high road, over
looking a picturesque sedgy mere, beyond which stretch
chequered woodlands, rising and falling on the undulating
ground, and backed up in the distance by the long hne
of chalk hills. Not far from Postford lay the village of
Albury, with a tiny parish church close to the fine mansion
belonging to Mr. Henry Drummond, now the seat of the
Duke of Northumberland. With the waving sedges below,
and woodlands, hills, and glimpses of the mere, the view
from Postford windows was as lovely as only an English
country scene can be.
Here beside Harold Browne there were two or three
other pupils, of whom one was a youth who afterwards
made for himself a considerable reputation by publishing
a kind of modern Book of Proverbs, Mr. Martin Farquhar
Tupper, author of a " Proverbial Philosophy " which ran
through several editions. The Bishop has left us no
information as to the terms on which he lived with the
embryo philosopher ; though the two were undoubtedly
thrown much together during their year at Postford, it
is fairly certain that no warm boyish friendship sprang
up between them. Mr. Tupper in " My Life as Author,"
published in 1886, has only this very short reference to
Harold Browne, a reference which however gives us just
a touch of the school-boy temper still strong in the
boys : —
" I changed to Mr. Holt's at Albury, a most worthy
friend and neighbour, with whom I read diligently for
my matriculation at Oxford, when I was about nineteen.
With Holt my intimate comrade was Harold Browne, the
present Bishop of Winchester, and he will remember that

I-] PARENTAGE AND YOUTH.

17

it was our mischievous object to get beyond Mr. Holt in
our prepared Aristotle and Plato, as we knew that he had
hard work to keep even in the race with his advanced
pupils by dint of midnight oil."
Harold Browne's recollections of Postford are far more
grave than this ; for in those days he received his first
strong impressions of religion and of the seriousness of
life. Early in this century all earnestness and advance
in religion was concentrated either in the active Wesleyan
body or in the Low Church movement, then in the first
flush of growing enthusiasm. The sensitive lad, with his
naturally religious and thoughtful temperament, could not
fail to be deeply touched and influenced by his surroundings.
" I have reason to thank God," he writes, " that I was
sent there. My mother was a sincere and humble Christian,
full of the most devoted affection to her children, and had
done her best to bring them all up as Christians. My
knowledge of religious subjects, however, was not great ;
and at Eton I had gained a full share of the idle habits
of the school. At Postford I was in the house of a truly
pious man ; his sister. Miss Holt, was one of the best of
women ; and the rector of the parish of Albury, which
church we always attended (though it was not the parish
church of Postford), was the Rev. Hugh McNeile. I was
greatly struck, as a boy of sixteen, with his fervid eloquence,
and altogether impressed with the religious tone of the
society into which I was thrown."
His mother's letters show how deep an impression the
Calvinistic (or perhaps one should say the Augustinian)
theology, which the young man heard Sunday after Sunday
from the pulpit of Albury Church, made at that time on
his sensitive and receptive mind. On a temperament natu
rally religious, somewhat introspective, and altogether
earnest and honest, Mr. McNeile's teaching, backed up
as it was by the sweet zeal and goodness of his tutor's
sister, fell with great power and influence : the zealous
2

1 8 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D D. [Ch.
pastor himself, noticing the good motions of the young
man's mind, his gravity, sincerity, and evident seeking after
truth, paid him some friendly attentions, and for the time
completely won his heart and confidence.
" He has," writes his mother, " studied very closely since
he left us ... on rehgious subjects, and has imbibed much
of Mr. McNeile's enthusiasm, and I fear too much of his
High doctrine not to be dangerous for so young a person,
and one of his turn of mind ; if not so to himself, it may
be so to those he may in future have to instruct, should
he continue as intolerant as he is at present."
One can hardly picture to oneself the sweet and charitable
Bishop of later days thus embracing the stern and un
loving Calvinistic theology, though one knows that what
ever doctrines commended themselves to his heart and
intelligence he would fearlessly proclaim and defend, were
the deductions from them ever so intolerant. Mrs. Browne
goes on : —
" To me he is all sweetness, and where I cannot go quite
as far as he does, I will not contradict ; but I am convinced
much may be done even to the hardened sinner by mild
ness, whereas even the anxious enquirer may be frightened
and disgusted, when these very high doctrines of election,
etc., are so strongly held and pressed ; and I am very
fearful they may (whilst he is so young) be injurious to
himself The Almighty, who knows all my thoughts,
knows that rny most earnest prayers and wishes are that
my beloved son may be a faithful minister of the gospel,
and by the mildness, and at the same time the correctness,
of his doctrine, be the means of doing good to all those
committed to his charge. And I do hope and trust that
when he has studied these subjects a little longer, and is
a little older [he was then but seventeen], if he has the
good fortune to fall into the society of some wise and
good man whose experience on these subjects he will have
an opinion of, his may be softened down without injury
to him as a good Christian. His spirits are not high, and
he is constitutionally nervous to a great degree. I am

I-] PARENTAGE AND YOUTH. ig

therefore afraid of his dwelling on these very high doctrines,
till he has acquired more strength of mind and body ; and
then it will be his duty to search and enquire strictly into
them, and I would wish him to do so."
She goes on to beg her daughter to discourage much
religious discussion at the time ; and, by way of apology
for such sensible advice, she adds that :—
" Nothing but the perfect conviction that my treasure
of a child's nerves are not in a state at present to dwell
on the higher doctrines could make me wish what I have
above requested."
Again, writing a fortnight later (August 21st 1828), she
refers once more to his health and religious anxieties : —
" He is frightfully delicate," she says, " but sweet and
affectionate as ever. ... I think you know how truly
anxious I am that he should be a zealous and active
clergyman, desirous faithfully to fulfil all his duties. This
makes me more than ever alive to the necessity that
he should truly understand the Word of God, and not
suffer the enthusiastic turn of his mind to lead him into
error, which may be injurious to himself, and perhaps to
some of his hearers so perplexing, that instead of leading
them to Heaven it may drive them to despair. ... I am
very fearful for his dwelling so much on Election and
Predestination, and professing himself so strongly to be
a Calvinist. ... At his tender years his head may lead
him astray — though I think it is one that, if he is not too
bigoted, may be likely to do much good. . . . With respect
to his study of the Prophecies, it is an amusement to him
and will do no harm, except that I think his dear head
requires rest I am afraid Harry so much admires Mr.
McNeile's manner, that he will endeavour to follow it"
From these letters it is plain enough that Harold
Browne, in common with almost every man of religious
feeling in those days, came more or less under the influ
ence, intellectual and spiritual, of the Evangelical school
of thought It was the active and forward school of that
day ; the reaction from it as yet had hardly begun. Those

20 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

are fortunate whom a new stream of opinion catches and
carries onward as on a rising tide. And this good fortune
came to Harold Browne. After University life had dulled
the edge of his first enthusiasm, he became aware of a
very different set of the currents. With the new appeals
to antiquity and the respect for ordinances shewn by the
rising party, he contrasted the lack of solid learning, the
somewhat narrow range of ideas, the slight hold on Church
order and institutions, evident in the Evangelical leaders :
though their zeal and earnestness were undoubted, their
system seemed to him insufficient. And so he soon
drifted away entirely from those early teachers, while his
comrade at Postford, Mr. Tupper, remained all through
life firmly fixed in the principles he had learnt under Mr.
Holt and Mr. McNeile. We catch a glimpse of the dis
tance which separated the two in after life at a moment
when the layman, whose Philosophy did not altogether
sweeten his religion, had an opportunity of renewing his
friendship with the Bishop. Soon after Harold Browne
had been translated to Winchester, he undertook to hold a
Confirmation at Albury, where at this time Mr. Tupper
was living ; and on hearing that the Bishop was to come
there, he addressed a letter to Farnham Castle expressing
in apologetic fashion his regret at not being able to come
to his parish church to meet and welcome his old friend
on his first visit to those parts : " the Rector " (Canon
Dundas), he said, " is such a Ritualist that I seldom go to
church there." When the Bishop reached the vestry he
told Mr. Dundas all about this letter and the reasons Mr.
Tupper gave for not being present, and said something in
his kind way on the subject ; whereto Mr. Dundas replied,
" Well, my Lord, Mr. Tupper gave me quite a different
reason for his absence ; ' for,' said he, ' the Bishop is a
very worthy good man, but I shall not go to hear him ; he

PARENTAGE AND YOUTH. 2 1

has become a terribly high Churchman ; ' and so, )'ou see,
he has condemned us both." Whereat the Bishop was
immensely amused, and dismissed the subject with a
hearty laugh. This divergence between the old school
fellows was of long standing ; so far back as 1849 an Eton
friend sent Harold Browne a note from Mr. Tupper, with
the comment, " I send you some of Tupper's papers, and
his truly characteristic note. You were anything but
congenial spirits. Distance, however, of time and space
may possibly lend enchantment to the view and serve to
remind you of Auld Lang Syne."
Harold Browne remained at Postford House about a
year. The sweet spot, the tranquillity of the life, above all
the unpretending piety and high principle of his tutor and
the tutor's sister, affected him deeply ; and though later on
he appears to have disliked the extreme Evangelical party
in the Church as much as the Liberal school of thought, he
ever retained that higher sense of duty to God and man,
that taste for parish work, and those deep convictions as to
the spiritual nature of religion, which came to him from
these early surroundings. It was perhaps not altogether
unfortunate for him that this year of serious work,
following the happy idleness of Eton, was in its turn
followed by the undergraduate life at Cambridge. The
" image stamped upon the clay " was not obliterated or even
defaced ; it was only covered up with dust. It was also
good for him that he was not pushed on too fast ; for his
physical health was still far from good. Had he done
himself justice at Eton, staying there till he had reached
the higher and more bracing atmosphere of the sixth form,
and had then, at the age of eighteen or nineteen, passed on
to Cambridge, he would have had greater control over
himself, and his University career might have been one of
the most brilliant of his time ; his abilities, his singular

22 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

versatility of powers, the tenacity of his memory, and his
admirable gift of being able to set out his knowledge
clearly and with force, would have secured him very high
honours. It is certain that much of his idleness was due
to weakness in his young days ; one may go further and
say that for the actual work of life he might well have had
a less satisfactory training than was given him by his self-
granted leisure, his fine sense of fun and humour, coupled
as it was with an almost feminine delicacy of character
and thoughtful tenderness for others. Idle he was, never
frivolous ; lively and merry with his group of friends, never
tempted into excess. His influence among his school and
college comrades was far more widely spread and much more
beneficial than if he had been the recluse, the unpractical
student, and had taxed — it may be had overtaxed — his
health and powers in the struggle for the prizes of the
undergraduate life. Human souls, like fields, are often the
better for lying fallow.
Harold Browne did not himself think so ; he always
deplored the way in which he had missed his youthful
chances. We do not know what led his parents to fix
on Emmanuel College at Cambridge for him ; it was not
an altogether wise choice. He went up thither towards
the end of the year 1827, and his name stands on the
Matriculation Roll of the University for the 13th of
November in that year ; he is not entered on the College
books as a " Pensionarius " till the 28th of the same
month. He was then only seventeen years of age, — some
what younger than the average freshman, who^ in those
days went up, for the most part at eighteen.
We have the Bishop's own description of the College in
his day : —
" Emmanuel, like Eton, was then a very idle though
a very gentlemanlike College. I am ashamed to say

I] PARENTAGE AND YOUTH.

23

that notwithstanding all the good impressions of Post
ford and Albury, the idle habits of Eton came back
upon me at Cambridge. Notwithstanding my idleness, I
had always been very fond of literature and of literary
society, and felt great interest in mathematics. My tutor
assured me I could be Senior Wrangler if I would read,
but I could not bring myself to read steadily, and cared
more to pull stroke of our College boat and to have her
successful in the boat-races, than to take a distinguished
¦degree. My classical studies I utterly neglected all
through my undergraduateship. When it was too late I
bitterly regretted the time I had lost. I felt that I might
have done more if I had worked . . . and I determined to
be a harder working man for the future, and by God's
help I became so."
Happily for us, a few of his undergraduate friends are
still living, and their reminiscences of Harold Browne's
Cambridge days help to modify not a little the self-
condemning tone of the Bishop's words. We gather
clearly from them how marked was the effect of his
character on his associates ; how quietly, almost uncon
sciously, it raised them to a higher level ; anything
mean or base in act or speech was often left unsaid or
undone, "because Browne wouldn't like it" There is no
stronger influence on the buoyant boyish spirits and
manners of the average undergraduate than that of some
comrade who is their equal or superior in all College amuse
ments, and gives himself no airs, but is known to set his
face resolutely and quietly against things unrefined and
coarse. The lads see in him a sort of reflexion of the
home life,— of the kindly, pure mother and the graceful
sisters, whom to shock would be the act of a brute, not of
a gentleman. As is also so often the case in undergraduate
circles, the group around Harold Browne admired him
far more for the unknown force of his latent powers, than
for the qualities which saw the light ; he would have been
less of a hero had he worked his best and .shunned society

24 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

and won the highest honours. At the University, where
all the ambitious lads look with feverish interest at the
chances of the class lists, the sight of a man who "could
an he would," but would not, is ever most attractive. It
appeals to each man's dream-power ; each wishing to win
a noble place in the lists without losing the present
pleasure of the boats, the dreamy pipe, the idle morning
spent in an idle friend's rooms, the lazy stroll, the facile
piano, the due attention demanded by " the willow," and
all the hundred charmdng ways in which the cheerful
undergraduate wastes the swiftly flying days of his
University life. To such men their friend Browne was
something of a hero, the kind of hero who did not tax
them with too much work or too much self-denial. He
seemed to those who were only too glad to be "lapped
in luxurious ease " to be their very pattern man, whose
manner of life and apparently easy successes they might
emulate. " The best of both w^orlds," the world of pleasure
and the world of work, could they but successfully com
bine the two, — where could such a Paradise be found on
earth as within the pleasant limits of the College walls ?
Here is a picture of Harold Browne among these
kindly flattering friends at Emmanuel, drawn by the pen
of one of his old comrades in boat and lecture -room, the
Rev. J. Sharp : —
" The Bishop was one of those people who are never very
demonstrative, and whose influence for good consists in
a quiet, reverent calmness of mind and manner, which
appeals to what is good in others, and tends to soften their
asperities. I can recall with a vivid recollection our dear
friend sitting low in an easy chair, with his long, thin legs
stretched out more than halfway across the hearthrug,
calmly moderating the keenness of debate, and helping
the combatants to see some good in each other. His mind
was always a well-balanced one ; he had thought things
out very carefully and definitely for himself and had very

PARENTAGE AND YOU Til.

decided opinions, which he calmly and clearly expressed.
Every one felt him to be a strong man, and his opinion
had weight with all, whether they altogether agreed with
him or not. But above all, he was what he always was
throughout his life, a man of moderation and peace."
This picture of the College fireside, with the group of
lively lads around it, the ever animated discussion, the one
sided enthusiasm of }'0uth, with the spare figure of Harold
Browne as umpire and mediator in the midst, carries any
old University man back to days long past, when there
was " heart-affluence in discursive talk ; " it pictures for
us such a scene as Tennyson draws in his fine lines on
Arthur Hallam in the days of the " Apostles," when after
wide debate —
"At last the master-bowman, he
Would cleave the mark. A willing ear
We lent him. Who but hung to hear
The rapt oration flowing free
" From point to point with power and grace,
And music in the bounds of law,
To those conclusions, when we saw
The God within him light his face.'' — In Memoriam, Ixxxii.
And the " long thin legs stretched out more than halfway
across the hearthrug " were not unseen in later days ; for
the Bishop had a slow circulation, and loved to warm his
feet at the fire, till it almost seemed as if the light and
warmth tempted his limbs to grow still longer. In those
days, as indeed always, he must have been most excellent
company ; his courtesy, his modesty and simplicity of soul,
his ready fund of anecdote, the acuteness of his mental
vision, which caught the points of any talk, his enviable
memory and faculty of orderly thought,— all these things
made him an admirable companion. There is a vivid
description of him in the Emmanuel life from the pen

26 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

of his most intimate friend, the friend who brought him
the greatest happiness of his life, Mr. PhiHp Carlyon, the
cousin of his future wife. Mr. Carlyon can well speak
of these College times, the days of the great Reform
agitation, and the first serious shaking of English society.
He was about two years younger than Harold Browne,
and took his degree in 1834, following his friend as
Tyrwhitt Hebrew Scholar in 1836 : —
" The charm which hung like a halo round him all his
life drew to him a large circle of friends at Cambridge ;
but no one during my five years of residence in College
saw so much of him as I. We regularly took our walks
together ; we pulled together in the same boat. His
popularity hindered him from being a hard student, and
the width of his reading diverted him from due preparation
for his degree, so that his place both in the Mathematical
and Classical Tripos was no index of his powers. . . .
When his name appeared so much lower than it ought to
have been among the Wranglers, some friends advised him
to go in for the Classical Tripos on the strength of his
scholarship, which was known to be good. Unwillingly
and unwisely he yielded to this pressure, and made matters
worse, having laid aside for two years his classical studies ;
and instead of improving his position, he was rewarded
with a Third Class in Classics. His great talents were
nevertheless well known and appreciated ; and his general
learning, his deep theological reading, his talking-power,
and his unfailing grace of manner, were sure to win him
success. . . . One of his most intimate Cambridge friends
was Professor John Grote, brother of the historian, whom
I have heard him call the cleverest man he knew : it was
a treat to hear these two champions take opposite sides in
an argument. Grote was massive and impetuous, Browne
keen and polished ; and what was said in those days of
Professor Sedgwick and Dr. Graham of Christ's might
have been said of them : ' It was a duel between a sledge
hammer and a razor.'
" In society he was always delightful, always a perfect
gentleman, cheerful and often playful, though never losing
his dignity. He was the same as an undergraduate as in
his after life. His hospitality was unbounded, and two

PARENTAGE AND YOUTH. 27

such gatherings were probably never witnessed at Ely as
his reception of Archbishop Lycurgus of Syra and the
' bis-sex-centenary ' celebration of Ely Cathedral.
" At College his tall and spare frame hindered him from
joining in most athletic sports, and, excepting in the boat
ing season, his out-door exercise consisted almost entirely
of constitutional walks, most frequently on the Madingley
Road, where we often met Airy, who, ten years his senior,
has now followed him to his rest. Two seasons he was
stroke of the Emmanuel boat, which long maintained a
high place, fourth or fifth, on the river. In one race he
resigned his oar to a former captain, and we got bumped ;
on another occasion the third boat had bumped the second,
and we chased the head boat to the winning post, though
without catching her ; it was a desperate effort on the
part of a future Bishop of Ely and Winchester to overtake
the future Bishop of New Zealand and Lichfield {i.e. Bishop
G. A. Selwyn), who was then stroke of the first John's,
Lead of the river."
Many years after, when Harold Browne was Bishop of
Winchester, he recalls these happy young rivalries, and his
letter, as a tribute to the high qualities of Bishop Selwyn,
ought not to be lost : — " Farnham, April i^th, 1878,
" The death of Bishop Selwyn is a great sorrow to me.
I remember him well at Eton, as the noblest specimen of
a manly truthful boy. At Cambridge, as you know, we
pulled in the races together, and for a time he and I used
to meet in the councils of stroke oars. I saw the last of
him on his way out to New Zealand, when he spent two
or three days at Exeter in 1841. I have watched him
through his grand career in New Zealand, and for eleven
years we have been brother Bishops in England on terms
of true brotherly regard. He was not free from crotchets,
or he would not have been a Selwyn ; but I doubt if
there was a truer, braver, or more disinterested man in
Christendom — a true hero, the greatest English missionary
bishop since St Boniface. May we meet him hereafter
through the grace of God in Jesus Christ ! "
Though in his first year Harold Browne won a College

28 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

scholarship, a prize given specially to encourage a pro
mising undergraduate near the outset of his time, he failed
entirely to turn his mind to work. Facility and ability
falling short of genius can do most things, if combined with
self-control and steady habits of reading ; but this was the
very thing in which the bright youth failed. Quickness
and cleverness without knowledge are sadly ineffective
when a man is set down before a stiff Mathematical paper,
as Harold Browne found to his sorrow when the Tripos
List was issued and he saw his name low down among the
Wranglers, in the twenty-fourth place. He proceeded to
the degree of Bachelor of Arts on January 13th, 1832.
Throughout his life Harold Browne had an amiable
weakness for deferring to the advice of his friends ; and
when the Mathematical List was out, he showed an
unlucky distrust in his own better judgment, and tried
another tilt with the Examiners. The years of neglect
had played more havoc with his languages than with
his figures ; after a short and sharp burst of work, he
found himself in the Third Class of the Classical Tripos,
a petty distinction, which, but for the good stuff in him,
would have stamped him with the fatal brand of mediocrity.
Instead of this, the failure seems to have stung him into
a new energy, as a keen cold bath brings tingling life
into languid and sleepy limbs ; and he set himself with
all his heart to repair the mischief done. After his
degree, which he took just before his twenty-first birth
day, he went vigorously to work, turning his whole
attention to the study of Theology and of the languages
auxiliary to it
Happily for himself and the English Church, Harold
Browne was not hampered by lack of means ; for his
parents, possessed of a comfortable property, were only too
glad to give him another chance of winning University

PARENTAGE AND YOUTH.

distinctions ; and the young man himself was now eager to
do something which might help tov^rards his own support.
He therefore, with the very best results, stayed on at
Cambridge, as a diligent and exemplary student. He soon
proved that his companions' estimate of him was well-
founded. He worked hard at Divinity, and especially, with
marked success, applied himself to the study of the Hebrew
language, which he and his friend Carlyon read diligently
under the care and tuition of old Mr. Barnard, then teacher
of Hebrew in the University. His natural gifts and quick
ness, now that they had a congenial subject enabled him
to make rapid progress. And this was tested before very
long. In the following year, 1833, the Crosse Theological
Scholarships were thrown open to competition among
Bachelors, and Harold Browne won one of them. Next
year his linguistic studies came into play; we find him
gazetted first Tyrwhitt Hebrew Scholar for the year 1834,
after having been " complimented by his Examiners for his
accurate and extensive knowledge of the Hebrew tongue."
And lastly, before the end of 1835 he gained the Norrisian
Prize Essay Medal. This excellent essay was printed. In
a note to his mother the young essayist, with a touch of
pardonable pride, relates how —
¦" the Master of Trinity sent for me to compliment me on
the unusual excellence of my prize essay, and regretted
that the prize was so inadequate to its merits. He also
gave me sundry hints about the Hulsean lecture and
Christian Advocateship, which, as he is one of the Electors,
is rather satisfactory. The former is worth three hundred
a year, but is only an annual office ; they are both very
high honours. I got through my Latin speech with less
trouble and nervousness than I had anticipated." (January
31st 1836.)
Thus Harold Browne to some extent repaired the failure
of his Tripos places, shewed that he was making rapid

30 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
and brilliant advance in theological study, and laid solid
foundations for the high reputation he afterwards justly
enjoyed as one of the earliest and most trusted members
of the now rising Cambridge School of Divinity.
During these years, as Harold Browne tells us in a letter
to Mr. Carlyon, he took each Long Vacation some pupils
for a reading party, and seems to have thoroughly enjoyed
these summer work-holidays. They are an institution
which fits in singularly well with the tastes and habits
of young Englishmen : the memory of these fascinating
outings lingers long and fondly in the hearts of all
who have been so fortunate as to share in them. " In
1832," says the Bishop, "we were in Wales; in 1833
at Inveraray; in 1834 at Ilfracombe ; and in 1835 at
Heidelberg, and afterwards in Switzerland." As a rule
a reading party is small, the numbers not exceeding five
or six ; but so popular was Harold Browne that his second
group, that which went to the Highlands, was made up of
a round dozen, eleven pupils and their tall young tutor.
The first party, which went to North Wales in 1832,
settled down first at Pwlheli, and then moved to Maentwrog.
On the subject of this party there exists a letter, written
four years after by Professor John Grote, the metaphysician,
who was one of the little company ; it is worthy of being
quoted because it shows what esteem and affection for
Harold Browne filled the hearts of all who were brought
under his influence. The letter is dated only " Sept 4 " ;
but as it was written on one of those quarto sheets on
which, in the quiet days before envelopes and postage
stamps, laborious letters used to be sent we have the date
on the postmark on the back of it, — 1836.
" My deaPs. Browne,— I think your heart seems warmed
at the idea of Maentwrog and Moelwyn, and that your
legs must already be feeling an inclination to move in that

I-] PARENTAGE AND YOUTH.

31

direction. I hope you will write again, and go over some
more recollections in your letter; for I think one of the
chief effects of it will be to make you desire still more to
see the old places again, and that is what I want you
to do. ... I do not think you need be afraid of the dissolu
tion of the fairy charm, the impression will be the better
for a little refreshing, — and the charm will be increased
by the association in the same scenes of your feelings in
1832 and 1836. It is only when one fancies, from Sir
Walter Scott's novels or such, some fine castle or mountain,
which on inspection may turn out to be a poor hovel or
hill, that one had better stay at home and confine oneself
to one's idea of it. I am myself very curious to know what
I shall think of the mountains and valleys now, which then,
being the first I had ever seen, impressed me more than
any others have since. You, I think, were better pleased
with them than with Scotland, or else you were then in
a better humour with external nature. And then the
climate is such an important feature in the landscape, that
a place where it is always raining, like Inveraray, must
look horrid. To be sure, it did rain in Wales — as on that
agreeable day when we of Dolgelly started for the week's
tour, and soon got weatherbound at Trawsfynydd, till you
helped us on with a vehicle. But then what a glorious
walk the next morning up the Vale of Festiniog, and
thence from Maentwrog to Beddgelert ! Such a day might
well make up [for] a hundred of wet. Then you know
we shall just be in Wales at the time of year we were
travelling about on our way out of it last time — and the
leaves will look so beautiful and the air so clear. Do you
not remember the day we left Dolgelley in the car, and
the walk next day to Llangollen, and church at Wrexham
in the evening ? Somehow or other, all our most interesting
walks were on the Sundays. Well, I do not think we could
have spent them better, whatever we shall have to say
when we are in the pulpit ; and the next best way of
spending them is writing these remembrances, which I
hope may have the effect of keeping in a ferment your
Welsh ideas. I am off from here probably on Monday,
October 3rd, vid Birmingham or Oxford ; consequenUy not
very far from you " [Browne was then at Morton House,
Buckingham]. '' I would come and see you, but considering
Mrs. Browne's health, if she is not better it will not be
pleasant to you, and if she is (which for everybody's sake

32 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

I hope may be) you will meet me at Northampton or
Buckingham, or where you like, and we will be off together
for the mountains. Never mind Carlyon — make him go too.
Not that I mean seriously, do not mind your old friend,
and him Philip Carlyon ; only by all means come to Wales,
if you can, and we will attack the Principality at any
point you like, N. or S. — anywhere. Do not be alarmed
for fear I should bring a Fellowship with me — no danger :
four vacant, but I have been so idle ; in fact I cannot nail
myself down, etc., etc., and my fine mind (oh the flattery
of letters ! People shouldn't say in a letter what they would
not to a man's face — I never said such a thing in mine
to you, though with so much more reason) is too fine to fix
to anything. ******
" As you will not cross your own writing I presume you
will not like to read mine crossed, so hoping to hear from
you soon, I remain, my dear Browne,
" Your affectionate friend,
"J. Grote."
The second reading party took place the following year,
1833, and led Harold Browne to the Highlands of Scot
land, where at Inveraray, side by side with many of his
dearest friends, he stayed a while, in charge of a most
interesting single pupil, Matthew Hale, who afterwards
became the first Bishop of Perth in Western Australia.
At Inveraray there was a large and lively Cambridge
party, eleven strong, among whom were J. Grote, Philip
Carlyon, Joseph Buckley, and other friends. One record
of their doings survives. Some of the company, joined
by Harold Browne, essayed one day the ascent of Ben
Cruachan. " After gaining a considerable height up the mountain
side," says Mr. Carlyon, " they found themselves caught
in impenetrable mist and had to abandon the attempt,
and turned back. Judging that a stream must eventually
reach the bottom of the mountain, they followed one for
some time, till as it grew steeper and steeper Philip Carlyon,

!¦] PARENTAGE AND YOUTH.

ZZ

who was the slightest and lightest of the party, was sent
forward to reconnoitre. Presently he came to the head of
a waterfall, the lower part of which was hidden by the
rocks. To get a view, regardless of the prudent proverb,
he leapt before he looked, and dropping down some feet
alighted on a hog-backed slippery rock ; and then found
to his dismay that he could neither get down nor climb
up again. At last his friends came up, and found him
crouching, looking quite scared, against the face of the
cliff. A stunted oak tree overhung the chasm, at a few
feet's distance ; but it was too far, or rather too serious a
risk, for him to jump at it from the insecure footing of
a damp and rounded rock. So the friends held grave
consultation over his head ; they felt he had not nerve
enough to hold out till one of the party made his way to
the village far below, and hastened back with a rope, — they
were not prepared to tear up and splice their shirts. At
last they hit on an expedient. The oak bending over the
chasm was somewhat above the point on which Carlyon
was standing ; the heaviest of the party was directed to
climb into the tree and to get on one of the branches which
overhung the spot, and to bend it down with his weight,
till it came within Carlyon's reach. Meanwhile Browne,
as the tallest man of the party, had to catch hold of his
friend in the tree by the legs, so as to prevent his being
dislodged by the strain when the lad in peril made his
jump. The jump was safely made ; Carlyon caught hold
of both man and bough, and was hoisted up in triumph
and safely brought to bank." " On another occasion," says
Carlyon, " we risked our lives by persuading the ferryman
to take us over to Inveraray in a storm. Midway we were
shipping seas, and could not tack ; crowds on the quays
were watching our peril."
The memory of these days remained fresh in the mind
of Harold Browne all his life, not so much because of the
teaching work he had to do, but because of his strong
pleasure in the converse of intelligent companions, and per
haps even more because of his love for the glories of nature.
He was well-nigh a worshipper of mountain scenery.
" I remember to this day," — we again are quoting Mr.
Carlyon, — " the intense and almost choking delight ex-

34 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch-
pressed by a gasp, that seized him on his first sight of
Loch Awe and Ben Cruachan. Another scene that took
possession of him was the glory of a brilliant aurora
borealis, that suddenly gleamed over Ben Cruachan at
midnight, when we were benighted on the Loch, and had
failed to find our landing-place."
There seems to have been (though no account of it
remains) another reading party in 1834, which was
established at that bright Devonshire watering-place,
Ilfracombe. Next Long Vacation he went abroad, and Philip Carlyon
with him. There is a brief reference to it in Mr. Carlyon's
hand : —
"In summer 1835 we spent three months together on
the Rhine, journeying home through Switzerland. An
attack of typhoid at Heidelberg so prostrated him that
the world came nigh being the poorer. The effect of this
illness weakened him for years. ... I can only sum up
these notes with my own experience that the secret of
his power was Love. He was a most loving and lovable
man ; and nobody could have fully appreciated him unless
they had seen him at home amidst his family and servants,
by kindly love setting an example of a perfect Christian
life. And now to everyone who knew him well his memory
must be " ' Dear as the holy sorrow,
When good men cease to live.' " *
In the course of the following spring, Harold Browne
appears to have thought seriously about standing for one
of the Fellov/ships which in those days were open at
two or three Oxford Colleges to graduates of either
University ; and he went so far as to set himself to collect
testimonials for the purpose. His aim is shown by a very
kind letter from Dr. Samuel Lee, then Regius Professor of
Hebrew at Cambridge, which accompanied a testimonial
with date of November 12th, 1835.
* Keble, " Christian Year," 37th Sunday after Trinity.

I.] PARENTAGE AND YOUTH. 35
" As to advice," he writes, " I know not what to say.
A Fellowship at Oxford is, beyond all doubt, better than
mere expectations at Cambridge, which, after all, may
never be worth much when realised. The Fellowships at
Magdalen are, I believe, good. Certainly the College is a
large one, and on that account worth trying for. At
Oxford your Hebrew will tell much better than at
Cambridge, as will also your theology. It is a great pity
that Colleges generally do not break down that foolish
consideration of county preference. On the present
occasion Emmanuel will have more reason, I believe, to
regret your loss, than you will in migrating to Oxford."
This allusion to "county preference" arose out of the
fact that at Emmanuel there was but one Buckinghamshire
Fellowship, and no second Buckinghamshire man could
become a Fellow there so long as it was occupied ; so that
Harold Browne's prospects in that direction were blocked.
How far the Oxford venture was prosecuted we do not
know ; he certainly was never elected at Magdalen ; nor
are we anywhere told that he went up to the sister
University to push his candidature. It would be idle to
speculate on what might have followed had he been
thrown into the very heart of the young Oxford Movement,
with his theological knowledge, his deep respect for
primitive antiquity, and his habit of forming a careful
judgment and adhering to it tenaciously. Whatever
might have been the result, it is certain that his direct
intervention in the movement would have had a calming
and steadying influence on the development of events.
It might have fallen to him to be the means of restoring
confidence and a clear direction to the party after the
heavy blows it received from the secession of Newman
and others of the leaders.
The severe shaking which the Heidelberg drain-fever
inflicted on Harold Browne's constitution appears to have
disinclined him for any more ventures in the way of

36 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
reading parties ; there were no more of them for him after
1835. There were also other reasons for their discon
tinuance ; after putting on his M.A. gown, on April 3rd,
1835, he found plenty of work a,t home. For in the spring
of 1836 his father died; and his mother, who had been
ailing some time, fell into health so weak that he was
unwilling to be far from one for whom he ever cherished
the warmest and most filial affection. Indeed, Mrs.
Browne needed all the care and time he could give ; her
health steadily grew worse, until before the end of the year
she passed away in stedfast hope and confidence, and the
peace of a firm and simple faith. Her death, coming so
soon after that of Colonel Browne, was a terrible blow to
her tender-hearted and affectionate son. To the end of
his life he spoke of his mother with deep reverence and
love : his affection for her was, as it deserved to be, one
of the very strongest influences of his life. When both
parents were thus taken away in 1836, the home of so
many sweet memories at Morton was inevitably broken
up. The eldest son, who had been invalided home from
Burmah, established himself with his two sisters in a
pretty old house, Rushden Hall, near Higham Ferrers in
Northants. Here they lived very comfortably for about
nine years, after which time, their means having become
more straitened, the house was given up, and the two
sisters found hearty welcome under the hospitable roof
of their . brother, then Vice-Principal of Lampeter. From
that moment to the time of their deaths the two sisters
always had a place at their brother's fireside, and followed
him faithfully and lovingly from point to point of his
distinguished career.
The year 1836 marked Harold Browne's more definite
entry into the public life of his University. Hitherto he
had done some little work for his College, Emmanuel ;

I.] PARENTAGE AND YOUTH. 37
now, as a young Master of Arts, he had become eligible
for more responsible posts, and was invited to enter on
more important fields of work. Thus, he was invited this
year to become tutor and, if he took Orders, Chaplain, of
Downing College ; and at almost the same moment Dr.
Archdall, Master of Emmanuel, asked him to undertake
the Sadlerian Lecturership, a College office with no higher
duties than the instruction of the Second Year's men in
Algebra and the Freshmen in Euclid ; he also undertook
the College Greek Testament Lectures.
These lectures were easily combined with his light work
at Downing College. He had to move thither in the autumn
of 1836; and the undergraduates, contrary to the custom
of Colleges, which as a rule wisely discourages testimonials
to tutors on their departure, presented Harold Browne
with a fine copy of St. Augustine's works, as a mark of the
beneficent influence he had already begun to exert on all
who came under his teaching.
He was probably glad to retain some hold on his
own College when he adventured himself so far out of
the University world as to the precincts of Downing. For
that College then had, and has always had, an odd exist
ence peculiar to itself and apart from the rest of the
University. There it stands aloof, with buildings rather
like a rambling country-house than a college, resting
placidly in green and level meads, which recall to mind
some gentleman's park, far from towns and noise and
intellectual strife. Here it seemed to slumber peacefully,
untouched by the growing turmoil of the town, and care
less of University excitements and struggles, the temporary
home and refuge of a few men who, for one reason or
another, had passed the usual undergraduate time of life,
and were constantly a continual source of wonder and
amusement to the intolerant youth of twenty years, who

38 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
seem to regard a young man of thirty as a grey-beard, and
are, consciousl)^ or unconsciously, unsympathetic and even
insolent towards him. Not a few were the gibes and jokes
attempted by the undergraduate world when Harold
Browne, tall and thin as a lath, entered on his untried
duties at Downing. The men there all appear to have been
his seniors, some being married ; and he, with his youthful
looks, seemed like a boy among them : they declared
that he was fulfilling the scripture, that " a little child shall
lead them." And there was truth in it ; Harold Browne's
accurate knowledge, his beautiful courtesy and instinctive
power of bearing himself so as to command attention and
respect at once won the esteem of his odd flock, and he
gained without difficulty their confidence and affection.
At this time we get another example of the difficulties
to which his boyish appearance exposed him. In the
summer of 1836 he was selected to examine the upper
forms at Rugby ; and went thither to Dr. Arnold's house
to carry out his engagement. No sooner was the examina
tion over than one of those stories which are the joy of the
undergraduate mind began to circulate in Cambridge. It
was said that immediately on his arrival at the School-
house he was shown up into the Headmaster's Library,
where his brother examiner, Mr. Claughton, was already
established. He and Claughton had never met ; and the
latter looking up from his book, beheld a tall stripling
somewhat bashfully entering the room ; he at once jumped
to the conclusion that this was a sixth form boy, quietly
ordered him to sit down at the table, and handed him an
examination paper. In vain did Harold Browne protest,
the inexorable Oxonian would not be induced to loosen
his grasp until Dr. Arnold had been sent for to vouch for
the truth of his declaration that he was not a victim but
a brother examiner. This tale long ran current at both

I.] PARENTAGE AND YOUTH. 39
Universities ; and after the Bishop had been translated to
Winchester, Dr. Millard, Vicar of Basingstoke, reminded
him of the story and asked him whether there was any
truth in it. In reply the Bishop said : —
"The story is nearly true. It was in 1836; I was a
young M.A., young of my standing " [he was not yet
twenty-five] " and younger in my looks. Claughton and I
met, dressed for dinner in Arnold's drawing-room before
any one else was downstairs, I think, and we talked to one
another. He took me for a sixth form boy, invited me
to dine on the first day with the examiners, and talked
kindly to me, as to one who needed patronage and
encouragement He did not give me a paper of questions,
as it was not then the time of questions. He was much
amused when he found that I was his brother-examiner.
He has often referred to it since we have been brother
bishops. We vowed eternal friendship there. I hope it
will prove eternal indeed ! "
The litUe tale is a charming picture of the man : one
can see that no one could resist the unaffected kindliness
which showed through every word and act of his life ; his
fellow-examiner discovered quickly enough that under the
boyish and modest exterior there was a sterling and trust
worthy comrade, whose only desire was to do justice, and,
if possible, gracious justice, to all whom he had to examine
and judge. His sound scholarship and accurate memory,
his courtesy and conscientiousness, made him an admirable
examiner ; though he might sometimes have been almost
too forbearing, remembering his own former idleness. For
he never could be severe in judgment; if he could not
speak well of a man, he kept silence instead of condemn
ing. I never heard him say an unkind word of any one.
There is still living an old pensioner of Emmanuel,
Mr. Charles Mortlock, who was "Gyp's boy" in the
College when Harold Browne was there ; he can still call
to mind how in 1836 he carried the young tutor's house-

40 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch. I-
hold goods across from Emmanuel to Downing, and
established him in his new quarters. He also remembers
that Mr. Browne used to be called Mr. Brown-e, as a
dissyllable, to distinguish him from sundry other Mr.
Browns in the College and University. Mortlock was
very emphatic when asked about his master's ways ; his
face quite lighted up as he said, " Yes, he was always very
generous to everyone ; I can well remember that if I, as
his Gyp's boy, had done him any little bit of service,
there was always a piece of cake or an apple or summat
for me." Mortlock also stated that when Mr. Browne left
Downing the undergraduates presented him with a hand
some piece of plate as a token of their gratitude and
regard ; though it is not unlikely that the old man was
thinking of something of the kind rather later in his
career. " He always treated everyone alike," he added,
'' and was a real gentleman ; he was still delicate in the
chest in those days, and always wore flannel ; " and as a
last little reminiscence he informed me that Mr. Browne
and Mr. Edge used to take their daily walk together along
the Trumpington Road. Mr. Edge, who is still living,
took his degree from Emmanuel College two years later
than Harold Browne, and was one of his most intimate
and lifelong friends. He has furnished one or two
touches, which bear on this period of Harold Browne's
life. " We were very intimate," he says, " at College ; so much
so that he gave up rooms in a distant part of the College,
and took rooms in my staircase, opposite to mine, that he
might be close to me. So again, in our ' Squire ' days,"
[i.e., while yet unordained] "we were fast and furious
correspondents, and I had at one time literally carpet
bags full of his letters to me," — letters, I fear, all lost or
destroyed.

CHAPTER II.
HOLY ORDERS AND PARISH WORK.
T^OR some years past Harold Browne's mind had been
-*- turning more and more towards Holy Orders. The
general seriousness of his disposition, his facility as a
linguist, and the clear definiteness of intellect found
plentiful scope for their exercise amid the intricate
problems of dogmatic theology. Few young men, per
haps, have been better fitted by character, capacity, and
training for clerical life ; yet it is strange to see what
difficulties, many and vexatious, he had to surmount before
he could even win his way to a bishop's examination table.
In 1834, when he was but just of age for Deacon's Orders,
he applied to Dr. Sparke, Bishop of Ely, and received in
reply a formal letter to the effect that a University scholar
ship could not be taken as a title for Orders ; but that
if he were to become Fellow of his College, or should
wish to act as a curate within the diocese, all preliminary
difificulties would disappear. Soon after he made another
attempt on the Bishop, offering himself this time not as
University scholar, but as Subtutor to his College. Again
he received an unfavourable reply ; the Bishop cannot
entertain such an application unless Mr. Browne can show
him that the College statutes require the Subtutor to be
in Orders. After these rebuffs, Harold Browne appears to
have desisted for a time; it was not till April 1836 that
41

EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

we find him again making application to a bishop. He
then wrote to Dr. Kaye, Bishop of Lincoln, from Morton
House, Buckingham, offering himself as a candidate for
Orders. He had no claim whatever on the consideration
of the Bishop of Lincoln, beyond the fact that he was
living at Buckingham, which was in the ancient diocese of
Lincoln. He did not suggest that he would take work as
a curate in that diocese. A letter from his mother throws
some light on it Writing on the 8th of March, 1836, she
speaks of her son's birthday, and says it was the anni
versary of " that day that blessed me with one of the best
and dearest sons that mother ever possessed. . . . May
you, my beloved," she continues, "have a happy and
prosperous year, and be blessed with an increase of health
and strength to enjoy every blessing the Almighty may be
pleased of His great goodness to bestow upon you. A
good son maketh a glad father — how happy and grateful
ought I to be who am blessed with five good and affec
tionate children." Then she suggests that he should apply
for ordination to the Bishop of Lincoln : " I shall be very
glad if that can be accomplished, for I think it will be
a comfort to my dear son on many accounts."
The Bishop's reply says simply and curtly that it is
impossible ; that he does not accept Fellowships as titles,
except in the case of Fellows of King's, " that College being
a portion of the diocese of Lincoln."
As, however, Harold Browne's duties at Downing were
supposed to be coupled with the Chaplaincy to the College,
it became necessary once more to try the Bishop of Ely.
And here he met with a fourth rebuff. The Bishop replies
that he doubts whether the Chaplaincy is a permanent
office ; at any rate he can hardly believe that it is per
manent enough to serve as a Title for Orders, and moreover
he adds that he is not prepared (even supposing that it is

II.l HOLY ORDERS AND PARISH WORK. 43
a Title) to accept any man as a candidate for Orders, unless
the post he proposed to fill carries with it a stipend of at
least .^75 a year. This was very disappointing : to many
it would have seemed as if the hand of Providence were
pointing in some other direction, and indicating that the
aspirant was a man not fitted for Holy Orders. Harold
Browne had happily a wholesome dash of obstinacy, and
persevered. On the 7th of September, 1836, he addressed
another letter to the Bishop, which ran as follows : —
" My Lord, — I have to apologise to your Lordship for
asking ordination at your hands under rather unusual
circumstances ; but I trust that when I have detailed them,
you will consider them such as to warrant your acceding
to my request I am Assistant Tutor of Emmanuel College,
Cambridge, an office which I have now held two years.
I took my degree of M.A. in July 1835. 1 am at present
excluded from a Fellowship by a restriction which prevents
two persons of the same county from being Fellows at the
same time, and the Senior Fellow is of the same county
with myself As however he fully intends to take the first
good living that offers, and the Master and Fellows have
kindly expressed much anxiety that I should not resign
my present situation, I feel it incumbent on me to reside.
Your Lordship will perceive that these circumstances pre
vent the possibility of my obtaining a curacy or other
strictly legitimate Title for Orders, and at the same time
that I cannot but feel the great disadvantage of entering
late on my intended profession.
" In this situation I have resolved to plead to your Lord
ship what is virtually equal to a Fellowship, though not
a real Title according to the canon law. The Subtutorship
which I hold is in value ;^I20 a year, which, I presume, is
as much as the endowment of many Fellowships. I also
have just held (what has sometimes, I believe, been con
sidered a Title) two University Scholarships, viz., the Crosse
Theological and the Tyrwhitt Hebrew scholarship, the
former of which I have, however, resigned. 1 am aware
that they are not necessarily a Title, but I submit to your
Lordship that they are in accordance with the spirit though
not the letter, of the canon law ; and I trust your Lordship
will see that the object which I have in view is not emolu-

44 EDIVARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
ment but the desire of becoming early accustomed to the
duties of my profession, and therefore, if possible, a more
useful member of it
" I have to apologise for troubling your Lordship with so
many details, \\-hich were, however, necessary to explaining
my case ; and I have the honour to be, my Lord,
" Your Lordship's " Most obedient humble servant,
"Harold Browne."
It must be allowed that this very reticent letter, in which
there is no hint as to his views on religion or theology, or
any words shewing the high view he certainly took of the
sacred obligations of a clerical life, was not very well fitted
to convince or move the Bishop of Ely. There had been a
change at that Cathedral : Bishop Sparke was no more, and
his place had been taken by Joseph Allen, formerly Bishop
of Bristol ; who appeared at first just as unwilling to meet
Harold Browne's wishes as his predecessor had been. He
wasted no time over his reply ; it was despatched from the
Cloisters, Westminster, on the day on which he received
the application. In it he takes no notice of Mr. Browne's
arguments and appeals, and replies in the hardest and
briefest terms : —
" Sir,— I am sorry to say that, consistently nith the
rules I am obliged to lay down in regard to titles for Orders,
I cannot ordain you upon your Assistant Tutorship.
" I remain. Sir,
" Your faithful servant " T Ely
"Harold Browne, Esq."
Bishop Allen, however, appears to have made some
enquiries respecting Mr. Browne ; for a few days later the
Bishop addressed another letter to him, in which he says
he had learnt that the Chaplaincy at Downing College
was a statutable office, and also that Mr. Browne was a
man of reputable life and excellent character. He there-

II.] HOLY ORDERS AND PARISH WORK. 45
fore waives his objection and overrides his " rule," and is
willing to admit the young man as a candidate for Orders.
Harold Browne's reply is as strange as the rest of the trans
action. As one reads it one is tempted to say : Here is a man,
already notable at Cambridge, and pointed to as one of the
most rising of the younger Masters, a man destined to be pre
eminent hereafter as a parish priest as a learned theolo
gian, as a pattern bishop, obliged to sue at the Bishop's
gate almost in forma pauperis. He is accepted after much
demur and difficulty, as a great favour, and now he has to
beg for a relaxation of the rules as to admission ; he is
diffident as to his knowledge of the very rudiments of
Theology. He writes with a modesty all his own ; a less
honest and more prudent man would have held his tongue.
He petitions for a relaxation of the Bishop's rule of three
months' previous notice ; he humbly confesses that he is
¦" not prepared for a particular examination in Divinity."
It is probable that when he penned these deprecatory
lines his stores of theological knowledge exceeded those
of the prelate before whom he was to appear, and who
replied with gracious condescension, " I could not in the
common course of things have admitted you on so short
a notice, whatever had been the conveniency to Downing
College, had I not had special information about you, on
which I could place good reliance ; " and he continues
with a warning that he must "read professedly" for
Priest's Orders, ending up with a hint that no more back
doors or other irregularities would be allowed !
And thus Harold Browne's approach to Holy Orders
was fenced round with difficulties, as if he had been some
young fellow of idle habits or profound ignorance. We
may, however, safely believe that from the moment
Bishop Allen came into personal communication with
him, all suspicions and reluctance vanished away. Edward

46 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

Harold Browne's name stands on the roll of those who
were ordained Deacons by Bishop Allen on the first
Sunday in Advent November 26th, 1836.
We have now reached a point in our Bishop's life, at
which it may be fruitful to pause a moment and consider
the principles on which he built up his belief and ruled
his days. These matters once settled, he never again felt
obliged to reconsider them, but remained fixed in his
orbit to the end of his life. This, though it gave a certain
want of freshness to his mental development, made his
career consistent throughout ; new views of life and of
the relations of men with God and with one another
affected him comparatively little ; the structure he had
built was coherent, logical, leaving no room for later
additions, no opening for fresh decoration and adornment
The Bishop's learning and power of exposition gave great
weight to the moderate and conservative position which
he thus took up and maintained to the very end. Every
one knew at once what side he would take ; his utterances
were well-balanced, tinted by a sweet charity ; and the
Church naturally loves and honours so consistent a
character. We have seen how deeply in his younger days at
Postford Harold Browne had been influenced by the
Calvinistic teaching he had listened to in Albury Church.
Puzzling questions as to the problems of life, the relations
between the human soul and its destiny, the mystery of
freewill and necessity, matters which have ever occupied
thoughtful souls, crowded on the young man's mind, and
filled it with dark anxiety. The cry " De profundis," which
rose from his troubled heart and deepened his naturally
strong sense of personal responsibility, long received no
answer ; the impressions of Postford, in spite of the lively

II.] HOLY ORDERS AND PARISH WORK. 47
and often thoughtless surroundings of College life, often
darkened his soul, and led him to picture himself as
dwelling in a world ruled by an offended Deity.
The essential matter in the Augustinian theology is
the direct relationship between man and God. It asks
solemnly, " deep calling unto deep," How is it with your
soul ? Are you one of God's called and chosen ? If so,
all is well. Be not presumptuous : " strait is the gate,
and few there be that find it." There is a simple and
somewhat awful directness about this theology. It takes
no heed of the intermediaries which frail man would fain
place between himself and his Maker. The Church is but
a messenger of the Divine decrees, not a way of access to
a loving Father. The feehng of the all-pervading power
of God crushes our weak sense of individual freedom and
responsibility ; in some mysterious way life is so planned
that men get all the discredit of their evil deeds, which
they are free to do, while if there is any good thing in
them, it is not theirs. The gentler theology of the school
which Mr. Simeon first and then his lieutenant and
follower ]Mr Carus, long led at Cambridge, a theology
which appealed to the more affectionate qualities of his
character, did much to modify the early impressions of
Postford Hill ; and he retained throughout his life a grate
ful remembrance of their goodness. His shrinking from
their party in after life was due, not to any doubts as to
their sincerity and piety, but to his conviction that they
had not grasped certain principles which he deemed essential
to the life of the Church.
We do not know by what steps his mind freed itself
from the bonrij of Calvinism. He doubtless detected in
the leaders of it a want of cultivation and an unwillingness
to recognise the claims of learning. Many a pulpit in
those days resounded with denunciations of carnal know-

48 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
ledge and worldly literature. Puritanism has ever looked
askance at the wisdom of this world ; and this ill-will
towards intellectual life must have been most distasteful
to Harold Browne, with his strong love of letters and keen
appreciation of the masterpieces of classical scholarship.
Their vehement protests against the world, their treatment
of all things not strictly religious as snares of Satan,
must have shocked the man who had so lately been the
companion of Charles Kean in his studies of our dramatic
literature. Above all, Harold Browne soon observed that
the denunciations of worldly learning did not conceal the
fact that there were huge blanks in the teacher's own
knowledge ; and that the School was indifferent to many
thoughts and convictions included in the idea of a Church.
They had little grasp of the historic bases of Christianity.
It was to them a Divine revelation of God's will, retold in
each generation for the heirs of salvation ; not the steady
growth of the Church, that great family of God in Christ.
And lastly Harold Browne's linguistic gifts, turned as they
were towards the special study of the sacred texts, brought
him into direct collision with those who too often seemed
to think that the English Version of the Scriptures was itself
a direct verbal revelation not to be touched by the pro
fane hand of criticism. Much as in after life the Bishop
shrank from the bold views of those who handled the
criticism of the Bible, and recoiled from a movement of
which he could not see the outcome, still he had thought
about the problems calling for solution, and was too
strong and too learned to be content with the shutters with
which pious people try to keep the light of the sun off"
the sacred flame. And so he soon diverged on this side
from the old friends : not because he had less belief in the
sacred texts, but because he had come to deal with them
as a scholar. And there were other lines of difference : as

II.] HOLY ORDERS AND PARISH WORK. 49
he Studied the fabric of the early Christian Church, the
form of a mighty institution rose up before his eyes.
Personal questions, even that deep mystery of the salvation
of souls, began to take a more subordinate place. As he
thought more about the general conception of a Christian
Church, " built upon the foundation of the apostles and
prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner
stone," the individual grew less prominent the social fabric
loomed larger and more magnificent, as he looked. And
with the grasp of this conception came a more solemn view
of the importance of the two Sacraments of Baptism and
Holy Communion, and a strong belief in Episcopacy as
the only right governing-power in the Church. And to
these thoughts, as they revolved in his mind, he found
little or no response from his old friends. They were too
particularist for him ; the life of the Christian community
was, he thought, omitted from their scheme. At any
rate the relative sizes and proportions of things seemed
different to him and to them.
And so Harold Browne made the one great change of
his life, and passed from the older Evangelical school
to the new and enthusiastic party now rising, through
clouds of suspicion and dislike, into prominence. The
change once made, his moderation hindered him from
pushing forward with the party ; so that he was in the
main the same in 1890 as in 1836, when he first knelt
before the Bishop of Ely at his ordination. In his farewell
address to the Winchester Diocesan Conference, in October
1890, he makes allusion to these early days. He describes
his yearnings after a firm and intelligible basis for his belief
After alluding to the diverse shades of opinion in the
Church, he refers to his own eager search for a primitive
foundation ; in which he followed those Anglican divines.
Hooker, Jewel, and others, who appealed back from Rome
4

50 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
to the first three centuries of the Christian era, and urged
that the Church of England should return to primitive
practice. Then, he continued, came the "Tracts for the
Times," which he had gla ly accepted, because they too,
in the main, advocated a return to primitive Christianity.
" Something," he says, " of the kind was in the air before
Newman arose, a great genius, to put it into form and
shape. I can well remember that some of us in our early
studies had our minds directed by the teaching of primitive
antiquity ; some of us not moving in the same direction —
at least not springing from the same principles — as the
Oxford school went upon."
Again, speaking of the study of the English Reformation
divines, he says : —
" What struck me at first was that they all referred to
primitive antiquity ; that their great arguments against the
Roman Church were derived from the writings of the
Fathers. My own mind was so directed : I took — feebly
it may be, but still I took — to the study of primitive
antiquity and of the early Fathers from that time. Then
came out the ' Tracts for the Times "... no wonder that
many of us were very much struck and carried away by
the zeal of the Tract-writers, because they so turned our
attention, especially to the primitive antiquity which we
had already learnt to honour. I wish I could think that
they and all their followers had still adhered to the
principles of primitive antiquity."
And that these principles were firmly fixed in Harold
Browne's mind at this eariy period of his life and expe
rience is very clearly seen from the following letter to his
eldest sister, on the Roman controversy : —
" Exeter, April gth, 1842.
"My DEAREST Louie,— I should much like to meet
again Miss  , though I have no time to buckle on armour
needful for encountering the argument of her priests. But
those who humbly and sincerely seek for truth cannot
fail to be interesting and edifying companions. I quite

HOLY ORDERS AND PARISH WORK. 51

agree with her in thinking the majority of the Oxford
writers in the British Critic, etc., ' very Roman.' Perhaps
I do not agree with you in your inference. Nor indeed
do I think that it is much proof that they are Romish,
that the members of the Roman Church think them so!
The latter have been used to esteem all Protestants,
and the English Church among the rest, what many
Protestants are, heretics of the deepest dye — little better
than the rationalists of Germany and Switzerland. Even
the English they believed to be contemners of all Sacra
ments, behevers in the Church merely as a State religion,
and the clergy as well-educated laymen. Therefore we well
know the Pope was delighted with Hooker's ' Ecclesiastical
Polity,' and declared it a book of most profound learning
and piety. Therefore we know the Roman clergy, many
of them, have been wont to say that our Reformers, Cranmer
and Ridley, were much more nearly Roman Catholics than
Protestants such as the English clergy of our day. So
that if in our days Church principles had been revived no
more strongly than Hooker and Andrewes revived them
in their day, or even than Ridley would have held them,
and did hold them, in his day, I should have fully ex
pected that as of course there would be a cry of Popery
(as there was against Hooker) ; so the Roman Church
would have hailed the revival as an incipient return to her
own bosom. So that no cry of Popery among Protestants,
or welcoming from Romanists, moves me one whit in my
judgment concerning the learned writers at Oxford. Still,
in my very worthless judgment, they are now doing almost
as much harm as when they first wrote I believed they
were doing good. They now no longer aim at reviving
the doctrines and discipline of the primitive but of the
middle-age Church ; and whilst they justly condemn the
errors which infect most of the Reformed Churches, and
from which the Church of England has not utterly escaped,
they yet seem to overlook (herein I do not include Dr.
Pusey, who protests earnestly against them) the monstrous
errors which the Roman Church has solemnly recognised
as her own in the Council of Trent as well as in her
general practices, especially the fearful interposing of other
mediators besides the One between God and man. So
long as they strove to revive only the great doctrines of the
early Church, which had been forgotten, I was thankful for
their labours ; so soon as they strive to palliate errors.

52 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

even with good motives, I distrust them. Perhaps hardly
ever has truth been revived without its advocates running
into extremes. At the Reformation, when unhappily
there was sadly little humility anywhere and terrible self-
seeking almost everywhere, very few escaped this danger.
Hooker was the first great reviver of sound doctrine
amongst us, and his work must always stand first on
the list of English Divinity. Probably there was less
appearance of running into extremes at that revival than
in any that has ever taken place, though then, as at the
Reformation, the revivers were called on to become martyrs,
and in very many cases confessors, more to be admired
and having more to go through than most martyrs. It
is remarkable that he who most nearly of all approached
to an extreme, and who (except his royal master) was
most signally a martyr — I mean Archbishop Laud, — yet
was so far from Popery, that I believe all competent judges
have considered his ' Answer to a Jesuit ' the ablest and
most powerful work ever written against Rome. Then
came the Puritan reaction, which of course I cannot con
sider as merely running into extremes, as I believe it was
almost without mixture of good. After the fierce sway of
Puritanism was over — at least as persecuting as Rome ever
was — there arose another revival, and, among the non
jurors, this too led to extremes, though never to anything
like Romanism. Then came a reign of dull lifelessness, in
which not only Church doctrine but all Christian doctrine
seemed lost. The revival of truth came from without the
Church, even from dissenters ; — happily their piety was
imbibed by some of the clergy, and with it the revival of
the most important Christian truth, the doctrine of the
Cross. Unhappily that doctrine was too much viewed
subjectively as benefiting us, to the exclusion in some
degree of the even more important objective view of it
as a work great in itself and to be the means of leading
us out of self and to a contemplation of a belief in Christ
Himself, and not only of the benefits we derive from Him.
I have, however, no doubt of the good service done by
those who replaced the theology of Paley by that of
Newton and Scott, though the latter was defective. We
had then lost all sight of the great doctrines connected
with our privileges as members of Christ and as having
the real presence of our Lord vouchsafed to us. We had
quite forgotten the doctrines of Communion of Saints, of

HOLY ORDERS AND PARISH WORK. 5-

bearing the Cross, of the efficacy of the Sacraments, and
of the mysterious awfulness of our own nature as members
of one great whole, the Body of Christ and Temple of
the Holy Spirit All these doctrines are to be found in
our Liturgy in the writings of the Primitive Church, and
in those of the best of our divines before the Revolution
[of 1688]. Such, in the first instance, the Oxford writers
were reviving. They have run into extremes, as might
perhaps be expected of men brought up in such an age as
this, when self-discipline has been wholly untaught ; and as
I think the ill state of the Church just before the Reforma
tion was much the cause of the errors of many of the
Reformers, so I believe the low state of opinion and
practice among us now is responsible for the extremes into
which all people at present seem inclined to run, in what
ever direction they are searching for truer and better things
than the food on which they have hitherto been fed. As,
however, the errors of Luther and Calvin, which I think
monstrous, do not in the least degree prevent me from
believing the Reformation a necessary thing, and a protest
against Popery most indispensable, so neither will the
errors of any who advocate certain positive truths prevent
me from esteeming those truths essential, as much as I
esteem the avoidance of Popery as essential. I therefore
in all these troubles hope to be able to fall back on what
I believe the nearest approach to Divine Truth to be found
in the present unhappy state of the Church, i.e., not the
opinions of Cranmer or Ridley or Laud or Pusey, of
Luther or Calvin, or any name you like to mention, but the
doctrines of the Church in England, as they are embodied
in the Prayer-Book. I take them to be the best comment
on Scripture I have ever met with. I deeply lament that
at present our position separates us from the Churches in
communion with Rome, and from the imperfect Protestant
Churches of the Continent. Perfection in a National
Church I never expect to see till the whole Church is
again made " One in Christ " — if that happy time is ever
to be brought about in this world. I feel, however, (I hope
a humble) confidence that with all its blemishes the English
Church is the purest in the world ; miserably indeed
defective in discipline, and so producing but a very partial
effect towards the sanctifying of its members, yet still the
purest and best ; and I thank Him who is the Head of His
Church that He has cast our lot where we have less to

54 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
puzzle US than we should have had elsewhere, as we can
see the excellence of that ordinance which God has
appointed for our souls, and not be tossed about from one
to another in order to find at last repose. I do not, how
ever, wish to conceal that I am most exceedingly distressed
at the divisions of Christians, and the utter want of unity
even in the bosom of our own Church, and withal the
almost total suspension of all spirit of charity and even
decency among many controversialists. At first the
Oxford writers were singularly free from bitterness, but
latterly some of them — though with most honourable
exceptions— have manifested a spirit of sarcasm and want
of courtesy most unbecoming sinners when writing on
subjects so sacred.
" I have thus given you, dearest, at full length my view
of the present state of affairs, in no spirit of controversy,
but that you may see what I think of them. That there
are earnest and sincere Christians among Roman Catholics,
among the Oxford writers, among the Low party in the
Church, and among dissenters too, I am most happy to
hope and believe. I trust, though not one yet in body,
we may be made perfect hereafter in One, though truly I
feel it a. fearful th.mg to say that we are not one in body
as well as in spirit when the Apostle says there is but One
Body, and asks, ' Is Christ divided ? ' But I do think that
the religion prevailing among the great body of nominal
Christians in the Church of England is no religion at a!!,.
but rather a mockery of all truth and a defiance of all piety.
I am sure it is now a time to be increasing in prayer for
the spirit of a sound mind ourselves, and for unity in
Christ's Church for which He shed His precious blood, and
which by His grace will hereafter be presented without
spot God bless you.
" Ever, dearest, I trust, your brother in the Lord as well
as in the flesh,
"Harold Browne."
We may pause at this point to note the bases of his
scheme of life and of belief Where, as in the case of the
claims of Established Churches, he appeared to draw his
convictions and arguments from the life of the Church in
times later than the first three centuries, there was indeed

II.] HOLY ORDERS AND PARISH WORK.

55

a seeming abandonment of his general principle, on the
ground that the theory of National Churches had brought
into prominence and sanctioned relations between Church
and State which did not exist in the early days of Chris
tianity. With this exception, Harold Browne followed
the theology and Church government of the three eariiest
centuries of the Christian era ; appealing first to the Bible
and then to the Primitive Church for his authority in all
he said or did.
His hfe and belief acted on one another. This is always
the case ; the historic element ever modifies the intel
lectual. And the beautiful quahties of his character, and
consistency of his hfe, arrested in some cases the logical
development of his principles, in other cases strengthened
die force of the doctrines he held so clearly and commended
with so great a power of persuasion. Deep beneath all
lay a firm belief in the love, the goodness, the providence
of God. Few are the souls which really believe in God,
recognising His presence in the world, not as a fierce
avenger but as a loving Father. Harold Browne was one
of these ; from childhood upwards, a pure and godly man.
No doubt his kindness led him into mistakes ; the luxury
of generosity often led him to help unworthy objects.
This, however, was a very venial and even a lovable
fault ; perhaps the worst that can be said of it is that it
was unfair to others, and that it sometimes encouraged
genteel beggary of a very unwholesome type. There was
too in it a touch of the patronage with which the " upper "
are always tempted to spoil their communications with the
" lower " ranks of society. Harold Browne could see the
popular difficulties of the time ; he was deeply interested
in the working-man questions which have now become so
prominent He regarded these matters with the kindly
eyes of one who, passing through squalid, crowded streets.

56 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
sees the misery there and longs to carry consolation into
the dark places, yet still does not allow his Christian
brotherhood to obliterate the accustomed divisions of
rank. The principles by which his course was guided were
mainly these. First he felt a genuine loyalty for Holy
Writ, which he regarded as the ultimate rule of faith and
practice. Next, in face of the difficulties surrounding the
careful study of the Bible, he asked how the authority
of Scripture could be upheld, and its true interpretation
secured. To this question there are three replies : one of
the well-known type, which denies our right to doubt or
criticise, and holds that Holy Writ carries with it a con
viction of its own, — in other words, that the Bible is to be
accepted on the internal evidence alone ; a second solution
seeks to bring the external form of the revelation under
the laws of evidence to which we subject all our knowledge,
and by which we pronounce books genuine or not according
as they satisfy the canons of sound criticism ; and thirdly,
there is the theory of those who hold that neither internal
evidence nor external and historic proof is sufficient (regard
being had to the extreme gravity of the issues), but that
God has created His Church to be the guardian of the
faith, the bulwark and interpreter of Holy Scripture, and
that we must appeal to authority and tradition for our
faith. Harold Browne took a middle course. He saw
that there was truth in all three views. He was deeply
impressed with the intrinsic power of Revelation, and
acknowledged the happiness of the man who trod those
inner courts, undisturbed by the questionings of the woHd
without At the same time, he was large-minded and
strong enough to recognise the existence of real difficulties,
and to see that objectors are not to be waved aside as if
they were people of the Korah tribe, presumptuous in

11.] HOLY ORDERS AND PARISH WORK. 57

Stepping in where the authorised priests alone might tread.
Against inquiry and fair criticism he never said a word
—he was prepared to deal honesdy with all honest folk ;
and his mind was singulariy well fitted for the study
of evidences, and the weighing of claims for and against
doctrines or passages of Scripture, or interpretations read
into the words of Holy Writ by the exigences of formal
theological systems. We may not think his Essay on
Inspiration his happiest effort : at any rate it is a thoroughly
fair and honest statement of the views and conclusions at
which he had arrived. In the third theory as to Scripture
he took even more interest For his mind rested firmly
on the fabric of the Church ; and he was willing to regard
it as the guardian and depository of the faith and of the
Holy Books. On the other hand, he had no sympathy
whatever with the Roman theory, even as it was modified
by the " Irvingite " or " Catholic Apostolic " Church. He
was willing to give great weight to tradition ; but when
he found dogma so developed, as, if not to contradict
Scripture, at least to require ingenious adaptation to it,
he at once fell back on the view that the ultimate authority
lies in the Scripture itself not in the Church, which had
often failed to interpret it correctly. To his mind the very
conservative attitude of the English Reformers was most
acceptable ; he refers again and again to their clear protest
against the mediaeval theory of faith and religion, and is
never weary of laying it down that the basis of his faith
is Christ the Redeemer and Teacher, as displayed in Holy
Writ and as expounded in the first three centuries of the
Christian era. This gave him on the one side his scheme
of doctrine, on the other side his scheme of Church govern
ment ; and both these he desired to test by the authority
of Scripture and the utterances of the primitive Church ;
nor did he hesitate to apply the well-known formulary of

58 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

Vincentius of Lerins, " Quod semper, quod ubique, quod
ab omnibus," as the test of all his principles. It is a
formula the full application of which is hardly possible,
so soon as we have passed from very early times ; and
even then the " ab omnibus " must often, as has been said
in scorn, mean the judgment of the majority. But without
pushing this view of unity too far, Harold Browne saw
that in the main it provided a fairly solid ground on which
to build up the theory of the Church, and that it enabled
the Reformed Church of England to reject accretions of
doctrine and use which could be shown not to belong to
the days in which the New Testament was written, or to
the earlier ages of the Christian faith.
Perhaps the most marked feature of the Bishop's scheme
of belief was his unshaken confidence in Episcopacy as
the one plan of Church government which can be traced
back to apostolic days in an unbroken line. The first aim
of the Oxford Movement was to reassert this episcopal
theory of the Church, treated federally ; each state having
its own Church, and each Church presided over by its own
Bishops, and no two Bishops being permissible in one
place. It accordingly became Harold Browne's object to
assure Churchmen that their faith rested on the faith of the
primitive Church, and was in all essentials identical with
it ; and also that the Apostolic Succession has continued
unbroken in the English Church, in spite of the confusions
of the Reformation period. That the English Church of
to-day is the direct successor of the early English Church ;
that in the main its doctrines and theory of discipline are
the same ; that it has always protested against the inter
ference of Rome : these were among our Bishop's most
cherished postulates. Closely attached to this federal
scheme of Episcopacy was the desire for a "Reunion
of Christendom." In theory every Church desires to be in

II.] HOLY ORDERS AND PARISH WORK. 59

communion with all other Christian bodies. We profess to
desire that the Church throughout the world should be one ;
while at the same moment we raise our own barriers aeainst
the fulfilment of this desire. The Greek Church stands
apart not consenting to accept the " Filioque " clause ;
the English Church does not see her way to remove those
words from the Creed ; the Roman Church will hold no
communication with those who are not of her obedience ;
and so on. The Anglican theory in turn excluded the
non-episcopal bodies, as it held that the vitality of a Church
depends essentially on its form of government. Sur
rounded with these difficulties, Harold Browne was hard
pressed between principle and feeling. It was very painful
for him to regard whole breadths of his fellow-countrymen,
the nonconformists, as outside the pale of the Church,
consigned to vague " uncovenanted mercies." Perhaps,
though he never went away from his principles, he closed
his eyes to their more severe application, and while he
could not recognise these irregular bodies, forbore to
think of them as doomed, or, at any rate, as in more than
grievous peril.
This sketch has been drawn out somewhat at length,
because this was apparently the critical time in formation
of our Bishop's principles and opinions.
Harold Browne was at the time of his ordination tutor
of Downing College, and soon also became Chaplain there.
In addition to these duties, he, acted during his diaconate,
as volunteer curate in a country parish in Cambridge
shire. This was Fen Ditton, a little village a few miles
below Cambridge, on the river as it runs towards Ely.
Here he preached his first sermon, and made his first
essays in pastoral work. In after years he would relate
with great amusement how, coming out of church on
Trinity Sunday morning, after having preached as clearly

6o EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
as he could on the topic of the day, an old woman stopped
him in the road to thank him for his " beautiful sermon ; "
" for," said she, quite earnestly, " I never did see so clear
before how there were three Gods " !
His sojourn at Downing College lasted only a single
year. In October 1837, Mr Weller, who then held the
Buckinghamshire Fellowship at Emmanuel, took a College
living, so vacating his Fellowship. And, before the close
of the year, Mr. Browne was unanimously elected as Mr.
Weller's successor.
" This," says his sister Maria in a letter dated November
28th, 1837, " will render him very comfortable, and was much
needed, for he was working himself to death for a pittance
that would not keep him out of debt — and he has no
expensive indulgence except a few books. I fear from his
letters he is far from strong, but hope when his mind is
more at rest his health will improve."
Thus, before the close of the year, to the great gratifica
tion of his old friends, he was once more happily esta
blished in Emmanuel College, and resumed his place as
Assistant Tutor. Next year, while he was still Junior
Fellow, the much more lucrative post of Senior Tutor of
his College was given him by the Master, Dr. Archdall ; and
this ofiice he held till his marriage in 1840. A passage
in one of his letters shows the view he took of his new
duties : —
" I think I may say," he writes of this period, " that I
strove, more than was the custom among tutors of Colleges
then,_ to infuse a religious tone into my lectures and into
my intercourse with the young men of my College. I
always looked on my College as if it were my parish.
My pupils almost invariably treated me with great kind
ness and respect I may almost say with affection. The
students of Emmanuel College twice testified their good
will towards me ; once by presenting me with a handsome

II.] HOLY ORDERS AND PARISH WORK. 6 1

copy of St Augustine's Works, when I moved to Downing,
and afterwards by giving me a large silver salver when I
married and left Cambridge."
At the Advent Ordination (December 3rd, 1837),
Harold Browne was admitted to Priest's Orders, with his
new Fellowship for a title. And thus he blossomed forth
into the full-blown University Don, and for about three
years worked hard at the problem of the discipline and
education of undergraduates. The letter quoted above
testifies to the deep rehgious principles underlying all
his endeavours ; it shows us that even in these earlier
days his heart was far more set on religious influence
than on the ordinary courses of College lectures ; it could
already be seen that if any call towards parish work came
to him, it would hardly be resisted. And yet those years
were very \-aluable to him. He learnt how to put his
knowledge into clear form, so that exposition of whatever
he was called on to teach became natural to him from
this time.
And now came that which is the turning-point of every
true man's career — his meeting with and engagement to his
future wife. No man ever went through less of romance
before marriage ; no one ever was mated with a more true
and loving helpmate. It was in the vacation of 1838
that Harold Browne first met Miss Elizabeth Carlyon,
who exerted so sweet and healthy an influence on all
his future life. In 1838 he went down into Cornwall to
pay a visit to his intimate College friend, Mr. Philip
Carlyon, who was at that time at his uncle's house at
Truro. During his short visit, though he did not openly
declare himself he saw quite enough of Miss Carlyon to
make him desire to see more ; so much so, that when the
summer vacation of 1839 came round, he found it necessary
(at least so he professed) to make a second visit to Corn-

62 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
wall, that he might see something more of that picturesque
county. Whatever might be the pretext there is no
doubt that the real attraction was the lady whom he had
admired the year before. He accordingly once more
accepted the ready hospitality of Dr. Carlyon's house,
and arrived there soon after the beginning of the long
vacation. Dr. Carlyon was a man of note in the West
Country. Like many of his forefathers, he was educated
at Pembroke College, Cambridge. In 1798, soon after he
had taken his degree, he was elected Travelling Fellow
of his College. After three wander-years 'as Fellow,
Mr. Carlyon returned home, and in 1806 forfeited his
Fellowship by marrying his cousin. He then took his
M.D. degree and settled in Truro as a fully qualified
physician.

w

" Here he was universally beloved and respected. He
as a J. P. for town and county, and when he retired from
practice in 1849 he spent his life in promoting whatever
seemed to him to be likely to benefit his neighbours. He
was a friend to many useful charitable institutions. He
died in 1864 at the ripe age of eighty-seven, having lived
to see his son-in-law, to whom he was deeply attached,
promoted to the bishopric of Ely."
The Carlyons are a very ancient Cornish stock. Lysons,
in his History of Cornwall, says : —
"This family has been setUed at Tregrehan, in the
parish of St. Blazey, more than three centuries. It is most
probable that they were originally of the same family as
the Cariyons of Cariyon in Kea, which ' Barton ' belonged
to a family of that name at an early period."
Things went very smoothly ; long before the visit ended
the young tutor had asked Elizabeth Carlyon to become his
wife. No difficulty or objection seems to have been raised.
After the engagement had been made public they spent

II,] HOLY ORDERS AND PARISH WORK. 63
some time together, first at Truro, and then at Tregrehan,
the home of Miss Carlyon's uncle, the head of the family.
There they learnt more and more to recognise each other's
excellences. " The time," saj's Mrs. Harold Browne, " went much too
quickly, as Mr. Browne was obliged to return to Cambridge,
and we did not meet again till just before our marriage.
In the meantime our correspondence was very constant,
although each letter at first cost thirteenpence. Before
however the year was over, we had (and doubtless made
full use of) the benefit of the penny post then first
introduced." Few couples have had so little opportunity for sweet
communings in the interval between engagement and
marriage : the rides through Cornish lanes in the
vacation of 1839 were almost their only chances. Yet
the marriage was very far indeed from being one of the
" marry in haste, repent at leisure " kind. Both dis
positions were sound and true ; there was nothing to
hide on either side ; and probably they understood each
other better than many a couple who have had years of
courtship without discerning the difficulties which lay
before them. As both were in earnest in their Christian
calling, both full of the most genuine Christian charity,
both prepared to make the best of everything in the
wedded life, and hand in hand to face danger and sorrow
as well as peace and joy, — their short courtship was the
fair frontispiece to the solid volume of their half-century
of faithful unity in Christ and in each other.
And if there had been any doubts, they must surely
have been swept away when the household at Truro
entertained an angel unawares in the unlikely person of a
rather crazy Irishwoman. For it had come to the ears of
an old servant and pensioner of the Brownes, that her

64 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
•' dear Master Harold " had got himself entangled in a
love affair : —
" Your name and writing," says an old friend, " induced
us the other day to pay a little attention to a very interest
ing poor Irishwoman. . We proceeded from buying
matches to giving her a breakfast, and succeeded well in
making the poor creature forget her cares for an hour or
two ; and she has promised to visit us again. I never
heard so much of your history before as she imparted to
us— nor was I before aware that you had so much Irish
blood in your veins. The poor creature is very grateful
to you and your sisters."
And this "poor creature" was the assuring angel who
came to the house at Tregrehan. She had been, in the
old Aylesbury days, a kind of " hen-wife," taking care of
the poultry and yard-pets of the family, and had been
kindly treated by all. Harold had been her special
favourite, and after the break-up of the home she grew
restless, being rather unsettled in mind, and took to a
roving life, visiting from time to time the houses of her
old friends, " to see how they were getting on." And now,
having heard of the engagement she tramped all the way
from Bucks to Cornwall, selling matches and sleeping in
sheds and under trees, till at last she reached Tregrehan,
where Miss Carlyon's uncle. General Cariyon, treated her
kindly, and was not a little amused by the poor creature's
talk and enquiries. Old Mary's anxieties were completely
set at rest by her visit to Cornwall ; she gave her hearty con
sent to the match. The little incident is trifling, save in so
far as it throws a light on the kindly and patriarchal ways of
both families, and proves that the loving qualities of Harold
Browne's character won full sympathy from his wife's kinsfolk.
During the nine or ten months of this happy engage
ment two proposals, both highly gratifying to Mr. Browne,
and both indicative of the great esteem and confidence he

II.] HOLY ORDERS AND PARISH WORK. 65
had inspired in the minds of all with whom he had to do,
were made to him ; either post would have enabled him
at once to marry, both were carefully considered and both
firmly though gratefully declined. The one offer probably
tempted him but little ; he was asked in November 1840
to become Head of the Training College at Chelsea, a
post afterwards offered to and accepted by Derwent
Coleridge. The work of a schoolmaster, and still more
that of a trainer of teachers, was one for which he felt no
vocation, and he seems to have declined it at once. The
other offer was far more tempting ; it was the Headship
of Bishop's College at Calcutta, a Theological Seminary
in which young men, mostly Hindoos, were being pre
pared for missionary clerical work in India. His sister,
on April loth, 1839, writes that : —
" Harold has just declined a very flattering offer by the
advice of his friends, who all thought that the exertion in
such a chmate as Calcutta would kill him."
His letter to his sister shows with how cool a judgment
he treated this grave and interesting offer. There is not
in it a touch of feeling. He neither refers to his engage
ment nor does he seem to have been affected by the
strictly missionary aspect of the question. He weighs
the matter dispassionately ; he has no call to go, and
sees no difference between training young men destined
for parishes and other occupations in England, and the
forging of the weapons with which new battles are to be
fought against the vast forces of half-civilised heathendom
in India. Disappointing as the point of view is, there can
be no doubt that the decision, without being heroic, was
quite prudent. '' Emmanuel College, March \^th, 1839.
" My dearest Molly, — I write this evening that I may
not keep you longer in doubt, to say that I have deter-
5

66 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

mined not to accept the offer of Bishop's College. I have
taken all the counsel I can get. Carlyon and Blunt are
both in Cambridge at this moment, and they, as well as
all my friends here, are against my going. Your letter
therefore decided me against it. I have of course had
some anxiety on the subject as I fear I have caused you
much. But I believe I have determined rightly in not
going. I cannot write what I think or feel on the subject.
\ trust I am not influenced by selfish motives in taking
my present course, and I can only pray that I may be
made more useful in my present and future stations than
I should have been had I gone to India. After all, it is
doubtful whether the Head of a College containing twenty
or thirty candidates for the ministry in the Colonies is so
much more useful a sphere than the tutor of a College
consisting of forty or fifty candidates for the parochial
ministry in England. If this be a right statement of the
question I think the doubt is considerable.
" Your most attached brother,
" Harold Browne."
These offers, although they were rejected, appear to
have quickened his desire to take to parish v^^ork. And
so, when a sole charge at Stroud in Gloucestershire was
offered to him by Matthew B. Hale (afterwards Bishop
¦of \^'estern Australia), at that time Vicar of the Mother
Church at Stroud, he consulted those so deeply interested
in his movements at Truro, and finding that there would
be enough to live on, and that Miss Carlyon was willing
to make the venture, he accepted the offer, gave notice
of resignation of his College duties, and made ready to
qualify himself for his new work by bringing with him the
best helper and comrade he could have chosen, his bride.
Edward Harold Browne and Elizabeth Carlyon were
married at Bath on the i8th of June, 1840 ; at the eariiest
moment at which he could get away from tutorial work at
Emmanuel. His pupils, who even in the short time during
which he had been in charge of them had learned to value
and to love him, marked their esteem and regret at his

II.] HOLY ORDERS AND PARISH WORK. 67

going, by combining together to present him with a very
handsome piece of plate, dedicated to him " in suos se
penates recepturo," on going away to set up house for
himself The sole charge of a lately consecrated church. Holy
Trinity, Stroud, with a district of the parish conventionally
assigned to it by the A^icar, began a new era in Harold
Browne's hfe, and may be said to have fully confirmed him
in his preference for practical rather than educational
work. To the end of his da}-s he looked back on his
brief sojourn at Stroud with gratitude and pleasure. The
new wedded life, the solemn charge of what was really a
parish, the first undertaking of all the fatherly duties and
responsibilities of a parish priest, the beauty and healthi
ness of the valley in which Stroud lies, and lastly the
intelHgence of the manufacturing population, all com
bined to leave on the new curate's mind an excellent and
lasting impression. And Stroud received Mr. and Mrs.
Browne with kindliest welcome. No one was a truer
friend to the young couple — then or afterwards — than was
the Vicar of the parish, Mr. Hale. To him we owe a
graphic picture of the new curate's work and life in his
new home, which I venture to print in full: —
" My dear Sir, — I now reply to your letter, written at
the suggestion of Mrs. Harold Browne, to ask for infor
mation about the late Bishop's residence at Stroud.
" I am not at all surprised to hear that you find nothing
about it in the documents already in your possession. In
the first place the late Bishop was in that parish only a
very short time, and in the next place, so far as one knows,
his work there was not in any way linked with any later
steps in his career. It was, if I may so say, an episode in
his career It was the beginning of his life as a married
man, and the beginning of his work as a parochial clergy
man ; and I am rejoiced to have Mrs. Browne's testimony,
now lately given to me, that the episode was a happy one.

68 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

" Stroud might fairly claim to be considered a pleasant
parish to work in. The population was about eight thou
sand ; mostly labouring people or mill-hands connected with
the different woollen cloth manufactories. They were for
the most part decently housed. The mill-owners, and
other well-to-do people, were extremely warm-hearted and
kind, and they desired to make things pleasant for their
pastors. " The late Bishop had, as a separate charge, a new
church, consecrated only a few months before he came, and,
by private arrangement, a separate district connected
with it.
" I need not say how greatly I was helped and supported
in my care of the parish by having so able a man and
a dear friend at that district church. It must be also
equally needless for me to say that he made his mark in
the parish. I will mention only one illustration. Thirty
years after the time I have now been speaking of, viz., in
the year '72, I met at Sydney, in the drawing-room of the
Bishop of Sydney, a very worthy person, who had left
Stroud when I was there to emigrate to New South Wales.
This person produced, for my inspection, a testimonial which
he had received from his employer, and upon the same
sheet of paper were added a few commendatory words
from myself, with my own signature. He had kept up
his interest in Church matters at Stroud, and asked me
a variety of questions about men and events, and one of
his questions was this : ' And who was that tall gentle
man who used to preach such very good sermons ? ' My
pleasure may be imagined when I made answer, 'That
tall gentleman now occupies a distinguished place amongst
the English Bishops.' "
At Stroud the young couple lived in a house, called
"Tower Hill House," which, as Mrs. Browne says,
" was great only in name, except perhaps in the size of its
porch, which one of our friends used to say looked as if it
could carry away the house on its shoulders ; but there
was a beautiful view of the rich hills and vales round
Stroud from its windows, and the inhabitants of the dis
trict were a particularly pleasant set of people, rich and
poor. Oddly enough, I remember an anecdote of one of
our best poor people, a widow, who insisted on marrying

II.] HOLY ORDERS AND PARISH WORK. 69

a drunken good-for-nothing man, and when we expostu
lated with her she said it was a temptation of the evil
one she could not resist. At least she could repent, and
I doubt not she did so at leisure."
Mr Browne, however, had little time at Stroud to watch
the outcome of any part of his work among these friendly
Gloucestershire people. For before he had been there
quite six months the Perpetual Curacy of St James's
Church, Exeter, was offered to him, and he accepted it at
once, because it was a more independent position, and
brought him nearer to Cornwall. It also seemed likely
to provide a rather larger stipend. And to Exeter he
removed forthwith, to read himself in at his new cure ;
his license bearing date of April i6th, 1841.
St. James's was a district church taken in 1836 out of
the large and outgrown parish of St. Sidwell ; and St.
Sidvvell's was the name of a populous suburb of Exeter
outside the east gate of the city. Ecclesiastically it was
only a chapelry, annexed early in the sixteenth century
to tlie parish of Heavitree, and only raised into a rectory
in 1867. At St James's Harold Browne laboured faith
fully for about nine months, living in one of a row of newly
built and very plain houses, called Salutary Place ; the
houses had for their outlook little but a brick-field, and the
view was barely redeemed from a dead level of suburban
unfinished ugliness by the two towers of the Cathedral
Church, visible in the distance. Here Mr. Browne had
charge of a population of over three thousand souls.
In the course of the summer the mother-church of
St Sidwell's, in the gift of the Dean and Chapter of
Exeter, fell vacant was offered to him, and accepted.
Mr. Browne was licensed to it as a Perpetual Curate on
February i6th, 1842. It was a more anxious cure of
souls even than St James's ; there were more than four

EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

thousand inhabitants, in many parts very thickly packed
on the ground; and, as Mrs. Harold Browne says,
"although the principal street looked broad and well-to-
do, it hid behind it numerous lanes and alleys, and rooms
where each corner might house a family, and yet ' a lodger
occupy the middle.'" Here was a large church, the
laro-est in Exeter. The old St Sidwell's had been rebuilt
once in 1659, and again in 1812, and, considering the
period, is a very creditable structure, the tower, pillars,
and some other parts of the older building having been
retained. The family of Sir John Mowbray, M.P. for the Uni
versity of Oxford, lived at Hill's Court in the parish, and
were very much interested in the new Vicar.
" I have \'ery distinct recollection," says Sir John, " of
hearing much of him from my mother, especially during
1842 and 1843, of frequently hearing him in the pulpit,
meeting him at dinner at my father's house, and once
dining with him. I very distinctly recollect how the tone
and character of the services were at once raised, and how
deeply we were all impressed with the earnestness and
devotion of our new pastor ; how much we appreciated his
sermons, — thoughtful, practical, learned without any parade
of scholarship. Socially, I know his high gentlemanlike
bearing, and Mrs. Browne's charming and natural manners,
won the hearts of all. To me it was the commencement
of a friendship which I valued more and more as years
went by ; and it was my singular good fortune to see
them in all their homes (except Lampeter) — at Exeter, at
Heavitree, Kenwyn, Cambridge, Ely, Farnham, St. James's
Square and Dover Street. And it was a great delight to
receive them at my home in Warennes Wood, where my
dear mother always spent three months every year up
to 1887, when she was ninety-five. She had the most
affectionate recollection of the good Bishop from St.
Sidwell's days, and he was always very fond of her."
Any one who knows the kindly hospitality of Warennes
Wood and the clever and delightful family gathered

II,] HOLY ORDERS AND PARISH WORK. 71
happily round Sir John in his beautiful home, will under
stand with what pleasure the Bishop turned aside from
his more regular duties to enjoy a quiet day among his
old Exeter friends.
The pastoral work done by Harold Browne at St.
Sidwell's was in every way exemplary ; he devoted him
self with unflagging energy to his heavy duties, although
he was still so weak in body, chiefly from the after-effects
of the Heidelberg fever of 1835, that he was "at one time
obliged to use a saddle-seat in the pulpit though his
activity and work in the parish were wonderful." There
exists a foolscap sheet containing a record of names of
parishioners, and notes as to their characters and con
ditions. It is a very simple piece of work, kindly and
affectionate, and gives the impression of a diligent and
careful, though not at all inquisitorial, house to house
visitation. At this time Mr. Browne appeared to be quite in the
forefront of the new Church Movement. His Bishop, the
well-known " Henry of Exeter," whose fame as a Church
lawyer and fighting man was great half a century ago,
was much attracted by the earnest young theologian at
St Sidwell's, and always treated him with marked courtesy
and kindness. Bishop Philpotts issued a charge in 1842,
insisting on daily services where they could be had, and
weekly communions ; he also instructed his clergy to wear
the surplice in the pulpit instead of the black gown. The
Bishop's instructions were right, as a matter of Church
order : the morning sermon is treated as a definite portion
of the Communion office, dealt with so as not to draw too
marked a line between the ante-communion and the more
solemn portion of the service ; it forms, in this connection,
the protest of the Church, at the time of its highest office,
against a purely emotional religion. And so, when the

72 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
Bishop's charge appeared, Harold Browne obeyed, not
merely because he had promised to obey, but because he
really thought his Bishop right, and sympathised warmly
with his wish to infuse more order and life into the
services of the Church.
In order to make the matter as clear as he could to his
parishioners, he preached, in October 1842, a sermon on the
subject "which is, except for his Prize Essay at Cambridge,
the earliest of his pubhshed writings. It is entitled " On
Daily Prayer and Frequent Communion," and is dedicated
to his flock in words which show the bent of his mind at
this early period of his ministry : —
" To my Parishioners, for whose use and at the request
of some of whom it is printed, I dedicate this sermon ; in
the earnest hope that it will please God to revive among
them a spirit of primitive piety, and to give them, as His
people, the blessing of peace."
After rather rashly affirming that " the Church was
founded here in Apostolic times, and is of Apostolic
descent" he goes on to draw a distinction, hardly neces
sary for his argument between the Churchman and the
dissenter : —
" The one," he says, " adheres steadfastly to the Apostles'
doctrine and fellowship, and the other is cut off from bothy
It is his most unflinching statement of the view then
coming into prominence, according to which a man who
did not accept Episcopacy was practically cut off from all
certainty of salvation. Then, after developing his subject
Mr. Browne continues thus : —
T5-"i?"^''.u'^^^''^1'^ expression of our reverend Father the
Bishop, that where possible, daily prayer and weekly com
munion ought to be revived, especially in town parishes,
has determined the clergy of this parish to offer to all who
will the power of worshipping Him twice every day, and of

HOLY ORDERS AND PARISH WORK. Jt,

receiving the sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood every
week. There will be prayers in this church (St. Sidwell's)
every morning at ten, and there will be prayers at St.
James's every afternoon at four ; and there will, by God's
permission, be the Holy Communion here every Sunday."
Mr. Browne also determined to wear the surplice in the
pulpit and so to carr}' out to the full his Bishop's wishes.
He was so thoroughly in earnest and both he and his
devoted wife were so much beloved already in the parish,
that so long as he remained, matters were quiet. When,
however, in the following year he left St. Sidwell's, the
pent-up ill-feeling broke out all the more vehemently, and
took the form of riots, which threw the city into uproar
and confusion. ]\Ir. Browne's unlucky successor at St.
Sidwell's, Mr. Courtenay, was so much troubled and
harassed by a disturbance which interfered sorely with.
all his work, and with his chances of living at peace with
his parishioners, that the troubles probably caused, or
at any rate hastened, his death. One of the lighter
features of this controversy may be seen in an epigram
which was printed in one of the local newspapers soon after
Mr. Browne had left Exeter : —
" A very pretty public stir
Is getting up at Exeter
About the surplice fashion ;
And many angry words and rude
Have been bestowed upon the feud,
And much unchristian passion.
" For me, I neither know nor care
Whether a parson ought to wear
A black dress or a white dress,
Filled with a trouble of my own —
A wife who lectures in her gown,
And preaches in her nightdress ! "
Bishop Medley, at that time Mr. Browne's neighbour in

74 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

Exeter, wrote, some years later, a letter which glances at
their life in those early days.
" In this barren jand desolate shore," he writes, "every
trace of England is precious ; and I love to think of our
snug little evenings at the Dean's, where we undertook a
task for which you were really fitted, of interpreting the
Minor Prophets. Like all human efforts, we did less than
we intended, and never reached Zechariah, I believe, or
never finished it. How well I recollect the exact spot
where our footsteps turned opposite ways in those wet and
miry evenings, and how often I longed to have a httle more
of your company."
The tone of affection and regret which runs through this
letter is very touching. We see too how in these early
days Mr. Browne impressed all who came in his way with
his courtesy, affection, and soundness of learning and
churchmanship. It was during their brief stay at Exeter, which between
St. James's and St. Sidwell's did not occupy quite two
years, that their eldest child, Alice, was born to Mr. and
Mrs. Browne. She was born at the White Hart, Bath.
They had been on a visit to their kinsfolk at Rushden
Hall, and were travelling westward on their return. At
that time the long Box Tunnel was not yet opened, and
the last portion of the journey had to be taken in any rough
vehicle which the Company could provide. Unfortunately
their carriage was shaky and the road bad ; and the baby
was born at Bath. She felt the consequences of this hasty
entrance into the worid, and although she lived almost
to womanhood, she was from the beginning a helpless
invalid, who demanded great care and attention, and, as
is so generally the case with those for whom we have to
supply either the physical strength or the mental power
necessary for life, wound herself very tightly round their
heartstrings.

HOLY ORDERS AND PARISH WORK. 75

" There must be cloud," says Mrs. Harold Browne, " as
well as sunshine in most lives, and, although we were
blessed in never-failing love, we had great sorrows in the
loss of six dear children. Our eldest child was an invalid
from her birth, having been shaken into the world by a
rough journey from an unfinished railway line between
Oxford and Bath, where she was prematurely born in
1841 ; she lived to be seventeen j-ears old, and although
she was perfectly made and quite sensible, she was never
able to control any of her muscles, and was obliged to be
held in the arms of others, even when sitting or lying
down. She had high spirits notwithstanding, and a great
sense of fun, laughing heartily at any amusing story either
read to her or in conversation. She inherited her father's
love for animals and had many pets ; one dog especially
watched over her.
" I have given this account of our dear Alice, as her
state of health greatly affected her father, who was quite
devoted to her and constantly tired himself by carrying
her about in his arms. This also often prevented my
going with my husband to Cambridge or elsewhere on his
duties ; so we were often separated, but we never failed
to write to one another every day. Our second child,
Edith, was born at Ivy Cottage, Exeter, and went with us
to Lampeter, where two years after she was taken from
us by scarlet fever after only two days' illness. Three
sons and one little daughter were born at Lampeter, only
two of whom lived to grow up, Harold and Barrington.
Thirlwall, Robert, and Dorothea were born at Kenwyn, and
have been mercifully spared to us. Beatrice and Walter
died at Exeter when quite young. A baby's death almost
breaks one's heart at the time, however well we know that
they are taken in love to their Saviour's bosom. My dear
husband's heart was sorely tried by these bereavements,
and for the first seventeen years of our married life the
clouds seemed more felt than the sunshine. But there is
' a silver lining to every cloud,' and the great kindness and
sympathy of our relations and friends, and the love of our
dear children, and our deep love for one another, enabled
us by God's blessing to live happily in the beautiful homes
which afterwards fell to our lot. We lived in fourteen
different homes during the fifty years of our married
life."

CHAPTER III.
vice-principal OF LAMPETER COLLEGE.
THE license of Mr. Courtenay as new Incumbent of St.
Sidwell's, Exeter, is dated August 19th, 1843 ; so that
Mr. Browne had charge of that parish just eighteen months.
He now removed from Exeter to Lampeter College, of
which he had been appointed Vice-Principal. The place
deserves more than a passing notice. It lies in the Vale
of the Teify, one of the most beautiful salmon rivers in
South Wales, and is in the diocese of St. David's, in a
pleasing and hilly district. In 1843, it was little more than
a village, with a population of less than a thousand; it
consisted of one long street, wide and straggling, with
small stone houses on either side, the roofs of which were
thatched and blackened by the smoke of peat-fuel dug
from the neighbouring bogs. The neighbourhood was thinly
peopled with Welsh-speaking inhabitants. There was a
fair grammar-school ; and at such schools, up to the second
quarter of this century, Welsh lads ambitious of Holy Orders
were mainly educated. Of special training there was hardly
a trace. Struck by the crying wants of his diocese. Bishop
Burgess had determined to set aside a tenth of his income
towards the establishment and endowment of a College for
theological students, and for eighteen years, nearly the
whole time of his sojourn at St. David's, he steadily accu
mulated capital for this purpose. Roused by his enthusiasm,
76

Ch. hi.] VICE-PRINCIPAL OF LAMPETER COLLEGE. yy

friends of the Principality in England and Wales sent
him no little help ; he also received ;^i,ooo from King
George IV.
In 1822 he opened his Welsh Theological College, though
without buildings. These soon followed ; and by 1827 the
College at Lampeter was built, at a cost of ;^20,ooo ; in the
following year it was incorporated by Royal Charter, and
in 1829 formally opened and occupied by the students
It consisted of a chapel, a hall and library, rooms for
scholars, and houses for the professors. It stands pictur
esquely on the site of the ancient castle, of which the keep,
a big mound planted with trees, with a walk climbing up
it and a summer-house with a fine view at the top, is in the
garden of the Vice -Principal, and was a favourite retreat of
Mr. Browne.
" The Vice-Principal's house was," says Mr. Browne's
successor, " an ugly little plastered rough-cast villa outside,
with sufficient and convenient accommodation within ; the
drawing-room was very pleasant, the other two rooms were
small." For twenty years from the time of its opening, St. David's
College had been very much out of the world. The nearest
town, Llandovery, was twenty-two miles off ; access to it
was by a stage coach, over roads none too good or easy.
The Bishop had placed the College there because he wished
the students to run into no social temptations ; a considerate
thought, which unfortunately worked very ill ; for the lads
often needed cultivation and the refinements of life, and,
left to themselves, were by no means unwilling to take their
recreation in the village ale-house, from which the advan
tages of better society might have weaned them.
The form of constitution favoured by Bishop Burgess,
and laid down by Charter, was also unfortunate. The
Bishop of St. David's was permanent Visitor, and the Dean

78 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
of St David's Principal ; a scheme which worked badly,
as the Dean took small share in the actual teaching,
knew little of the needs of students, and yet had almost
autocratic power over the finance, the commissariat, and
the domestic management of the College. With the best
of Deans this arrangement would have been unfortunate ;
as it was, here lay the main difficulty for the young
Institution. In addition to this drawback, which placed
responsibility without authority on the Vice-Principal's
shoulders, Lampeter had other sources of difficulty : these
were, first, the want of a sufficient endov^^ment, in conse
quence of which the education could not be made so cheap
and economical as was desirable for poor students ; secondly,
the College could not grant Degrees, till 1853, when it
received the power of conferring only those of B.A. and
B.D. ; then, the students were painfully unprepared at
starting ; and lastly, the English bishops, and even some
Welsh, regarded men who had been trained at Lampeter
vvith a chilling coldness.
Dr. Ollivant, afterwards Bishop of Llandaff, was the
first Vice-Principal, and held the office till the year 1843,
when he was called back to Cambridge as Regius Professor
of Divinity.
The following letter, from the Dean of St. David's,
began the negotiation which ended in the transference of
Mr. Browne, his family and interests, from Exeter to
Lampeter : — "St. David's College,
"April loth, 1843.
"Reverend Sir,— You may possibly have heard that
Dr. Olhvant the new Regius Professor at Cambridge,
occupied for many years the office of V.-P (with the Pro
fessorship of Hebrew) at this College. That office is still
vacant and your name having been mentioned to the
Bishop of St. Davids in very high terms, I am induced

hi.] VICE-PRINCIPAL OF LAMPETER COLLEGE.

79

thus to trespass upon you, to enquire whether you would
be inclined to enter into a negotiation on the subject— if
such a post would be likely to meet your wishes.
"There is a comfortable house, detached from the
College, though in the grounds ; a garden, stables, and
coach-house. The rates and taxes of the premises are
paid out of a common fund. The money income, I believe
I may safely say, would average ;^6oo per annum. The
duties are not very onerous, consisting almost entirely
in daily lectures \\l\h the Theological Class in Hebrew,
Greek Testament Pearson or Grotius, occupying on the
whole about one and a half or two hours.
" A gentleman of the name of North is at present my
only resident colleague. We are both married men with
famihes. I mention this fact, as I understand you are
yourself married, and I presume your lady would be
interested in such an enquir}'. In this remote country, it
is well to be, in some degree at least, independent of
external resources as to society. Begging the favour of
a reply, " I am. Reverend Sir,
" Your faithful servant,
"Llewelyn Lewellin.
" The Rev. E. H. Browne."
The communication was so unexpected that Mrs. Browne
writes, " At that time we knew nothing of Lampeter, not
even being quite sure as to \^here it was ; " an d it must
have seemed like banishment to them. They had no
connection with Wales ; the position of St. David's
College was far from being secure ; it seems strange that
Mr Browne should have entertained the proposal. There
were, however, one or two good reasons for it. First, he
had discovered that a large parish well worked was very
exhausting to his strength ; and there was also another and a
very serious reason for a change. Mr. Browne's obedience
to his Bishop's orders as to preaching in a surplice and
daily prayers had offended many of his parishioners ; and
though, from respect for his personal character, they had not
as yet broken out into active opposition, he felt that trouble

8o EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
was in the air, and he must have keenly felt the risk he was
running. He might any day have to face an outbreak ;
and with an outbreak much of his influence on the parish
would go at once, whatever might be the end of it. There
was also, of course, the hope that at Lampeter there would
be an improved income, with fewer calls on it.
The Head of his College, Dr. Archdall, in congratulating
him on his appointment makes the great mistake of think
ing that he is going to a quiet scene of dignified repose.
" I trust," he says, "you will find comfort and repose
and leisure at Lampeter, provided the ' Rebecca' rabble do
not break in upon your peace and quiet In going to
settle yourself there you will not have many turnpikes
to pay."
At the close of the summer vacation of 1843, Mr.
Browne removed to Lampeter, reaching St. David's
College at a time when the " Rebecca " riots were in full
swing. The early numbers of the Illustrated London
News contain fancy pictures of the doings of " Rebecca "
and " Charlotte," These two personages, unmistakably
men in size and walk, the sons of a Welsh nobleman,
were not dressed as women, but wore shirts over their
ordinary attire ; and in this garb headed the farmers and
peasantry of South Wales in their practical protest against
the turnpike system. The tolls were high, the bars
frequent and the tax pressed heavily on the farmers.
Though the origin of the name " Chariotte " is uncertain,
that of "Rebecca" is plain. As is so often the case
in the nomenclature of peasant-revoh, it has its origin in
Scripture, and is taken from Gen, xxiv. 60 : " And they
blessed Rebekah, and said unto her, ... Let thy seed
possess the gate of those that hate them," As the Vice-
Principal's house at Lampeter was close to the turnpike
gate, the Vicar of the parish warned the new comer

III.] VICE-PRINCIPAL OF LAMPETER COLLEGE. 8l

that any night he might be aroused by " Rebecca," He
advised him to show no lights in any of the rooms,
as it was one of the unwritten laws of " Rebecca " that
those who made no sign should not be molested, while a
Hght in a window would be sure to attract unpleasant
attention. This precaution Mr. Browne unluckily could
not take, for the little Alice must have a light in her
room ; and perhaps he was inclined to make little of the
warning. If so, he was soon undeceived. A few days
later, about two in the morning, the family were aroused
by a volley of guns, and by the noise of the demolition of
the gate ; the light in a bedroom at once attracted the
attention of the rioters, one of whom threw a turf and
broke the window, to the alarm of the invalid child and
her nurse ; no other damage, happily, was done, and, as
Mrs. Harold Browne said, " We always used to call it our
first card." Later on, when, in other parts of Wales, the
rioting became more serious, troops were called out, and
the disturbances put down. The Welsh argument, how
ever, prevailed ; the heavy tolls were greatly reduced, and
a better system began, which has since spread all over
England and Wales.
The duties attached to the office of Vice-Principal at
Lampeter were for the most part very congenial to Harold
Browne. He had to give lectures in Dogmatic Theology,
sometimes in Church History ; he also taught Hebrew
for the Old Testament, and Greek for the New ; the draw
back being that many of his pupils had to begin almost
from the very rudiments, and rarely acquired more than
the outiines of either language. In Dogmatic Theology,
Mr Browne's labours bore more fruit ; for it is to the
lectures at Lampeter that we owe his well-known " Expo
sition of the Thirty-N ine Articles."
He had such clearness and power of explanation, such
6

82 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

a gift of orderly arrangement of facts, such a pleasant
utterance and moderation and winning friendliness of tone,
that one of those who heard his lectures says that " they
were all that first-rate lectures should be." As a preacher,
also, he won golden opinions. For " his sermons," as the
aged Archdeacon North says, in reminiscences of the
Bishop written only a few months before his own death,
" were plain in style, yet impressive from their earnest
manner of delivery, full of instruction and of practical
lessons. Many a clergyman," he adds, " now long esta
blished in the ministry throughout England and Wales,
still remembers the valued addresses, which instructed
their minds and told effectually on their hearts and lives.
What especially marked his character was the spirit which
affected all who were in contact with him, and who felt
the subtle power of high character and example in a gifted
man of God."
Mr. Browne soon encountered far more serious difficulties
than were thrown in his way by the outbreaks of" Rebecca "
and his rough company. The College, after about fourteen
years of existence, had made but little progress, and, as
one of the onlookers said, "Harold Browne in 1843 found
it in the worst possible condition." It combined the
rawness of a new institution with some of the abuses
and laxity of administration which people associate with
ancient foundations. The College had never had a fair
chance ; and the Professor, who went there eager for
studious work and teaching, soon found himself confronted
with some most trying questions of management His
seven years at Lampeter were a ceaseless struggle for
the rule of common sense and honesty. A more harassing
position can hardly be imagined. The problem was how
to raise the intellectual and social standing of the students,
while it was not possible to charge such fees as would
provide funds for first-rate help ; the bad system of the
commissariat also made economies impossible.

III.] VICE-PRINCIPAL OF LAMPETER COLLEGE. 83
The following letter from Bishop Thiriwall, addressed
to Mr. Browne after he had left Lampeter, illustrates this
point : — "Abergwili, March 12th, 1850.
"My DEAR Sir,— I find that some statements have
been made lately in the Daily News by a person signing
himself ' Giraldus,' to the effect that the regulation by
which a certificate of two years' residence at a Grammar
School is required from candidates for admission at
Lampeter has been frequently and notoriously violated.
My attention was drawn to the subject by the Archdeacon
of Cardigan, who added his own testimony as to one
instance, the case of a person of the name of Green, who,
as he states, was with him for five months, and having
learnt the Latin Grammar had just crept into the Delectus
and then ' became without any certificate from him a
member of St. David's College.' Do you remember such
a person, and any of the circumstances of his admission ?
And are you able to inform me whether a certificate is
actually required according to the letter and spirit of the
regulation ?
" I wish to learn from you as exactly as I can how the
case stands before I address the Dean on the subject
And I should be much obliged if you could suggest some
mode of guarding against such abuses in future.
" I am, my dear Sir,
" Yours faithfully,
" C. St David's."
" With difficulty," says the Archdeacon, " he got Oxford
and Cambridge examiners ; all was irregular, in studies,
finance, everything ; he did much in the way of palliation
and remonstrance."
I am specially fortunate in having received from Canon
J. J. Douglas, B.D., J.P. of Kirriemuir, N.B., a very graphic
and pleasing picture of the outset of Harold Browne's
work at Lampeter. Canon Douglas was one of the
students at the time of the new Vice-Principal's arrival,
and writes of him with vivid remembrance : —
"Dr Ollivant had been a stiff and stern man, and did

84 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

not succeed in gaining the affection of the students. The
new Vice-Principal soon succeeded where his predecessor
had failed. I remember his figure perfectly well, — tall and
graceful, with light hair, a slight stoop, and an amiable
facial expression. His young wife we all thought a very
charming person, and admired her extremely. They
resided in the Vice-Principal's house a little to the north
of the College. We often saw with great interest their
little children as they were taken out by the nurse regularly
for an airing in a small perambulator.
" The new Professor soon effected a great improvement
in the religious tone of the College Chapel services, notably
in the increased number and in the demeanour of the
communicants. Mr. Browne's manner was indicative of
unaffected reverence and devotion. His sermons I do
not remember, but I know that we divinity students always
looked forward to them as a great treat, and carefully
attended to every word.
" At that period there were ' great searchings of heart '
in regard to the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration, and
the Professor of course often discoursed upon it in the
lecture room, and also in private conversations. A set
of men called ' Saints ' disliked this. The majority of the
students, however, adopted the Professor's views as in
harmony with the teaching of the Prayer-Book. A more
faithful son of the English Church never existed. It was
touching and beautiful to hear him speaking of her as ' My
Mother '— ' my Mother the Church of England.'
" The Professor took a lively and affectionate interest
in all the Divinity students, and repeatedly invited those
who cared to go to his private house. In his well-arranged
drawing-room he used to give us an excellent tea and
make us read Hooker and Pearson on the Creed, inter
spersed with his comments and interesting conversation.
Mrs. Browne was generally present on these occasions.
They were both particulariy kind to us, and we in our
turn were very grateful and conceived a great regard for
them. " ^
" The Professor was also an excellent Hebrew scholar,
and evidently always carefully prepared his lecture on the
Old Testament. We studied with him a large portion of
the Book of Proverbs in the original. I can truly say that
to him I owe not only my first religious impressions but
also the principles of Church doctrine and practice. I

III.] VICE-PRINCIPAL OF LAMPETER COLLEGE. 85
never can forget the kind instructions he gave me at my
last viva voce examination in December 1844, just before
I went up to York to be examined by the Archbishop's
chaplains for Deacon's orders."
And the Vicar of Rhymney, Prebendary Evans, who
left the College in 1848, and was therefore all his time,
three years and a half under Harold Browne, adds one or
two touches to the picture : —
" He was," he says, " a tall, slender man with very long
fingers. All the collegians looked up to him with the
highest respect. His lectures on the Articles were so lucid,
so well-arranged, and so exhaustive, that we signed a
petition asking him to publish them. Such was the origin
of the book which has ever since been the standard work
on the Articles. His sermons were searching, incisive,
and impressive. I often saw some of the students in tears
when he was preaching. . . . He was remarkable for his
gentleness and his genuine piety ; we all regarded him as an
eminently pious man ; and he was so gentle that I never
saw him in a passion. I never heard him utter a harsh
word whatever the provocation might be."
In April 1848, Mr. Browne, descending some stairs, had
a very severe fall, and was laid up in consequence ; his
side, which had suffered once before from an accident
in Switzerland, specially giving him pain. Rheumatic
symptoms shewed themselves, and had to be treated with
plasters and strong liniments. These successive injuries
caused him trouble in after Hfe, though he was, as a rule,
a healthy man.
The domestic hfe of the young Professor at Lampeter
was of untold value as a humanising element for the
rougher Welsh students. Though his career there began
in the midst of storm and clouds, his transparent goodness,
his real sense of religion, as to which the Welsh are ever
very sensitive, his gentle influence and unaffected kindli
ness, before long made him very dear to the whole place,

86 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
Students and inhabitants alike. Had he been a Welshman
they could not have liked him better ; the impulsive
element in the Welsh character was touched at once.
Their servants clung to them affectionately and loyally ;
their factotum, Daniel Ollivant, who had taken, according
to the clannish Welsh usage, his late master's name, and
was gardener, groom, coachman, and even sometimes
waited at table, lived with them all the time they were at
Lampeter ; one of their most favourite servants, Esther
Davies, came to them at first in her pretty Welsh dress, and
stayed in the household more than forty years, following
the Bishop's fortunes from place to place with unswerving
fidelity, watching like a mother over the children, and
in the end marrying the Bishop's body-servant
"The Bishop married them," says Mrs. Browne, "our
daughter and a cousin being bridesmaids, and all our sons
and Miss Browne being present."
This devotion of their servants bears eloquent testimony
to the kindness and sympathetic consideration with which
all were treated in that household ; it also unfortunately
sometimes led to wastefulness on the part of the domestics.
And an open-handed kindness, so liable to be imposed
on right and left marked all the dealings of the young
Professor and his family with all around them.
Archdeacon North writes of these days : 
" 'To do good and to distribute forget not ' was a maxim
which ruled the practice of both Mr. and Mrs. Harold
Krowne, with whom may be associated his sister Miss
tirowne, whose memory lives still in fond recollection of
many friends of those distant days  Poor and sick
were blessed by benevolence, the unostentatious exercise
of which distributed benefits known only to the recipients,
excepting friendly observers, who could not fail to infer
from their effects.
No ivonder that Mrs. Harold Browne could say that

III.] VICE-PRINCIPAL OF LAMPETER COLLEGE. 87

"we found the peasantry most warm-hearted people,
grateful for any kindness shown them. They did not
speak much English then, but we soon got to understand
one another."
"Love will find out the way" is as true of Christian
charity as of courtship. Let us see the warmth of their
Celtic affections in the letter of " an old carpenter and
great friend," as Mrs. Browne calls him, one Enoch Jones,
who was moved by tidings of the Bishop's translation to
the See of Winchester, long years after these Lampeter
days, to write as follows : —
"I hope you will forgive poor old Enoch in taking such
liberty in writing to you to express is feelings : when he
hird that you wos made Bishop of Winchester he cryed
with joy and went to ask Esther Davis was it true ? and
when she answer yes my feelings went that I coud harly
speck with joy. — ENOCH JONES."
The young couple were open-handed up to and even
beyond their means ; and as the repute of the generosity
of the Vice-Principal's house spread abroad, not only the
inhabitants of Lampeter, but the Welsh from villages
around, trooped in whenever they were in trouble, or could
make it appear that they were. It is told of one old
fellow from the hills, who had trudged in to Lampeter one
day to see what he could get, that he came up the street
asking, " Where is the gentleman who gives to all ? " (P'le
mae'r gur boneddig sy'n rhoi i bawb ?), and when he heard
that Mr. Browne had just bidden farewell to the College
and was gone away for good, he filled the whole road with-
lamentation. The influence Mr. Browne exercised over all around
him was exactly what had been wanting at Lampeter
before his time ; one of his old pupils writes, " He had
immense influence over the men, and raised the College to

88 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

a high standard." No one who has come under the
influence of that beautiful life can ever forget it. Nor can
it be wondered at that the houses in the country round
(especially the houses of Mr. Brigstock of Blaenpant Miss
Webley Parry, and Mr. Charles Morris) were all thrown
open gladly for the reception of the Vice-Principal and his
wife. Now at one house, now at another, they spent a
night or two, leaving behind them most pleasant memories.
" Our visits to the Bishop of St. David's " (Connop
Thirlwall), says Mrs. Browne, " we always enjoyed ; I think
the most sociable time was at breakfast, when great discus
sions went on, not always learned. The Bishop was very
fond of flowers and animals " [that large-souled nature of
his could not help having sympathy enough and to spare
for all manner of God's creatures] ; " several cats and three
dogs at least lived in the house ; one dog called ' Wop '
was an animal of great character, not always loved or even
respected by the clergy. A large amoUnt of bread and
toast was collected after breakfast and taken by the Bishop
to feed his birds in the aviary, and his ' gooseys,' as he
called them, who came waddling up to the banks of the
river as soon as they heard his voice. There were
beautiful walks and drives about Abergwili (the Bishop's
palace), and no lack of amusement indoors, for every book
that came out seemed to find its way there. The Bishop
used often of an evening to stand by the drawing-room
chimneypiece, a book in one hand and a paper-cutter in
the other, his eyes shut as if in sleep ; yet he heard all
that was said, and rather astonished his friends sometimes
by making a sudden but very apt observation on what
they had been saying. My husband valued his friendship
exceedingly ; it lasted till his death."
With his many lectures and conscientious determination
to make his teaching as sound and good as possible, Mr
Browne's days were fully occupied ; he learnt Welsh, and
also Arabic and Syriac, which he studied by fixing up
notes on grammar and vocabulary above his washstand,
so that he might commit them to memory while he dressed ;

III.] VICE-PRINCIPAL OF LAMPETER COLLEGE. 89

profuse of money, he was chary of time, and throughout
his Hfe a rapid and diligent student. Nor did he forget
the social interests of his students ; from time to time
they were invited to his house, that they might see a little
of the pleasures of a refined and affectionate home-life.
In these more social hours Mr. Browne gathered infor
mation from the young men regarding those points of bad
management which so seriously injured the College, and
were a continual trouble and annoyance to his upright and
generous nature. Sometimes, the little parties turned to
Hghter things, and the evening was spent merrily enough
in quiet games, or in composing poems and charades. Of
these one or two ha\-e survived, and may be set down here
as specimens of the simple amusements of a winter's night.
The first is by Mr. Browne himself an innocent charade : —
" My first with even pace
iVIoves in unvaried round ;
But as it moves it makes
What man's dull course will bound.
" My next its warnings heed,
Warnings of fear and love,
Lord of the world below.
Heir to the world above.
" Oft in the stilly night,
When slumber's chain hath bound us,
My whole with voice of night
His guardian care spreads round us."
And no doubt the ancient guardian of the night often
made the silent street of Lampeter echo with his cry.
Mrs. Harold Browne followed in a lighter strain, not
fearing to make play with the arcana of women's dress ;
or Miss Browne, with her clever poetic turn, rose to a
somewhat higher flight as she praised and sported with
the incoming of spring.

90

EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

When Mr. Browne had spent more than a year at
Lampeter he was presented to the sinecure Rectory of
Llandewi Yelfrey in the county of Pembroke, with which
went a Canonry or Prebend in St. David's Cathedral.
This piece of preferment is in the gift of the College at
Lampeter, and is usually held by the Vice-Principal as
a help to his narrow income. The value of it is ;^20o a
year. The spiritual care of the inhabitants, some six
hundred in number, is entrusted to a Vicar, whose income
is somewhat larger than that assigned to the Rector.
Mr. Browne set himself steadily to raise the level of
the Church in Wales, by endeavouring to turn into it
the religious enthusiasm of the Methodist preachers, by
slaking the fiery Evangelicalism of Welsh churchman-
ship, and by providing the Church with well-equipped
pastors. The main difficulty lay in the relations between the
Principal and the College. Nothing can exceed the severity
with which the late Archdeacon of Cardigan speaks of
these matters. One would gladly set such squalors aside
and draw nothing but the brighter lights. Justice, how
ever, to the College in its early struggles, and to the valiant
young \^ice-Principal, demands that the matter should not
be passed over. As Archdeacon North sadly says : —
" The darker shades were a perpetual source of affliction
to me and my dear colleagues the several Vice-Principals.
... I bore the martyrdom, which also made the progress
of the College hopeless, for some years afterwards."
He characterises the evil as " thwarting a scheme of Sir
T. Phillips, the generous donor of the Library," and as a
" positive obstruction to our progress."
Whatever the Vice-Principal may have felt or thought,
he seems to have laboured on in silence from 1843 to 1848,
and only to have begun to shew signs of restiessness in

III.] VICE-PRINCIPAL OF LAMPETER COLLEGE. g\

that famous " year of revolutions." The temper of the
time perhaps even penetrated to Lampeter, and set students
and tutors moving against an irresponsible despotism.
What however, appears to have roused Mr. Browne to
open action was the rumour which reached Lampeter to the
effect that another and a rival institution was about to be
established by the Bishop of St. David's at Llandovery ;
this apparently set him enquiring how the Lampeter
College could be made more efficient and more economical,
so as to meet the strain of competition. He also wrote
a letter on the subject to the Bishop, which shews that
his mind was turning towards work in his old University
of Cambridge, and that his friends there had not lost sight
of or forgotten him. We have not the actual letter sent
by the Vice-Principal to the Bishop of St. David's, but
only Mr. Browne's draft, with phrases which may have
afterwards been altered. Such as it is, in the great dearth
of materials for this period of the Bishop's life we give it
as it stands. The paper is undated ; it belongs to the
summer of 1 848 : —
" My Lord, — I may well apologise to your Lordship for
venturing to trouble you with a subject almost entirely
concerning myself To detain you as little as I can, some
friends of mine at Cambridge (for whom I entertain con
siderable respect) have begged me to become a candidate
for the Professorship of Hebrew soon likely to be vacant,
with an assurance that I have a good prospect of success,
as some of the probable candidates are not likely from
various causes to meet with support (I bear a better
character than, I fear, I deserve.) My first reply was that
I did not think I should succeed ; that I did not think
myself qualified to compete with such persons as Dr. Mill,
etc.,— did not think it right to take an office for which others
were better fitted, and for which I feared I was not qualified ;
and lastly that I felt it my duty not to leave a post in
which I hoped I was useful, for one for which I might not
be so well qualified. The two former objections have been

92 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D [Ch.

combated by my friends with various arguments. The
last alone is that on which I take the liberty of writing to
your Lordship.
" It has been forced on my notice lately that the College
to which I am attached is in a very precarious position.
Popular opinion runs strongly against some things con
nected with it. Even the improvements lately introduced,
whilst they have had no time to produce good fruit have
tended to frighten many from coming to us, and to make
them look out for an easier as well as a cheaper passport
to Ordination. Just at the same moment springs up the
school at Llandovery, — not a school, but ' an institution
betAA'cen a grammar school and a university.' The general
feeling of the people is that it is to supersede Lampeter,
and the enthusiasm with which it was welcomed a few
days since has of course tended to strengthen this belief
How far it is the wish of some connected with it that this
should be the case remains to be seen. I need hardly tell
your Lordship that if young men imagine they can finish
their education at such a place as Llandovery, they will
never incur the additional expense of going to Lampeter
Thus, just at the time when in one department at least
most important improvements were making, there seems
considerable danger that the College will almost cease to
exist. " It would be very impertinent in me to ask your Lord
ship to express on this subject any opinion, beyond what
you may be inclined to give. But I trust you will allow
me to put it in the following point of view.
"A month ago I gave up all thought of being a candidate
for the Professorship at Cambridge, in great degree because
I thought Lampeter a most important post, because
(however small my abilities and however cramped by
circumstances) I thought and hoped I was of use there,
and because, though not a very desirable place of residence,
yet I had there the means of maintaining my family. 1
knew indeed then that the College was in bad odour. Yet
I hoped, from the many marks of respect I continually
received, that I was not the cause of its low esteem. Since
that time, however, I have seen reason to think and know
that others, less interested, think that without strong sup
port the CoHege must go. In that case I should lose at
once the means of being useful and of providing for my
family, and should retire from a sphere of labour in which

III.] VICE-PRINCIPAL OF LAMPETER COLLEGE. 93

I had worked, unsuccessfully perhaps, but to the best of
my power and against great disadvantages, with discredit
if not disgrace.
" How this may turn out must in some degree depend
on the view your Lordship may take of it I do not mean
that your Lordship can fully control events or opinions.
But they will be materially influenced by your [judgment],
and I should feel greatly obliged if you could, consistently
with your own views of prudence, give me, in strict con
fidence, such a degree of light on the prospects of the
CoUege as may serve to direct me a little in my present
difficulties." Bishop Thirlwall's reply, dated July 17th, 1848, endea
vours to shew that the proposed Llandovery " Institution "
ought not to affect the fortunes of Lampeter unfavourably,
not being ' in pari materie,' and ends with a rather frigid
phrase, asking the Vice-Principal not to go away. It seems
evident from the manner of the letter, that though Bishop
Thirlwall did not pay much heed to the Llandovery
scare, he still did not doubt that Mr. Browne was wise
in thinking about a move to some more congenial and
permanent post.
The subject of a Training College for Welsh Clergy,
and the scheme of a separate Welsh University, were
much debated during the summer months of 1848. Sir
Thomas Phillips, who had been a munificent benefactor
to Lampeter, appears to have suggested the plan to the
Welsh Episcopate and clergy. The Welsh Bishops, how
ever, jealous of anything which might seem to tend
towards severance from England, and not so proud as
they might have been of the ancient British Church of
which they are, in a sense, the representatives, were definitely
opposed to the scheme ; and Bishop Thirlwall, the fourth
of them, writing on August 5th, 1848, after having seen
the written opinions of the other three, summed up the
opposition in a strong letter to Sir Thomas Phillips.

94

EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

All this set of Welsh opinion was very alarming to
those whose interests and work were bound up with the
prosperity of Lampeter. Mr. Browne, Mr. North, and
perhaps one or two outside friends, held anxious discussions
as to the right course to be taken : it is plain that the
Vice-Principal, while he was ready to face any difficulties
which might arise, was at the same time thinking about
withdrawal from the scene. His peaceful disposition and
sensitiveness made him reluctant to give pain, if it could
be avoided. We may imagine how unwillingly he set
himself about this time to write the following letter to
the Principal of St. David's College, Dr. Lewellin, whom
he rightly regarded as the chief difficulty in the way of
such a reform as might, with vigorous and capable teaching
and administration, win for the College the confidence of
students and a much needed modicum of success. The
letter is undated and (being only a draft) has been left in
an unfinished state : —
"My dear Dr. Lewellin, — I should much prefer
speaking, but that in communications of importance
mistakes are prevented by writing. And I should be very
sorry to express myself so that you should misunderstand
me. " I write to >ou now because I feel that our existence
as a body is not only threatened, but in imminent danger
of dissolution. I am myself so little satisfied with our
position that, unless we right, I shall seek some other
sphere of action ; and I hope it will not be thought by you
arrogant or offensive if I add that one strong reason
which weighed with me against becoming a candidate for
the Professorship at Cambridge was the assurance, which
had previously been given mc in several quarters, that if
[I] have to leave the College it would be the signal for
its speedy and probably total dissolution. Had I heard
nothing but this, I should have been sufficiently aware of
our dangerous position. But I have heard a great deal
more, and am sure that we are now so out of favour with
the higher powers, with the clergy, and 7nost of all with

III.] VICE-PRINCIPAL OF LAMPETER COLLEGE. 95
the gentry, that nothing but a vigorous effort can save us,
and this, I fear, may be too late. I have never before
fully entered on the topics on which I now propose to
write, because I have feared to moot questions which
might disturb that feeling of friendship which has existed,
and I trust will yet exist, between us, and might interfere
with the harmony of the collegiate body. But I now have
come to the conclusion that I must do no or go ; and that,
if we cannot make some changes which will bring us the
confidence of the public, we must make up our minds to
retire in favour of Archdeacon Williams \i.e. of Llandovery].
"The two things about which I have long heard the
greatest complaints are : —
" 1st The inefficiency of our examinations, and the
very unqualified men we have admitted to the College.
This I have always strongly felt ; and have therefore
always been an advocate for examiners from without.
Their appointment will, I hope, in a measure remedy the
defect and remove the complaint.
" 2nd. The expense of the education here ; the fact that
the affairs of the College are all administered by one, and
that the most irresponsible, member of it ; that the Principal
is at once tutor, bursar, steward, and even farmer and
butcher ; and that the accounts are not sufficiently public.
" I am naturally very unwilling to allude to this, but I
hear of it in all directions, and I am sure that it raises the
strongest prejudice and the hardest suspicions against you
everywhere. I do not wish to conceal from you that I
have from the first personally felt that in many points
there was an absolute control exercised in the College
utterly inconsistent with the constitution of a corporate
body, utterly unlike what is exercised in any other College
in the kingdom, and particularly unlike that which in the
original constitution of this College was evidently contem
plated. I have, however, endeavoured to suppress any
feelings of the kind which were chiefly personal, and speak
now from pubhc motives.
" I have constantly had to defend you from accusations
which are current against you ; and I am sure you are in
no degree aware of the intensity of the public feeling on
this head.'
"The two points especially objected to in this particular
are the management of the Scholarship fund, to which I
have already called your attention, and the providing of

96 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D D. [Ch.

the dinner. The former you have already given attention
to, and have done what I should have thought enough to
satisfy objections. The latter I should earnestly wish you
to take into serious consideration. The last year that we
audited, the dinners came to ;^I7 los. to each man on the
averao-e. The greatest number of weeks that we ever
reside^ is twenty-seven, giving about 13.^. a week, or nearly
2s. a day, for each man's dinner, — considerably more than
it costs in either University. I am inclined to think that
a better mode of purveying would remedy this.
" I may add that one of the greatest causes of public
indignation is that you provide the College from your own
farm. Whatever advantages may accrue from this, it is
so very unpopular a thing that I cannot but hope you will
give it up."
The evils which goaded Mr. Browne to write this letter
must have become an intolerable burden before he could
have been moved to take such decided action.
And the letter was, in fact, the preface to a series of
Resolutions to be laid before the Bishop of St David's.
Mr. Browne had now received from the Bishop of Exeter
the offer of the important living of Kenwyn, near Truro,
and he felt that a man on the point of departure might
speak his mind with freedom and break through the crust
of bad custom, and so leave to his successor a much better
chance of raising the College than he himself had enjoyed.
He would avoid the likelihood of a quarrel, and of un
pleasant communications with the Principal ; while his
successor would arrive without any prejudice against him,
and would be able to take up and carry on the requisite
reforms without so much difficulty.
In a second letter to his sister, dated October 31st, 1849,
he reviews the position clearly : —
" The Canonry (at St David's) is not bribe enough. I
would rather have Kenwyn without, than Lampeter with,
a Canonry. But we all fear that it may be a duty not to
leave St. David's in such a pinch of need. Melvill, you

III.] VICE-PRINCIPAL OF LAMPETER COLLEGE. 97
see, is like a man beside himself But the Bishop's letter,
for him, is unusually strong and warm. I have written
again to both, combating their conclusions ; but I feel
that if they are right we must sacrifice wishes to duty.
And Lizzy feels it most of all, and never offers one
argument for Kenwyn. It is a sad trial to us. It did
seem as if a ray of sunshine had at length fallen upon us.
Now it is all dark again, as far as this world goes. May
God give us grace to judge and act rightly."
It was probably with Kenwyn in view that, on the 7th
.of November, 1849, Harold Browne addressed another long
letter to the Principal, of which we have the draft : —
"S. D. C, November 1th, 1849.
"My dear Mr. Dean, — This is a time of no small
anxiety to me. It happens also to be one of no ordinary
interest to the whole College and the Church in South
Wales. In some respects I see the hope of brighter
prospects. But I feel quite sure that it is now a question
of the greatest moment, what steps the College itself
takes. It may either sink altogether, or be the chief
educator of the clergy of Wales.
"My remaining here is very uncertain. On the whole
it is more likely that I shall not. But it is my earnest
wish, whether I go or stay, to secure the best interests of
the College at this crisis, and I may add your own. I have
already opened a question with you to which I now recur.
The dissatisfaction which I have said prevails concerning
the internal management I have every reason to beheve
increases. 1 fully expect that if I leave the College, as
there will be some change by that movement, so it will be
a signal for an explosion of such feelings, unless something
be done to soothe and satisfy them.
" I have felt my own position overpoweringly painful,
from the consciousness that we are the objects of general
suspicion, and that I had no power to remove it. And
should circumstances lead me to remain here, I could not
consent to do so without first stipulating that the whole
management of the College should be put on such a
footing as to satisfy the public, and to enable me to feel
that our labours here were not both useless and thankless.
On the other hand, if I leave the College, I have hitherto

98 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
felt that my post was on these accounts so difficult, and
that if my predecessor had acted as I now propose to act
it would have been so much easier, that I am determined
not to go without endeavouring to persuade you to adjust
matters so that hereafter the College and my successor
may have a less difficult game to play.
" I trust that in this you will feel that I am actuated by
no motive but a sense of duty. I may add, a sense of duty
to myself as well as to others, for so I feel that I may be
the means of freeing you from the distressing suspicions
which rest on you, even more than on all besides.
" You know that the accounts are the chief ground of
complaint. I am sure that an enquiry will be demanded
from without, if it be not first courted from within. Let
me beg you to anticipate the demand, and so place your
self on a much better footing than you could otherwise
occupy. " But the accounts are not the only subject of complaint
Another is that the business of the College is transacted
by one person. This is protested against as giving no
security to the public against mismanagement It is added
that the Principal, as being the least easily called to
account is the very last member of the College who ought
to have such power entrusted to him.
" If you knew what is said on this subject you would
not think me unreasonable in urging it on you. I have
reason to think that all connected with the College are as
\vell aware as I am of what I say, and fully agree in my
view of the question. But I am in that position which
calls on me to be the mover ; and though the position be a
painful one I am resolved not to shrink from it That my
conduct in this is that of your true friend I am also weh
assured ; though I am always afraid that it may appear
otherwise to you.
" The proposal which I am prepared to make, is that
henceforth the affairs of the College of all kinds be con
ducted strictly after the model of University Colleges. I
should propose to divide the accounts and management
between three persons, as they are divided there ; which
will prevent the danger of such suspicions being allowed
to rest on one. I should propose audits by the whole
corporate body twice yearly. I should propose that all
business be transacted in regular formal College meetings,
everything done by College order, entered regularly in the

III.] VICE-PRINCIPAL OF LAMPETER COLLEGE. 99
order or minute book, and that everything be constantly
open to the inspection of any persons who have a reason
able claim to demand it
" How it may be best to give effect to these proposals
I am not quite certain. But one of these two modes I will
suggest. Either let a committee of clergymen from
different parts of the diocese be appointed to inspect
matters and report, or else, let the whole corporate body,
yourself Archdeacon B'evan, Melvill, North, and myself,
meet, with the sanction of the Bishop, and make future
arrangements, as well as consider any subject of accounts
which may seem to them desirable. I am ready to submit
my own proposals to them.
" I vrill only add that concerning the providing of dinners,
I propose that it be done as at the Universities, by contract
with the cook or butler, or any other person who will con
tract for them on fair terms.
" I can assure you of my firm persuasion that such
arrangements as I now propose are not only likely to save
the College from utter ruin, but will place you in a position
in every way higher than that which you now occupy,
a position free from suspicion, and, I incline to believe,
[of] much more certain if not much greater pecuniary
advantages — and one much more resembling the post of
the dignified head of a College, and less resembling that
of the master of a common grammar school.
" Believe me that though I feel my first duty is to try
and save the College (and if I do not do it, no one else will),
yet it is my hope and earnest desire to serve you also. I
see that I can do this only by distinctly and definitely
proposing the arrangements I have already referred to, as
the sole conditions on which I will consent to remain in the
College, if I determine to remain ; and as my distinct pro
posals now as a member of the corporate body, before I
leave it in case of my determining to go into Cornwall.
" I have written this, as I generally do when I have
important business to discuss, as far better than speaking.
I trust you will give it your best consideration, and believe
me that whether here or in Cornwall, yourself and the
College will both be the objects of my sincere interest and
regard, as you are daily the subject of the prayers of
" My dear Mr. Dean,
" Yours very sincerely,
"E. Harold Browne."

100 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

This remarkable letter is more eloquent in what it does
not say than in what it does. The very vagueness of it
leaves an impression that there were unlimited grounds for
dissatisfaction, and that things were on the edge of a kind of
revolution. Harold Browne was to be the Mirabeau of the
movement, which should end, not in the overthrow of the
autocrat but in the substitution of constitutional in the
place of irresponsible government The Vice-Principal
was a conservative reformer, aiming at a reform which
should be carried out along lines well known, tried, and
found successful— at least to a certain point — in the ancient
Universities. Dean Lewellin appears to have received his Vice-Prin
cipal's remonstrance in the same friendly spirit in which
it was penned. He replied without bitterness, expressing
himself ready to meet Mr. Browne and to consider the
suggestions laid before him in the letter given above ; and
to his note we have this reply : — " S. D, C, November xith, 1849.
" My dear Mr. Dean,— I write to tell you that I have
accepted the offer of the Bishop of Exeter, and therefore
must consider my days at Lampeter as numbered. I need
hardly tell you that I shall not leave it without many and
deep regrets, though I trust I am doing right, and hope for a
blessing on my future undertaking. I hope we shall one day
be able to persuade Mrs. Lewellin and yourself to pay us
a visit in our future home, if it please God to spare us all.
" I am much obliged by your kind note, and for your
readiness to meet my proposals. I thought even if I
stayed, and I still more think now that I am to go, that it
will be on all accounts desirable that any new arrange
ments should be discussed by a committee and not by us
two alone. I .shall soon have ceased to be a member of
the College. And if as I am sure is the case, there is any
unfavourable spirit abroad, it will probably be allayed by
a meeting of that nature, and arrangements may be so
made more readily than any other way.

III.] VICE-PRINCIPAL OF LAMPETER COLLEGE. IQI

" I should propose that you, as Principal, summon a
meeting of the whole body, as soon as Melvill returns from
town. I will lay before them my own views, which I shall
be happy to talk over with you first, if you desire it. They
are simply, as I mentioned to you, to assimilate this
CoHege to an University College. I hope not to be obliged
to leave this till the end of term, when I shall have com
pleted six years and a half of residence. I trust my
successor will be a more efficient and a more prosperous man
than I have been here, and that the College will soon rise
out of the cloud which has lately obscured it.
" Yourself and Mrs. Lewellin will have our best hopes
and prayers for your happiness and comfort here and
hereafter. " Believe me, my dear Mr. Dean,
" Very sincerely yours,
" E. Harold Browne."

CHAPTER IV.
vicar of kenwyn and kea.
WHILE this negotiation was going on, Mr Browne,
though he reserved his right to remain at Lampeter,
had made up his mind to leave the College.
On the one hand his friends at Cambridge, on the other
side the Bishop at Exeter, were eager to tempt him back
to them. In the same month Mr. Browne was assailed
from both sides. From Cambridge came a letter from
Dr Archdall, the Head of his College, urging him to
become a candidate for the Norrisian Professorship, likely
to be vacated by the promotion of Professor Corrie. He
also received a letter from the' Bishop of Exeter ; so that
before he began to deal with Dean Lewellin, he knew
that the road was open for his retreat, should the position
at Lampeter become untenable.
The Bishop offered him the large and valuable benefice
of Kenwyn-cum-Kea, in Cornwall. He writes : —
" I scrupled to make the offer to you, because I feared
that by your removal I should rob the Church in South
Wales of one of its best supports. I have, however, lately
heard that the health either of yourself or Mrs. Browne
makes you desirous of establishing yourself in Cornwah.
This intelligence has removed every scruple, and I no
longer hesitate to offer you that Vicarage, with a Prebend
(very ill-endowed) in the Cathedral at Exeter, and my
Chaplaincy for Cornwall.

Ch. IV.] VICAR OF KENWYN AND KEA. 103
" The income of Kenwyn is, I believe, between ;^500
and £600 per annum net, after paying large outgoings
for curates, etc. The Prebend is merely sufficient to pay
the expenses of journeying to Exeter to preach your turns
in the Cathedral. The Chaplaincy carries with it only
burthens ; yet of such a kind as will, I hope, accord with
your own Church feelings, for I shall need a confidential
assistant in Cornwall.
If the offer is satisfying to you, I shall rejoice to have
brought you back to the diocese of Exeter. At all events
I have pleasure in thus testifying my high estimation of
you. " I am, dear Sir,
" Yours sincerely,
" H. Exeter."
From Cambridge also came a hint that he might be
made Regius Professor in succession to Ollivant.
"Harold says," writes Mrs. Browne, "there never was
any man made so miserable by having the best preferment
of two dioceses thrust upon him, with the addition of a
Regius Professorship in the distance ! "
We have in a letter from Mr. Browne to his favourite
sister, a sketch of his views as to Kenwyn. It is obvious
that his heart went out towards the proposal, and that,
if duty would allow, inclination was hot for the change.
" Kenwyn," he says, " is beautifully situated, an excellent
house, on a hill about a mile from Truro. All the town
population is divided into districts, in which there are
separate district churches and clergymen. The church
is easy to fill, the place, I believe, very healthy, the popula
tion rural. The Prebend may be a step to a Canonry, for
the Canons elect out of the Prebendaries, It is close to
Lizzy's family. The house is large and good, almost too
large. These are the pros. The cons are, leaving the
Bishop of St David's, Melvill, and Mr North, and leaving
this College to get more in the mud than ever, I fear.
The population of Kenwyn, though not large now, is
scattered ; and less of income. I should have probably

104

EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

;6700 instead of ^,"900 a year. But I always fear Lampeter
may fail at any time. Kenwyn is a good living, and there
are other advantages,"
Mr. Browne appears to have deferred his reply to the
Bishop of Exeter till the day before that on which he dates
his first communication to the Dean of St David's. On
the 6th of November he notifies to Bishop Philpotts that
he desires to accept his offer. No wonder : whether one
looks at Lampeter or at Kenwyn, there was much to turn
the scale in favour of the latter. The new post would be
a return to clerical from professional or scholastic work ;
and Mr. Browne's mind ever turned towards the duties of
the priest rather than towards those of the prophet. Next,
the move would be a rise from a subordinate to an inde
pendent position ; from being under an unsympathetic
Principal, to a place of honour as the trusted adviser for
Cornwall of the Bishop of the diocese. He also thought
it would be of real benefit to his family. At Lampeter
neither wife nor children seemed strong and well ; to go to
Kenwyn was to take Mrs. Browne back to the place where
she had spent her youth, where she was much beloved,
where her father was living honoured of all. And one
can well believe that the work at the College was
much against the collar ; the Welsh students were dis
contented with the management ; there was no buoyancy
about the work, but rather a feeling of precariousness.
Any day there might be an explosion, after which he
would find himself left with the weight of failure and
of poverty on his shoulders. It was of this time that
Mrs. Browne, speaking one day to Mrs. North, the wife
of his 'most zealous and capable colleague, exclaimed in
despair, " If Harold remains here longer he will go mad !"
And, lastly, the kind-hearted Vice-Principal saw in the
remove a painless way of putting a stop to that large

IV. J VICAR OF KENWYN AND KEA. 1 05

expenditure in charity which had in the six years of his
Lampeter life made him a prey to every needy person,
worthy or unworthy, \\ho could get access to him and
could wheedle the shillings out of his pocket.
And so the balance dipped towards Cornwall. Mr.
Browne had consulted friends whom he trusted, and
especially Bishop Thirlwall.
The Bishop of St. David's clearly saw that Mr. Browne
could come to no other conclusion, for he writes, even
before the communications with the Dean, the following
letter :— "Abergwili, November 1st, 1849.
" My dear Sir, — I felt myself bound, for the sake of the
College and the diocese, to set before you all the circum
stances depending on my own will, which might by
possibility induce you to stay with us. But I did not
imagine that tltey could have any great weight with you,
so far as your own interest is concerned. And after the
statement contained in your last letter I must say that I
cannot even so much as wish to persuade you to come to
a different resolution from that which you would have
adopted if you had not heard from me, or from Mr.
Melvill. Great as will be my concern for the public loss,
it would only be exchanged for a different kind of regret,
which I should never cease to feel, if I had induced you to
make such a sacrifice of your domestic happiness as would
evidently be involved in your retaining your present
situation. I would rather beg you at once to abandon all
thoughts of such a sacrifice, which I really think is not
called for by any consideration of duty. You will certainly
have made sacrifice enough, and will perhaps have con
ferred the most important of all benefits on the College,
if you adopt the course which you suggest, of bringing its
affairs into a better train, and of giving occasion for some
provisions which may guard against the recurrence of pa.st
abuses. This is the only favour which I can now request
from you, and I believe that you are the only person from
whom I could expect ever to receive such a one. And
unless some such step be taken by a person occupying a
like position in the College, I see no prospect, or even

I06 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

possibility, of any reformation. I hear painful reports in
various quarters of surmises and suspicions with regard to
the management of the College, but they do not afford me,
as Visitor, sufficient ground for taking the initiative in
instituting an official enquiry, which nevertheless appears
to have become necessary, if it were only to satisfy the
public mind. If set on foot by you, it would undoubtedly
be conducted in the way most likely to lead to a happy
result. " Yours faithfully, " C. St. David's."

Mr. Browne's decision brought the subject of a change
in the College administration to a point. He felt that it
was the time for him to speak out ; and drew up a plan
for the redistribution of powers and functions, for the
better adjustment of finance, and for the creation of a
governing body, composed of the members of the College
staff. The scheme appears to have been something of
this kind : Taking a Cambridge College as the type, he
proposed — (i) That finance and management should be
entrusted to three persons, and that the whole staff (or
corporate body) should act as auditors twice a year ;
(2) That all College business should be transacted in formal
College meeting, with a proper minute-book containing
the " Acta " of such meetings ; (3) That, with the sanction
and approval of the Bishop as Visitor of the College,
the corporate body, consisting of the Principal, the Vice-
Principal, Mr. Melvill, Mr. North, and the Archdeacon of
Cardigan, should form a committee to meet and draw out
a scheme of management.
This scheme, in form of resolutions, Mr. Browne submitted
to Bishop Thirlwall ; who approved of it, accepted it and
convened a meeting of the College staff. At this meeting
Mr. Browne moved his resolutions, which were at once
adopted, as the basis of an entirely new administration.

IV.] VICAR OF KENWYN AND KEA. 107

Mr. North, afterwards Archdeacon of Cardigan, was
appointed the first " Steward," with charge of the actual
catering and the financial affairs of the College— the side
on which reform was most needed — and he " with much
care and method readjusted the management of supplies,
and reduced the charges on these accounts for the students
to one-half their former amount and all this with an im
proved arrangement for their comfort."
Thereupon ]Mr. Browne began to make preparations for
departure. This, as may well be believed, elicited a
chorus of regrets from all his Lampeter friends. The
inhabitants stood aghast at the news.
The Bishop of the diocese speaks in terms of strong
regret when he hears of it : —
" I shall always," he says, " feel myself under obligations
to you for the benefits you have conferred on the College
and the diocese by your residence among us."
The students of the College, who, some little time
before, had joined in memorialising the Vice-Principal,
begging him to publish his lectures on the Articles, directly
they heard of his going collected a considerable sum of
money, and had his portrait painted by Graves, to
be placed in the College Hall, where it hangs, as a
memorial of the best beloved of those men of mark who
have struggled as Vice-Principals to lift the unwilling
Institution to a higher level. Towards this portrait the
poor parent of one of the students sent the considerable
subscription of £T), with his regrets that " the College has
been deprived of his valuable services, as well as that the
' poor and broken in spirit ' in this neighbourhood have
lost the Christian succour of one of the most kind-hearted
and benevolent of men."

I08 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D D. [Ch.

Man}' years after, when Dr. Jayne, then Principal, now
Bishop of Chester, wrote to invite the Bishop of Winchester
(April 1880) to revisit the College, he says : " It would give
the greatest pleasure not only to the College Board and to
your old pupils, but to the whole town of Lampeter, in
which your memory is warmly cherished."
Very soon after Mr Browne had left the College came
a supplemental charter granting to the governing body of
St. David's College the power of conferring the degree of
Bachelor of Divinity on such students as had duly passed
through the course ; and on the first occasion of conferring
Degrees, in June 1853, a banquet was held in honour of this
marked advance in the fortunes of the College. The chair
was taken by the Principal, Dean Lewellin, who with
excellent tact and temper made no allusion to the changes
which Mr. Browne had brought about, changes which must
have been very distasteful to him ; for, if many men have
been pleased with themselves for resigning their crown, none
have ever felt gratified at being deposed. " In proposing
the health of their late colleague, Mr. Harold Browne,
the Principal spoke warmly of the many excellent and
amiable qualities which distinguish that gentleman : his
nice sense of honour, his strict impartiality, his great zeal,
his piety and unequalled charity ; " all which was true
and generously said. It is strange, however, that he made
no reference to the most marked characteristic of all,
Mr, Browne's great stores of learning and mastery of his
subjects, and the clearness and ability with which he
handled the topics on which he lectured.
One of his old pupils, in January 1850, contributed to
the pages of the Haverford-West newspaper the following
sketch : —
" In person. Professor Browne is tall, too tall for his
breadth. He has a very pleasing countenance, approaching

IV.] VICAR OF KENWYN AND KEA. 109

to handsome, and has what is called a young look ; but
what is most remarkable about it is its expression — open
and benignant, in nothing common or trivial, but almost
invariably betokening strong force of character. His
actions correspond : there is nothing frivolous about them,
nothing of the business man, nothing hurried, but mostly
calm, coHected, earnest, gentlemanly, strong. In the pulpit,
he is (\m\.e.stii generis, not eloquent, but always to the point ;
argumentative, aiming to instruct rather than to persuade —
to dazzle he never tried. His language is condensed, never
quaint ; his ideas as it were o\'erleap his words, which latter
are simple and arranged with very slight regard to rhythm.
His manner of delivery is modest — too modest, but ener
getic in the extreme : as earnest as any pious man can
wish it His voice deep and loud, not much varied or
over-musical, and emitted, as a singer would say, in the
staccato style ; or one may say as well, very emphatically.
In the lecture-room he is surprising for the extent and
soundness of his learning, for the vast amount of comment
he is able to make on the text in hand, which he delivers
with difficulty, but with a perfect abandonment, except
where he has occasion to give an opinion of his own ; then
his modesty creates an evident change of manner. In
explaining a point he turns it over and over again, so as
to make it intelligible, one would think, to the meanest
capacity in the room. He never affects display ; never
utters what he thinks irrelevant ; never aims at amus
ing. . . To sum up, he is always to the point, seldom
overdoes anything, seldom aims at dazzling. He is, taking
him ah in all, about the best specimen of a Christian
gentleman we have seen ; and to complete his character,
he gives away, so we are told, about half his income in
charity. — A Student of St. David's College."
And thus Mr. Browne passed away from Lampeter,
returning to parochial work and more directly spiritual
duties with a sigh of relief He seems to have been
consulted about his successor, and to have advised the
appointment of Mr. Williams, a brilliant Fellow of King's,
a Welshman of the Welshmen, one of the most devout
and prayerful of men, a liberal High Churchman of an
independent type, endowed with one of the purest natures

no EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

and most penetrating and philosophical intellects ever
seen at Cambridge. Here was a man who, it was hoped,
combined all the qualities required ; his Cambrian enthu
siasm, his learning, his feariess love of truth, his chivalrous
defence of the spirit against the letter, seemed to mark
him out as the future leader of Welsh Churchmanship.
All his friends regarded his appointment to Lampeter as
only the first step towards a Welsh bishopric. It was, as
it fell out, just the other way. Had Mr. Williams stayed
on at King's, taking life easy, and meddling little with
the theological movements of the day, his goal, or rather
the goal his admirers set up for him, would probably have
been reached, Lampeter was fatal to the most gifted of
its teachers : his fine-strung irritable temperament was ill
suited to the drudgery of the daily work, and his fearless
advocacy of the truth awakened all the suspicions of
religious people. They admired and feared. Though he
was a devoted High Churchman, full of the grandest con
ceptions of the spiritual life of the Church, the chief
persons in high place in the Church regarded him as
dangerous. His influence over the College diminished ;
the Bishop of St, David's ceased to support him ; the
Calvinistic Welsh were scared and scandalised. Many
things he did just thirty years too soon, and his vigorous
and thoughtful writings added fuel to the fire, by a keen
ness of thrust and bitterness of tone which alarmed and
alienated many who had no quarrel with his conclusions.
His paper on Bunsen and Biblical Research in " Essays
and Reviews " naturally created great excitement and
prudent people felt that this wild champion of truth,
who defied conventionalities just as he rode a half-broken
high-spirited horse, galloping over the rough hills near
Lampeter, and as he went shouting aloud devout prayers
to God, was not the man to guide the fortunes of a weak

IV.] VICAR OF KENWYN AND KEA. m
and struggling theological college. Of that College we
may say, as he himself said of marriage : —
" It is not every temper he could bear to live with ; and
although not likely to be happy without a wife, he thought
he might possibly be less happy with one."
There can be no doubt that it was with a light heart
and with a happy family around him that Mr. Browne
bade farewell to Lampeter and his Welsh friends. Fare
wells to old comrades and friends are but as a piquant
garniture to life, when one is eager for new work and
changed scenes. And Kenwyn promised to be all he
wished for : plentiful clerical work, congenial society in
sufficient quantity, leisure to study and write, and above
all, the knowdedge that he would enjoy the confidence and
countenance of his Bishop. He once told Mr. P. Dyke
Acland that " he had worked harder at Kenwyn than at
any other time in his life." It is not unlikely that this was
also the period of the purest happiness he enjoyed in all
his long and prosperous career.
The institution to the Vicarage of Kenwyn with the
Chapelry of Kea took place on January 5th, 1850; and
on the same day Mr, Browne was also installed in a
Prebend in Exeter Cathedral Church.
Throughout this first year of his cure of souls in
Cornwall, Mr. Browne found his hands very full of work.
He not only took full share in all parochial work, visiting,
teaching, preaching, and supei-vising local charities, but
also fulfilled his promise to his pupils at Lampeter by
converting his College lectures on the Thirty-Nine Articles
into a volume for the benefit of all future students of
theology. Kenwyn and Kea, of which he now became Vicar, are
two distinct parishes; the one, Kenwyn, forming the

112 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

northern suburb of Truro, and the other, Kea, lying
somewhat to the south of that place, on the estuary.
There were two churches to be served, as well as many
outlying knots of population to be looked after. Though
Kenwyn was a large parish, the " Church town," or popu
lation around the church, consisted solely of one farm
house, a few cottages, and a schoolroom. The whole parish
was seven miles long and by no means easy to visit, as the
hamlets were far apart. Among these scattered places
Tregavethan was probably the most primitive ; there the
inhabitants knew so little of education that when Mr
Browne showed them some pictures of animals and birds,
they were completely taken by surprise, and many were
their exclamations of wonder and pleasure, when Mr
Browne turned out a picture of a duck. One of the boys,
delighted at being able to recognise a friend, called out,
" Why, that be old Gammer's Mallard ! " a phrase which
would have won the heart at once of any Fellow of All
Souls. Tregavethan, however, has long since lost its
primitive ignorance ; it now boasts a resident landlord,
and has a chapel of its own with regular services. At
Tregavethan lived that nonconformist minister whose
confidence Mr. Browne won so completely that one day
after the boys of the hamlet had been unusually lively,
and had broken the windows of his little chapel, he trudged
afoot all the way to Kenwyn, in order to consult the
Vicar as to the best way of putting an end to these petty
outrages. He amazed Mr. Browne not a little, after
describing his troubles, by saying, " And now, sir, what
do you think I should do with the young rascals? Do
you think, sir, I could shoot 'em ? " Mr. Browne, with a
gravity which ill responded to his inner state of amuse
ment refrained from advice supposed to be suitable for a
Celtic disturbance, and thought he had better "hesitate

IV.] VICAR OF KENWYN AND KEA. II3
to shoot." The good-will which this simple Methodist
.showed towards Mr. Browne existed between him and
ah the nonconformists. Though he made no secret of
his opinions, he was so full of Christian simplicity and
genuine affectionateness, that they were carried away by
it and lived with him on terms of great good-will and
kindliness throughout his sojourn in Cornwall. When
one remembers the vehemence of nonconformity and its
strength in that county, and the fact that Mr. Browne was
a decided High Churchman, we may well regard it as a very
high testimony to the lovable qualities of his character.
Kea, which lay on the other side of Truro, was treated
almost as a sole cure. Perhaps the most notable thing
about it was the very ancient and curious church plate,
which dates back to the early part of the sixteenth century,
and is said to have belonged to Renee d'Amboise, the
elder daughter of Jacques d'Amboise, who was killed at
the battle of Marignano in 151 5. How it drifted into
this out-of-the-way Cornish village is not known. When
Mr Browne came there, Kea was in the charge of
the Rev. John Hardie, M.A., afterwards Archdeacon
of Kaffraria, who continued for several years with the
new vicar.
The Vicarage at Kenwyn, which has since been enlarged
as the home of the Bishop of Truro, was at this time a
good-sized comfortable house, stone-built It stands hard
by the parish church, with its handsome Perpendicular
tower, in a charming garden, just above Truro, overlooking
the town and the vaHey with the gleaming river below.
The fault of it was that, as Cornishmcn say, it was built
" agin the country," that is, with the ground rising directly
at the back of it, so that the Vicar's study, which looked
that way, was dangerously damp. Here, however, Mr.
Browne lived in great contentment for about seven years.

114 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

happy in the manifold opportunities he enjoyed of doing
good, and in mini.stering to his fellows.
Archdeacon Hardie has with much kindness provided
me with several interesting facts respecting this period.
He writes : —
" At the time of Mr. Browne's appointment as Vicar of
Kenwyn-cum-Kea I was curate in sole charge of Kea,
having been previously, for a short time, assistant-curate
of the joint parishes. I liked my post, and wished to
retain it, but not knowing the new Vicar I took the liberty
of writing to him without any personal introduction, offer
ing to remain. The returning post brought me a very
friendly letter begging me to do so,
" The town of Truro at that time lay in the two parishes of
Kenwyn and St. Mary's, and (as not seldom happens) there
had been small rivalries — not to say jealousies — between
these parishes as to which should take the lead.
" This state of things, though it did not altogether prevent
community of work, certainly did not help it forward.
Now there was nothing little about Harold Browne, He
simply would not see these rivalries, but always went
straight to the point in question, giving his unbiassed judg
ment with that quiet weight which was all his own. And
it was soon felt that a power had come among us, which
made its way to supremacy all the more easily because it
was united with so much gentleness and fairness. The tone
thus given to our local councils was the more valuable
because party feeling was at that time running strong on
Church and educational questions. I ought not to omit to
mention that while his gentleness of tone was prevailing in
public, there was the influence of a model Home at work in
the same direction.
" The family at the Vicarage consisted of rather un
common elements. Besides the Vicar and his wife and
children, there were two elderly sisters of the Vicar, ladies
of a good deal of character of their own, yet living in most
perfect harmony with the younger members, and sharing
all their interests.
" A unity so rare could not fail to have an influence for
good on all who witnessed it And these were many, for
Mrs. Browne belonged to an old Cornish family, several

IV.] VICAR OF KENWYN AND KEA. 1 1 5

members of which were resident in Truro, and leaders of
the society of the neighbourhood, especially her parents,
whose public spirit and generous hospitality made them
universaHy popular. Mrs. Browne, in coming to Kenwyn,
brought her full share of this personal favour with her to
the Vicarage, so that the singular happiness of her new
home was soon known to all the neighbours. I need not
dwell on the good effects of such an exemplary life as that
of the inmates of the Vicarage on the many who had the
privilege of witnessing it.
" Having described, however imperfectly, the Vicar's
home, I must now say something of his work as a Parish
Priest. As I had sole charge of Kea, my parish work lay
paraUel to his rather than in common with it But we
touched each other all along the frontier, and I had frequent
opportunities of hearing of his diligent visiting and his large
charity to those in want or sickness. Then again his purse
was always open to any one in need on my side of the
border, and although he was most delicate in his treatment
of me personally (consulting me about Kea as if I were a
brother Vicar), yet he always gave cheerfully and liberally
towards the schools and charities of Kea, although that
Parish brought very little income to him.
" Again, a marked trait in his character was. his sympathy
with sorrow. I should be ungrateful indeed if I did not
make mention of an instance of this quality, exemplified as
it was in my own case. A very near and dear relation had
been taken from me by death, and the loss had completely
unnerved me. The Vicar insisted on my giving up work
and going away, he undertaking to fulfil the duties of the
parish in my absence. On my return, I found that an
epidemic disease had prevailed, and that for a whole fort
night he had been personally visiting my sick, as well as his
own, rather than recall me (as most men would certainly have
done) to my duty. This is the way to win hearts, and
mine was twice his from that day forward. Unhappily the
overwork affected him seriously, and made me doubly regret
my own want of nerve. As soon as he was able to get
about again he was at work, with his usual diligence, in his
parish. " I ought to say something of his preaching, for it was
regarded by those who heard him habitually as not the
least of his many strong points. But only on rare occasions
had I this privilege, for when he preached at Kea I was

Il6 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
ordinarily obliged to fill his place, however feebly, at Kenwyn,
or more frequently at a little chapel in Old Kea, where we
were in turn responsible for a Sunday service. The few
sermons which I heard of his were quite above the common,
reflecting the ' sweet reasonableness ' of the man's whole
mind and character, distinct in their teaching, but not too
abstract for the heads of his hearers. I was much struck
by the ingenuity with which day by day he linked the text
he had chosen to some large field of Christian duty, and
applied it to the consciences of all his hearers, but especially
to the younger ones, without ever repeating himself in the
course of the week or ten days of our tour.
" From the Bishop's teaching I am naturally led to say
something of his ordinary conversation, for though that
was as unlike preaching as possible, there was always
much good to be gotten from it, in his invariably sensible
and kindly judgment on things in general. Often too it
was seasoned with the salt of quiet humour. I wish I
could recall some instances of this, but my memory has
only preserved the conclusion of a conversation in which
I finally resigned my charge of Kea into his hands. He
said there was an old proverb that ' no man could expect
to have more than one thoroughly good horse in his life,'
adding, with one of his sweet smiles, that he ' hoped that
what was true of horseflesh might not prove true of
curates also.' I was amused, and at the same time
gratified, by what was implied, and, as I remember, bade
him not despair, for it was a well-known fact that the
performance of the steed depended very much on the hand
of the master."
No more pleasing picture of the relation between vicar
and curate can be imagined. It bears witness to the
affectionate character, the innate goodness, the readiness to
" spend and be spent," the absolute freedom from personal
assertion, which marked the whole of the Bishop's career
This was an important period in Mr. Browne's life. The
years at Kenwyn ripened him into a thorough parish
priest In parochial activity and organisation, in spiritual
work with his flock, in literary undertakings, and in a rapid
advance in public estimation as one of the most rising of

IV.] VICAR OF KENWYN AND KEA. 117

the younger Churchmen, Mr, Browne made admirable use
of these years, from 1850 to 1856 ; and this though at the
time his health was very much impaired, and he was
long confined to his house, and even to his bed. The
period and the place both combined to bring Mr Browne
into prominence ; it was now nine years since the cele
brated " Tract 90 " had first seen the light and things had
moved onward somewhat rapidly. In 1845 the ablest con
tributor to the Tracts had been received into the Church
of Rome, and men who had sympathised with him in his
theological views, and in the endeavour to infuse more of
the spirit of mediaeval usage and dignity into the somewhat
chilly frame of Anglicanism, were obliged to reconsider
their position. A few passed boldly over to Rome ; the
rest strengthened themselves in the middle position
which their Church seemed naturally fitted to maintain ;
the body politic rocked and swayed awhile, and then
settled down into a steady course, which it has, on the
whole, pursued without serious change from that time for
ward. Among the older High Churchmen no one was
more definite in his standpoint than the Bishop of Exeter ;
among the younger clergy hardly anyone understood his
ground so well, or explained the position so clearly, as
did Mr. Browne, The years at Lampeter had given him
time to secure himself in his firm and almost enthusiastic
behef in the sufficiency of the English Church, and in the
soundness of her credentials. No more loyal Churchman
ever existed.
It may be said of theologians, as S. T. Coleridge says
in the " Aids to Reflection " of mankind in general, that
they are all by nature either Aristotelians or Platonists.
And the High Church movement has distinctly passed
through both these phases of thought. The eariier
Anglicans, mostly from Oxford, had their minds full of

Il8 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

Aristotle, and treated the " Ethics " with a respect almost
equal to that which was felt for the Bible. While here
and there one, like William Sewell, was a poetic Platonist
who saw the Christian Church adumbrated in the " De
Republica," the bulk of Oxford thinkers had been nursed
on Aristotle's knees, and were deeply embued with the
leading doctrine of the Aristotelian morality, the "doc
trine of the mean " betwixt extremes. The whole tendency
of Oxford teaching gravitated, as if by a law of nature,
towards the middle point, the point of balance between
excess and defect. And this was true in many fields.
Aristotle, in applying it specially to morals, had not there
by limited the application ; in politics, in social life, in
theology, the happy man was the man who avoided
extremes, and kept the middle course. The bulk of the
High Church clergy of that day fell in with this view, and
were as anxious to avoid the too high as the too low
position. No one defended this middle ground more
clearly, or with more learning and temper, than Mr.
Browne. No one ever was, on the other hand, a more
remarkable example of the modern saying that " but for
the extremes, the mean would never rise." For his middle
point was in every sense a higher one than that of his
predecessors, and the rise was clearly caused by the
aspirations of those who held the more extreme views.
The Low Church side helped less than the other ; yet
their insistence on individual responsibility, and the real
importance of a living faith and a spiritual view of
religion, kept the middle party from risks of formalism
and of a too systematised view of Church life and polity.
On the other side, the doctrines relating to the community
of the Church, by which the individual partly loses his
prominence, and the body politic answers for him, formed
an essential part of that high middle course which the

IV.] VICAR OF KENWYN AND KEA. 119
best Churchmen had learnt to tread. To Mr. Browne the
theory of a strongly organised national Church, whether
established or not, was the palladium of religion. While
he always contended stoutl}' against Roman innovations,
and the claims set forth by the chief polemic writers of
the Roman obedience, he endeavoured with all his force
to strengthen the position of Anglicanism, as a thoroughly
organised and independent branch of the Church Catholic.
The keystone of his system was Episcopacy. An Epis
copate transmitted by due succession from the earliest
times, a clergy called of God and admitted by their
Bishops in due form into the ministry of the Church ; a
strong coherent system of Church government and admin
istration, with ramifications first over all England, and then
by Episcopal transmission across the vast breadth of the
English dominions and wherever the English-speaking
race has made a home, — this, he held, was the right way
in which to build up a really National Church. There
is something congenial to the English temperament in
this practical application of the Aristotelian philosophy ;
to most of us the high-soaring views of Plato and his
school seem to be dreams, wanting in solidity and out
of touch with the everyday average needs and struggles
of mankind. We accept the political philosophy of
the " PoHtics," while we think of the " Republic '' of Plato
as Utopian. And the earlier High Church movement,
unaffected by chance votaries of Plato, made an Anglicanism
of moderate pretensions its aim. Since then the movement
has developed itself on other lines ; and the most prominent
minds have in fact abandoned Aristotle for Plato. Later
utterances as to the spiritual life, the shrinking from hard
dogmatism and preference for a mystic theology, the belief
that in some sense Plato's " Idea " lies at the root of the
relations, personal or sacramental, between God as declared

I20 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

to US in the Person of Jesus Christ, and man in his rege
nerate life, — these things mark the later development of
Hio-h Church theology, and have created a new and a more
liberal school of Churchmanship. With this later state of
religious opinion Bishop Harold Browne was never fully in
.sympathy ; it seemed to him to bring men perilously near
to the theology and polity of the Roman Church, and to
be ill-defined, leading no man could say to what end. Con
sequently, while he remained firmly fixed in his strong
position, and while his work on the Thirty-Nine Articles
was a temperate expression of the Anglican view of Chris
tian doctrine and organisation, the modern High Church
party has shaken itself free from the conservative position
there taken up, and has chafed at the moderation then dis
played, calling it, in the matter of the Sacraments, a "mere
following of Hooker" Strong partisans hate to be checked
by ancient formulas ; the modern High school, of which the
note is spirituality, has perhaps more sympathy with the
earnest Nonconformist, who insists on the need for conver
sion and a spiritual life, than with the theology which rests
on ordinances, and shuns irregular outbursts, and stands
aloof from the reign of enthusiastic emotion. And so it
came about that in the end the steadfast Bishop, who at
first had been accused of extreme High Church leanings,
came often to be the object of the lofty pity, and perhaps
of the ignorant scorn, of the " advanced " clergy, who felt
his learning, his moderation, and his definite position a
hindrance to the success of their eager " forward movement."
Three things specially marked the years of Mr. Browne's
life at Kenwyn : the zeal and activity of his parochial
work ; his share in the agitation for the revival of Con
vocation ; and, by no means least, the publication of his
work on the Thirty-Nine Articles.

IV.] VICAR OF KENWYN AND KEA. 12I
The population of Kenwyn was mainly scattered over
a large area, and required a pastor who could be active in
moving from point to point, and fearless in facing every
kind of weather. To meet the difficulties — which pressed
hardly on a man of his delicate constitution — Mr. Browne
bought a horse, and though, by reason of his stature, he
was not a good figure for riding, made great use of it for
visiting all parts of the parish. Against bad weather he
CTot himself a panoply which, as he used to say, left only
his face to be drowned when the Cornish sea-mists came
over thick and wet, and he was obliged to ride forth to
visit the sick. An ample waterproof cloak, and " anti-
gropelos " encasing his long legs, enabled him to defy the
dirt and damp. He must have been a Quixotic figure on
his steed plodding through the miry lanes, intent on some
charitable or spiritual errand.
His parish work was very carefully organised. Each
curate had his division as a kind of sole charge, and there
were district visitors for smaller areas. He drew up for
them a paper of enquiries, so that the visitors might
furnish him with facts as to the condition of his people.
One of these papers has been preserved. The lady who
filled it up had to visit twenty-one houses, with a popu
lation of about a hundred souls. The form asked for the
names of inhabitants, their occupation, number in each
house, ages, the religious body to which they belonged ; it
enquired whether the people could read, whether they had
a Bible, whether the children had been baptised, whether
they were at school, and where, and lastly, whether the
grown-up members of the household were communicants.
Most of these questions were answered simply ; there is
only one entry of an unusual kind : " There is a Brianite
class and prayer-meeting held in this house; daughter
most painfully ignorant."

122 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
Mr. Browne was bound to spend nearly two-thirds of
the year as Professor at Cambridge, and the effect was seen
in troubles with his curates. The times were trying for
warm-hearted enthusiastic young clergymen ; the spiritual
fervour of the Aitkenite movement, the necessity of
dealing with the strong \^'esleyanism of the Cornishmcn,
and other difficulties, combined to create a restlessness
in some of his young helpers, which ended in the
secession of one of them to the Roman Church. What
Professor Browne could do he did with the utmost
kindness ; but he was much away, and often far from
strong in health, so that much of his valuable influence
evaporated in the post-office. His letters of this period
show us how faithfully and kindly he treated his fellow-
workers, and how completely he was the father as well
as the master of these young men. One of the curates,
the Rev. Walter James, a man of no small gifts and an
excellent preacher, has left us a very pleasing picture
of the Professor's character and surroundings at this time.
He tells us that " Aitkenism," which was " popularly
supposed to be a wedding of a scion of the Wesleyan
doctrine of sensible conversion upon the stock of Trac-
tarian theology,'' abounded in the neighbourhood of
Kenwyn ; that the incumbent of Baldhu, a district taken
out of Kenwyn and Kea, had warmly taken up the
Aitkenite views ; and that one of the curates was very
deeply impressed by them. In the unsettlement which
followed, Mr James says : —
"I found unspeakable help in the teaching and en
couragement of my dear Vicar. I felt also-and herein
lies much to justify Aitken's line-that as a rule too many
of us had not quite grasped the nature of true absolution
and release from the stains of past sin, and the power of
evil m the heart of the regenerate." " During these years,"
he adds m another place, "the Vicar stood out over the

IV.] VICAR OF KENWYN AND KEA. 123
troubled sea as a beacon-light, — for his mind was many-.
sided." "' Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri' seemed to be
his principle, because he could see so much good in all
presentments of revealed truth. It was a difficult matter
often to extract from him what he really thought Hence
we learnt gradually to appraise the value of our own
crude thoughts before submitting them to his judgment ;
and so hereby his habitual caution taught us to avoid rash
statements, to challenge much that was conventionally
current in the Church as correct doctrine, and so to separate
the wheat from the chaff, and learn more and more to
' hold the Head.'
" Our Vicar treated us like sons, — gave us our heads pretty
much, encouraged us in pastoral visitation, and in the
Sunday services would insist on taking a greater share
than his then delicate health seemed to justify. When we
used to say to him, ' You are doing all the work and
leaving us but little,' he ^\'ould reply, ' You will be all the
more able to work ^\¦hen you have a parish of your

In connexion with this letter, we may quote one from
Professor Browne to Mr. James, written in June 1853, at
a time when the wTiter had been obliged by overwork and
ill-health to give up all work for a time, and, instead of
hastening down from Cambridge to Kenwyn, was taking
a much-needed holiday near Falmouth : —
" FhVSiiiNC, Jane 14/h, 1853.
"My dear Mr. James, — I am sorry to leave you so
soon all alone. If you knew how near I feel to the grave
or to utter helplessness, when reduced to the depressed
state in which I have been lately, you would appreciate
the absolute necessity for change, if I would either consult
the interests of my own family, to whom my life is of
consequence, or my own prospects of usefulness in the
post where the Chief Captain has placed me."
Then, after giving his friend some minute instructions
respecting parish- work, instructions which show that in
spite of his manifold and engrossing duties elsewhere.

124 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [CH.

Kenwyn was always very near his heart, and that he well
knew his scattered flock, he ends the letter with a piece
of advice and warning, couched in such charming language
as a \\'ise elder brother might use towards a clever and
ambitious younger boy.
" Will you pardon me," he writes, " if I speak my mind
plainly to you, and as becomes an elder working in the
same sacred and responsible calling ? You appear to me
likely to make a remarkably able ' Minister of the New
Testament' You will therefore in all probability have
to encounter the peculiar and most dangerous temptation
of popularity. I do not know whether or not you
are much open to the assaults of such a temptation ;
but probably there is no one altogether proof against
it, without a large measure of strength from above.
' Forewarned, forearmed.' Our connection, and its very
sacred character, gives me boldness to hint this to you,
and I much mistake \'our disposition if you do not accept
it as it is intended."
Again, in 1854, after Mr. James had left Kenwyn, he
reverts to the same topic : —
" My feeling has long been that your usefulness would
be much greater in the pulpit if you gave a little more
time to the composition of your sermons. They appear
to me to want substance; which you make up for by
energy in delivery. Your remarkably fine voice and that
very energetic delivery will surely make you very popular
among the poor. But that very popularity may prevent
you from seeing defects. I am inclined to think that
really useful preaching is about the most uncommon
qualification m a clergyman— popular preaching being
one of the most common.
" I should advise you to trust more to the strength of
your matter than to the force of your manner.
'' I should recommend you to take a passage of Scripture
and expound it, and then deduce from it lessons of faith
and practice. This is generally likely to give more thread
to your discourse and more instruction to your hearers
than the custom of taking a text as merely the heading
ot an address to your people.

IV 1 VICAR OF KENWYN AND KEA.

125

" I should also suggest that the denunciations of the
Law are very needful, but that they should not supersede
the invitations of the Gospel. The peculiar office of
Christ's ministers is to preach good tidings. We have
committed to us the ministry of reconciliation ; and its
message is that ' God was in Christ reconciling the world
unto Himself and not imputing their trespasses unto
them.' I am well aware that the poor are so dull and
insensible that they often not only bear, but benefit by,
strong denunciations which, to the educated, are not only
useless but disagreeable. And I feel more fully that the
educated and religious are not judges of what is necessary
to awaken the uneducated and ungodly. Yet my own
impression, in listening to some of your sermons, has been
that they would have been more impressive, even to the
poor, if they had been less severe. The most reckless and
abandoned do not form part of any congregation. The
result is that denunciations of great vice seldom reach
the consciences of members of our congregations. Such
denunciations give great pleasure to the poor, for two
reasons ; one, because they like anything which rouses
them up and excites their attention ; the other, because
they are very fond of hearing their neighbours' sins con
demned. Home-thrusts tell much more on the conscience
than denunciations, — such at least is my impression.
" In all I am saying, I fear that I may be liable to cramp
your style. But still I think I should not act kindly
to you if I did not give you the best advice I can
before it is too late for you to change your tack. If you
follow my views, I think it not impossible that you may
not be quite so popular with the poor — though I am not
sure even of that — but I think you will attract the attention
of the educated more, and I hope you will find that your
preaching is more effectual to all.
" If I did not highly value you, and believe that you have
it in you to become a very able and successful servant of
our great Master, I should care much less to point out to
you what seem to me your principal defects. I believe
it is partly because we have, generally speaking, no one
to give us any hints at our first starting in life that most
of us make such very indifferent preachers and parish
priests. Livius has often taken me to task for not sufficiently
expressing my opinions on such subjects to him ; and now,
perhaps, you will complain that I have erred on the other

126 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch."

side. I walked one day from church with you, meaning
to open the question in conversation ; but something you
said about not having time then for sermons made me
think it better to defer it till the ordination was over. If
I have now expressed myself in any manner that seems
to you uncalled for, pray attribute it to inadvertence, not
intention. Very imperfectly, I know, I have expressed
myself." Though the aim of this kind letter apparently was to
bring down his curate's ambitious eloquence to a more
practical level, to a safe and useful mediocrity instead of
a heroic effort Mr. James showed no unwillingness to
accept the advice ; and indeed, as the following quotation
will show, he preferred that more deliberate and even flow
of reasoned appeal and learned instruction, seasoned with
humility, with which his Vicar's utterances abounded. He
says : —
"It was a treat to listen to his sermons, and to mark the
silence and close attention displayed by the congregation,
as each carefully-weighed sentence fell from his lips. His
delivery was marked by deep solemnity of intonation,
so much so that the vocal chords of his voice seemed to
vibrate, and almost to tremble, from the intensity of his
convictions. This, I think, made his sermons, whether
simple or of a deeper theological cast, take such hold of
the feelings as well as the reasoning powers of those who
listened. The thoughtful among the Wesleyans were
specially attracted by his preaching. It was often a tre
mendous strain on him. He once declared to me that
he sometimes felt he should die in the act of preaching."
And as a final touch, shewing what sweet influences
surrounded the young earnest curate of Kenwyn, let us add
the charming words in which he refers to the effect on him
of the domestic life, glimpses of which he saw from time
to time within the walls of Kenwyn Vicarage :—
" Of her who was the sunshine of the home — who showed
her husband's curates all the kindness and indulgence of

IV.] VICAR OF KENWYN AND KEA. 127
a mother — I would fain say more than I dare. They were
a pair such as one seldom met ; light-holders in their
neighbourhood in all circumstances, and in much heavy
trial giving out warmth and enlightenment to those who
were privileged to call them friends. It is forty years ago
since I heard the fine silvery peal of eight call from Kenwyn
steeple the living to the House of Prayer. I seem to hear
them now, as I 'consider the days of old and the years
that are past,' and the loved ones gone on before awaiting
us." Another record of this same period has still to be given.
Among the curates of this Kenwyn period was a clever
earnest-minded young man, whose disposition made him
very susceptible to the influences around him, and who
did not hesitate to push his convictions to their fullest
interpretation. At first he was deeply impressed by Mr.
Aitken's teaching and example. Of this state of his mind
his warm-hearted colleague, the Rev. Reginald Barnes,
gives us one little glimpse in a letter dated October i8th,
1855, in which he says that —
" X came in and brought with him Mr. Knott the late
Oxford Proctor and incumbent of St. Saviour's, Leeds,
who had been staying with him at Aitken's. They talked
for two hours ; but it seemed to me in great measure with
zeal without knowledge."
Professor Browne appears, hereupon, to have written
a kind and cooling letter to his curate, in fear lest his
enthusiasm might carry him he knew not whither ; for
a few days after the above had been sent to him, he
writes, apparently in reply to Mr. Barnes, on the 8th of
November : —
" I have received a letter of TWENTY pages from X
to-day, which is not so pleasant to me as his former letters.
He seems to me to have more of Haslam's mode of writing
than he had before. I am very grieved to have any

128 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
misunderstanding with him, but he left me no alternative
but either to endure all his proceedings or else to refuse
my consent to them."
And this want of sympathy continued for more than a
year, during which period the curate, feeling that the High
Church Methodism of his friends Mr. Knott and Mr.
Aitken did not meet all his aspirations, drew slowly and
decidedly away, until by the end of 1856 he had left
KenA\yn, and wrote to Professor Browne announcing his
intention of being received into the Church of Rome.
Mr. Browne's reply is so grave and kindly that it must
be given in full : — "The Close, Exeter,
•'January 2^th, 1857,
"My dear X, — I have just received from ¦  a
letter which has caused me very great pain, though per
haps not very great surprise, I was already aware that
the almost inevitable tendency of the school into which
you had recently been thrown was towards Rome, and
indeed I had warned you of it. There has been, alas !
a great estrangement between us lately. But I am sure
you will yet allow me to write to you. Not that I feel I
am likely to move you by arguments, for I know that feeling,
and not reason, always guides people to the step which
\-ou contemplate. But I feel that, whilst you were my
curate, something, probably my own deficiencies in zeal
and ability as God's minister, led you to search for other
counsel and guidance than mine. And though I cannot
reproach myself for either harshness in differing from you,
or weakness in yielding to your opinions, I can yet see
abundant reason in my own heart why I should not have
had all the influence with you which from our relative
positions I ought to have had. Hence I am willing, if
possible, to make one more effort to stop your course to
what I think a most grievous fall ; ineffectual as all my
former reasonings have ever been.
" I quite know, as I said before, and as you say in your
letter to  , that argument is not the thing. I will only
beg you then to consider one or two points. First of all

IV.] VICAR OF KENWYN AND KEA. 1 29
in the four or five years that I have known you you have
undergone many changes of opinion. By early education
you were what is called Evangelical ; by Oxford influences
you had become very High Church, and, as I should say,
very ?<;«-Evangelical. As far as I could influence you, I
wished to reawaken some of your former Evangelical
feelings, and yet to keep you attached to the Church.
Messrs. Aitkin and Haslam completely overrode any
influence I might have tried to use (as imperceptibly as
I could), and made you a Methodist. From this Church
Methodism (or whatever we may call it), you have gradually
come round to Romanism. Though I do not deny that
in this circle you may all along have been revolving round
an unseen centre of attraction, yet you must allow that
the revolution involved considerable changes of sentiment.
In each you seemed very confident of your ground ; and
though you allowed me to reason with you, you never
yielded one inch to my reasonings. Now, you have not
long come to your present position. Think, whether it is
not possible that you may one day find it as untenable
as those you have held before. But once take the step,
and it is almost irrevocable. Vestigia mdla retrorsum.
There is a spell in Romanism that seems to hold its
converts bound by it. You may yet find, too late, that
you have broken all the dearest ties of life only for the
sake of a new phase of belief — not for the Truth itself
" You are dissatisfied with the system of the Church of
England, and so are some of the earnest friends with whom
you have lately taken your stand, and conversed in thought
and prayer. Your feeling is, that such is the natural
course of earnest and devout minds. Now, let me just
tell you some of my own experiences of the opposite
workings. " I know some devout Roman Catholics, the children of
a pious mother, of intellects far superior to any of those
with whom, as far as I know, you have been mostly thrown.
I know that through a course of more than twenty years,
apart from Protestant influence, only among English and
Iri.sh Roman Catholics, in much prayer and anxiety and
study, they have gradually, calmly, painfully, come to the
conclusion that they must either abandon their reason
entirely to the government of others, or conclude that their
Church is idolatrous. They find the Saviour obscured by
the Virgin Mother, and the recent declaration, in favour of
9

130 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

the Immaculate Conception, has finally determined them
to leave the communion of Rome and embrace that of
England. They have done so quietly, unostentatiously,
sorrowfully, but decidedly. And they look with amazement
at the English churchmen who have left the English
Church for that of Rome. They say that, whilst most
educated and serious Roman Catholics in this country are
deploring the extravagance to which the hierarchy are
going, Protestants are rushing over to them and outdoing
even the most extravagant of the Romish divines.
" I, Let me say another thing. When you took to the
Church Methodist system, though I deplored its fanaticism
and your adoption of it, I still rejoiced that you appeared
to have anew embraced the blessed truths of the Incarna
tion and Atonement, of human helplessness to attain
salvation, and of the need of implicit reliance on Christ
only for salvation. Now, read any of the writings of any
of the Reformers, in England, Germany, Switzerland, where
you will — attach as little credit as you like to them, but
their testimony is uniform, that the teaching of the Roman
Church in their day was all but Chrisiless. They could
not, dared not, have so testified if that teaching had really
been/?/// of Christ. Here is one fruit of the Tree whose
leaves, you have learned to believe, are for the healing of
the nations. I do not say that the new doctrines of the
Reformation did not so far interpenetrate even Rome as
to revive some truth on this ground-doctrine of the faith.
But this is due to the Reformation, not to Rome.
" 2. I will mention another fruit My firm and deep
conviction is that, ever excepting the sin of Judas Iscariot,
the deadliest and most damning sin ever committed by
man was committed for centuries by the Church of Rome,
was part of its system, sprang from it, was generated from
its very life-blood. I mean the Inquisition. I know the
Reformation was not wholly without persecution, but it
owed that to its imperfect emerging from Rome. It soon
disowned it.
" 3, Another fruit of the same system has been the
doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, obscuring, perhaps
overthrowing, the doctrine of the Incarnation itself — at all
events, placing Mary between us and Jesus, who is the one
Mediator between God and man,
" 4. One more fruit. Look at Spain and Italy, the two
great seats of Romanism, where it has flourished most.

IV.] VICAR OF KENWYN AND KEA. ir>i

and had its fullest sway. Are there any two Christian
nations so sunk in morals and intelligence and religion ?
I believe you might go through the map of Europe and
write Protestant against the names of every flourishing,
moral, and intellectual people ; and Romanist against all
those who have fallen most, either religiously or intellectu
ally. There may be one or two exceptions, not more.
' Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ? '
" Are not all these facts (I do not call them arguments)
some reason for pausing before embracing the views and
entering the communion of a Church from which all this
has grown out ? God knows I have no wish to hurt your
feelings, or offend you. If I speak in strong terms, believe
me, it is neither from want of kind feeling for yourself nor
from fondness of speaking harshly of Christians, Churches,
or Sects from which I differ. I am rather wont to err in
the other extreme. Conscious of my own sins and infirmi
ties, and of the imperfection of every institution not wholly
divine, I prefer to speak gently of the errors of others and
of the faults of other communions. Perhaps I have erred
in this way in my former intercourse with you. Hoping to^
influence you by gentle arguments, or without arguments,
I have sometimes let you think I did but slightly disapprove
what I deeply deplored. Now probably it is too late. We
are no longer connected as we once were. You have long
ceased to regard my words or opinions. I can only pray
for you — most imperfect, sinful prayer, I well know, but
offered through the ONE Mediator ; and for all the sins of
the worshipper, I believe that they can reach from earth
to heaven through that one Mediator, who is the Ladder
on which angels ascend and descend from man to God,
and from God to men.
" Pray forgive me if I have said anything to pain you.
Pray, do not hastily take the irrevocable step. What is
involved in it I do not know — for this world and for the
next. " Be assured that I am ever, with much regard, but in
deep sorrow, " Yours most truly,
" Harold Browne."
This grave and affectionate effort to stay his young
friend from taking the irrevocable step was unsuccessful.

132 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

The young man passed over, and has since become some
what well known as a controversialist and upholder of those
Ultramontane doctrines which took form mainly under the
Pontificate of Pius IX,, in 1854, and at the so-styled
CEcumenical Council of 1869,
In all matters of parish \\-ork and organisation as well
as in this fatherly treatment of his curates. Professor
Browne was an admirable chief In those days, guilds,
clubs, associations were almost unknown ; but such
machinery as there was he used prudently and con
scientiously. He organised district-visiting and education
with great care, while his pen engrossed his spare hours,
and made serious calls on his scanty leisure hours. As
we should have expected, Mr Browne's relations with
the clergy of his parish were always admirable. One
of those who were under him at Kenwyn, the Rev. Y. C.
Jackson, Rector of Stanmore, speaks warmly of this
characteristic of his Vicar's ministry.
" We worked as friends, he expressing himself always
as one who was in all respects my equal. I had had but
two years' experience in parish work when Harold Browne
asked me to come and join him. I remember quite well
his laying stress on this helping him, in contradiction to
being his curate.
" His solicitude for the welfare of his parish was always
marked by the interest he took in all that I had to tell
him of outlying districts, and he it was who under these
circumstances laid the foundations of the School and
Mission Room at Tregavethan. No man with whom I
have been in contact has the influence of Harold Browne
over young men. There was a tacit yet unmistakable
sympathy which appealed at once to a young man's con
fidence ; and the benefit conferred upon many a man
during those few years at Kenwyn lasts even now with
those of us who remain. . . Many of those who in their
young days start aside from religious constraint, not
necessarily into infidelity, were restrained by this influence.
Few men among the clergy of those days were better received

IV.] VICAR OF KENWYN AND KEA. 133

and venerated among Nonconformists than Mr. Browne —
he never committed himself as others have unfortunately
done, to the error of pitying patronage."
There was another marked element of his activity,
an element which may be said always to characterise a
well-worked parochial system, and to denote an earnest
and spiritual-minded clergyman. This was the develop
ment at Kenwyn of an interest in Foreign Mission work.
In a Pastoral Letter issued in 1880 from Farnham Castle
the Bishop refers to this.
" I have long believed," he writes, " that interest in
Missionary work cannot be kept up by a single annual
sermon in church, and by a few meetings in our towns,
with deputations sent by parent societies. All sermons
are not impressive, nor their influence lasting ; all deputa
tions are not eloquent ; very few in the towns themselves,
and still fewer in the villages round about will frequent
the meetings. I am sure that by far the best way of
keeping up interest and increasing funds is by working
effectually parish associations, and by trying to bring home
to eveiy family, and as far as possible to every member
of every family, a knowledge of and a feeling for the work
which the Church is doing abroad. I have often expressed
my opinion that every parish ought to have its own Mis
sionary organisation, regularly and systematically worked.
In 1842 I became Incumbent of a large town parish (St.
Sidwell's, Exeter). My predecessor had had an annual
sermon and an annual meeting in the schoolroom for
S.P.G. and C.M.S., and some of his district visitors collected
for it ; but the funds gathered were very small. I tried to
improve upon this. We had a meeting in the schoolroom,
where I announced my intention to divide the parish into
districts, each of which was to be canvassed for Missions
by district collectors, who would leave cards in every
house, circulate Missionary publications, and call once a
week or once a month, as the inhabitants might prefer,
for weekly or monthly contributions, the sum collected to
be entered on the respective cards. In addition to this
Missionary boxes were deposited in any hou.ses or shops,
where they would be accepted and useful. We had still

134 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

our annual sermon, and once a quarter instead of once a
year we had a meeting in the schoolroom, the speakers
being the clergy of the parish and any neighbouring
clergyman or layman who would come in and help us.
We gave simple addresses, sometimes lectures illustrated
by pictures and maps. The result of the whole movement
was to quadruple the funds in the very first year.
" Ten or eleven years after, I tried the same scheme in
a large country parish in Cornwall (Kenwyn), with still
more marked success. It \\'as surprising to see how the
people flocked from the country round, some from great
distances, to the quarterly meetings. The result was not
only to swell the funds of the Societies, but to interest a
great number of the farmers and of the poor in Church
Missions, and so in Church work generally. Whilst there
had been only annual sermons in the church, and annual
meetings in the neighbouring town, the people (who in
Cornwall are mostly Wesleyans) did not even know that
the Church had any missions to the heathen. I can con
fidently say that no work in church, school, or cottage
had so favourable an influence in gathering my people
round me, and conciliating dissenters to the Church, as
this exhibiting to them continually the Church as a great
missionary body, and this interesting of them personally
in mission work. They learnt for the first time to believe
that the Church was working in earnest for the salvation
of souls."
Thus, in every way Church life at Kenwyn ^vas raised,
and a higher tone infused into it, by Mr. Browne's remark
able personality and simple earnestness. It used to be
thought that the Churchman who used his pen could not
also be a good parish priest; the learned should have
leisure, the practical parishes : he, however, combined both
with great success, and was as good and active in the one
as with the other. And the times called forth his energies
in every way. The promised treatise on the Articles, the
agitation of these years on the subject of Baptism, and
the presence around him not only of a very strong noncon
formist feeling, but of a school of thought within the

IV.] VICAR OF KENWYN AND KEA. 135

Church coloured by Methodist views as to conversion, —
all these things greatly stimulated Mr. Browne's activity
of mind as preacher and author.
A short time before he moved to Kenwyn in 1 849, the
Diocese of Exeter, and all England with it, had been
thrown into much excitement on the subject of Baptism,
and the limits within which varieties of opinion on the
subject were to be allowed. Mr. Gorham, Incumbent of
St Just in Penwith, had been presented by the Lord
Chancellor, in June 1847, to the living of Brampford Speke,
also in the diocese of Exeter, and the Bishop, hearing
that Mr. Gorham had warmly defended " Low " views as
to the spiritual character of Infant Baptism, insisted on
examining him sharply on the subject of Regeneration
before granting him institution to his new benefice. He
accordingly summoned Mr. Gorham, inquired into his
opinions, declared them unsound, and refused to institute
him. This was in March, 1848. As it was a Lord
Chancellor's living, and as Mr. Gorham had fighting
qualities, the matter was not allowed to rest Mr. Gorham
had resented this examination by his Bishop, in whose
diocese he had been working for years ; and now, finding
himself debarred from preferment, at once began to set
the Courts in motion. He first applied to the Court of
Arches for a Monition to compel the Bishop to grant him
institution. The case was heard in that Court early in
1848, and Sir Herbert Jenner Fust, sitting as Judge, gave
judgment in the matter on August 3rd, 1849, upholding
the Bishop. Thereupon, in the following December,
Mr. Gorham appealed to Her Majesty in Council ; and
the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council sat to hear
the appeal. In this court no Bishop, even though he were
a member of the Privy Council, could sit though he might
be summoned to advise. The Archbishops of Canterbury

136 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch,

and York and the Bishop of London were assessors in
this case. The Judicial Committee in the March follow
ing reversed Sir H. Jenner Fust's judgment, and ordered
the Bishop of Exeter to grant Mr. Gorham institution.
The Bishop obeyed, and Mr. Gorham became Vicar of
Brampford Speke. The result was hailed with great ex
citement and very discordant cries : the Bishop's friends
and the High Church clergy generally protested against
the judgment of a bishop on a question of dogmatic
theology being set aside by a lay court, and did all in
their power to emphasise the importance of the doctrine
of Baptismal Regeneration. On the other hand, the Record
and other Evangelical organs were jubilant at the triumph
of what they regarded as the anti-sacerdotal cause. Mr.
Browne, in the earlier stages of the controversy, was at
Lampeter, and does not seem to have taken an active part
in it ; later on, at Kenwyn, he drew up, in grave and
temperate language, the " Protest of the Clergy of the
Archdeaconry of Cornwall," addressed to the Archbishop
of Canterbury. The conclusion of this document is alto
gether in Mr. Browne's manner (the rough draft of it is in
his handwriting). He strongly maintains the doctrine of
" One Baptism for the remission of sins," declaring that
" the Church holds and has ever held that every person,
infant as well as adult, rightly receiving the Sacrament of
Baptism, is, by virtue of that Sacrament and the grace of
God received therein, grafted into the Body of Christ's
Church, made a member of Christ, a child of God, and an
inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven." And he bases the
protest on the recorded utterances and usage of the early
centuries of the Christian Church.
Professor Rowland Williams, who had no doctrinal
liking for Mr. Gorham and his views, records his impres
sions of the Bishop of St, David's Charge on the subject.

IV.] VICAR OF KENWYN AND KEA. 1 37
" On the Gorham question,'' he writes, " the Bishop
[Thirlwall] evidently did not adopt Mr. G.'s opinions, but
seemed to think they were merely Calvinistic (which have
been held constantly), and that the holder had been rather
persecuted, as well as that he and his examiner had mis
understood each other. The terms, he thinks, ought to
have been defined or explained,"
The three parties in the Church dealt with the question
each in its own way : the High denounced the Gorham views
as heretical ; the Low Church adopted and defended them ;
the Broad held that, though Mr. Gorham's views were
probably incorrect, still they were, on general grounds of
charity and inclusiveness, tenable within the Church of
England, and that Bishop Philpott's course had been
somewhat hard and overbearing. The controversy has left
little trace behind it, the tendency of thought since that
time not being favourable to dogmatic discussions, and the
intellectual pleasure in such questions not strong enough to
tempt men to plunge into such thorny thickets of theological
strife. On the whole, the views expressed by the Bishop
of St. David's may be said to have prevailed. Mr, Browne
had the whole question under review, when he, at this very
time, was revising his Lecture on the XXVIIth Article.
It bears little trace of the excitement through which the
Church had passed. It may be noticed that it re-echoes
Bishop Thirlwall's complaint that much of the quarrel was
due to a lack of proper definition of the terms used by
both sides. And the Article itself upholds the doctrine
of Baptismal Regeneration in terms so carefully chosen,
so studiously moderate, that it was felt that here the
controversy might well be closed. Without attempting to
reconcile the privileges and powers of the Church as a body
politic with the rights and duties of the individual Christian,
the Article recognises both sides, and endeavours to explain
how they may coexist and work harmoniously for the true

138 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

end, which is the implanting of spiritual life in the human
soul, to fit menito be active members of the mystical body
of Christ.
The subject was still only too hot wdien Mr. Browne
settled at Kenwyn. In June 185 1 the Bishop of Exeter
held a synod, in order to rally his diocese round him in
support of the doctrine of Regeneration in Baptism, This
body, composed of the Cathedral Chapter, the chief
officials of the diocese, and two representatives from each
Rural Deanery (two deaneries only having declined to
elect their representatives), met on June 25th, 1851, and
agreed to a declaration in support of the Bishop's con
tention. And from that moment the excitement calmed
down, leaving the preferments in the English Church open
to persons of very different views, yet giving great promi
nence to the Anglican interpretation of the article " One
Baptism for the Remission of Sins."
This " Synod " is also historically a matter of great
interest, as being the earliest revival of synodical action
within the English Church in modern times. The stress of
the controversy had given the diocese a voice ; attention
had been called to the very important subject of the repre
sentation of Church opinion in Conferences, Congresses,
Synods, and Convocation ; and this Exeter " Synod " of
1 85 1 gave the tendency a definite form and shape.
Of this " Synod " Mr. Browne was a member ; and it is
probable that his attention was now first called to the
advantage of such meetings of authorised representatives
of the Church. At any rate, though our materials are not
so full as to enable us to speak with confidence, it is
probable that his active intervention in these matters dates
from this moment.
This interest in Church matters was due to a variety
of causes,— due to the revival of rehgious feeling in the

IV.J VICAR OF KENWYN AND KEA. 139

country, due also to the dislike felt to the solution of
theological, even of doctrinal, questions by lay tribunals ;
above all, due to the strengthened belief in the organic life
of the Church as such, which coincided with the revival
of Anglican doctrine and opinion in the middle of this
present century. It was felt very widely that the Church
as such ought to have a voice in her own affairs, and that
she was not a mere paid servant of the State. In the
followdng year, 1852, efforts were made to give the meetings
of Convocation of the Southern Province a more real
character. Though Convocation had been formally sum
moned ever since the reign of George I., when its delibera
tions were interrupted and forbidden, the meetings had,
for one hundred and thirty-five years, been the merest
matter of form. Now, however, the set of opinion was
so strong that it proved irresistible ; and, after the English
fashion, without any constitutional change. Convocation
began once more to be clothed with some form of life.
Mr. Browne took an active part in influencing opinion.
He printed and circulated widely a letter in pamphlet
form, addressed to Mr. Spencer Walpole, at that time
Home Secretary in Lord Derby's short Administration of
the summer of 1852. The Home Secretary replied on
September nth, 1852, with a polite douche of cold water,
though he plucks up courage to add that he agrees with
the author in deploring "the religious discord which
prevails in the Church and threatens to extinguish true
religion among us. Everything I can do will have for
its object the restoration, if possible, of religious peace."
Mr. Gladstone, to whom, as the statesman in Opposition
most likely to be friendly, Mr. Browne had also trans
mitted a copy, sends a more sympathetic reply, though
he, too, carefully avoids committing himself to any direct
declaration on the subject. He laments the evil results

140 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

of the suspension of Convocation ; the damage to the souls
of men ; the great difificulties which beset any attempt to
revive such an ecclesiastical assembly.
The Cornish clergy at once turned to Mr. Browne as
the right man to represent them and to give weight to
their wishes. Mr. Coope, as representing the county,
wrote to him asking him whether he would be willing to
be put in nomination ; and if so, whether he would write
him something about his views on the questions of the
time. In reply the \'icar of Kenwyn wrote two letters, which
show with what quiet resolution he faced the difficulties of
the day, and the risks which surrounded the new experi
ment of Convocation restored to life. The regretful
reference to the old days when Churchmen only could sit
in Parliament may provoke a smile in these times.
" Exeter, /z«z(7 19^/2, 1852
" Rev. and dear Sir,— Your letter has only just
reached me here. I fully recognise your right to ask me
questions, and I will endeavour to answer them freely and
candidly. If my brethren choose me as one of their
representatives in Convocation (an honour which I assure
you I have made no move towards obtaining, and which
I view as an anxious responsibility), it is my fullest
intention, by God's blessing, to attend regularly at the
meetings of that body.
" 1 cannot deny that I look with anxiety to a revival of
s}'nodal action. Yet after much careful thought I am of
opinion (especially now the legislature is no longer com
posed of at least nominal Churchmen, with the Queen and
Bishops at their head) it is quite necessary that the Church
should be permitted to speak in a free Synod. What
subjects the Synod should at present discuss, I hardly
know, I wish for no change in our doctrines, which are
in my belief Catholic, Apostolical, Evangelical. But the
intermission of synodal action for a hundred and fifty -six
yearshas rendered the machinery of the Church wooden,
and it needs adapting to the wants of the day. Such

IV,] VICAR OF KENWYN AND KEA. I4I
adaptation we cannot accept from Parliament alone. I am
therefore prepared to advocate and support ' measures
calculated to restore an early and effective action to the
lawful representation of the Church in England.'
" At the same time my opinion is that all advocacy of
such measures should be temperate and calm, respectful
towards ' those powers which be, and which are ordained
of God,' and not calculated needlessly to produce collision
between Church and State, or disruption of that union,
which, with all its drawbacks, I believe to be fraught with
great blessings to the people of this land.
" I have the honour to be. Rev. and dear Sir,
" Your faithful Brother,
" E. H. Browne,
"Rev. H. J. Coope.''
And this was followed, a few days later, by the following
reply to Mr. Coope's second letter : —
" KENwyN, June i^th, 1852,
" My DEAR Sir,— I am glad to learn that my reply to
your questions has been satisfactory to you. On such
general points it was obviously right that the clergy should
know my sentiments, before they honour me with their
confidence so far as to nominate me as one of their
proctors. On matters of detail, no doubt, you would not
desire me to pledge myself It is almost impossible to
foresee what questions may arise ; and should you think
to send me to Convocation as your representative, you
would not expect me to become merely a delegate or
mouthpiece. At the same time, I assure you that I am so
far from feeling confidence in my own judgment that I
should always thankfully receive guidance and counsel
from my brethren.
" I quite agree with what you say about the separation of
Church and State, We may safely trust that God will
not let the Church suffer, when she is more than ever
deprived of all aid but His — if her state of destitution and
condition as an outcast have not arisen from the rashness
and self-confidence of her own children. But I would
not cast off her worldly privileges from mere wantonness
or impetuosity. If the tyranny of the powers of this
world causes the dissolution of our fellowship, we have no

142 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

cause to fear We may then ' break their bonds asunder
and cast away their cords from us.' But I still hope
that such a crisis may not arrive ; and sound Churchmen
as well as good citizens may, I think, justly labour to
avert it. " I am, dear Sir,
" Very faithfully yours,
" E. H. Browne.
" Rev. H. J. Coope."
Mr Browne was accordingly elected Proctor for Con
vocation, and so became a member of that body at the
moment when it forced the hand of the Upper House,
by appointing committees, and holding a real session,
instead of being prorogued immediately after voting the
formal Address to the Crown. Four years before, an
amendment to the Address had been moved and passed
in the Lower House, and had been carried through the
Upper, praying that Her Majesty would grant her license
to Convocation to act; and in the interval between 1847
and 1852 legal advice had been sought which brought
out clearly the fact that there was no constitutional bar
to the revival of Convocation, the law recognising the
existence of the body, and the only obstacles to renewed
activity being the need of royal assent and license before
any new canon could be promulged. It also appeared to
some of the lawyers that the Archbishop had no right
to prorogue Convocation without consent of his suffragans.
Encouraged by these legal opinions, when Convocation
met in November 1852, those desirous to see the revival,
having agreed beforehand on a course of action, put
forward a very moderate plea for time. The Bishop of
Oxford, Wilberforce, moved an amendment to the Arch
bishop's draft Address to the Crown, to the effect that
Convocation was about to appoint Committees to consider
plans for correction of clergy if they were found to offend

IV.] VICAR OF KENWYN AND KEA. 1 43

against the laws ecclesiastical. The Archbishop, perhaps
influenced by the power and eloquence of the Bishop of
Oxford, instead of at once proroguing Convocation as
usual, fixed a day four days later for the resumption of
the debate. Committees were appointed and sat ; and
after a protest against prorogation made by the four
Bishops of Oxford, Salisbury, Chichester, and St David's
Convocation was prorogued on November 17th, till the
following February.
And thus began the new life of this ancient and con
stitutional body.
Of the part played by Professor Browne in these early
days of Convocation, we catch one or two glimpses in his
letters. The one of these is a graphic narration of a historic
scene, the other tells us how from the outset he took
decided part with the more prudent and cool-headed
members of the High Church party, in modifying the
eagerness of the fighting men, more especially of Arch
deacon Denison. Nothing could be more charming than
to read the account of that ancient defender of the faith,
using the strongest language, condemning all who could
not see with him to terrific penalties, and then, directly
the battle was over, meeting his antagonists on most
friendly and brotherly terms. The following letter to
Mrs. Harold Browne, dated November 3rd, 1852, bears
testimony to the spirit in which Convocation worked, and
to the position taken by Professor Browne in it : —
" I have been all day at work again. I have regular
stand-up fights with Archdeacon Denison, which terminate
in expressions of mutual esteem — so that we do not suffer
seriously by the encounters. But I think I have succeeded
in very materially modifying his strong expressions, if I
have not been able quite to eradicate all that I could wish.
I have to work almost alone. But my courage has not
failed me ; and I trust that a higher Power has sustained

144 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
me. I am not so tired to-day as yesterday, and feel very
well — though I could not bear a very long continuance of
such discussions as we have had yesterday and to-day. I
think the greatest troubles have now been got over."
The closing words of this letter give us a glimpse into
the motions of a good man's heart : —
" You must kiss all the chicks, and tell them a little
about their pappy, and how much he loves them all, and
that he prays God to bless them all and to make them
His children. I ought to write to them."
At the close of this first real session of Convocation,
the Queen received the Address of the two Houses in
state. The account of the ceremony is not without a
certain interest. It is contained in a letter, written many
years after to Dr Sumner, Bishop of Guildford, Prolocutor
of the Lower House, in which the Bishop says : —
" I am the only living Bishop, almost the only living
man, who was present when Convocation, awakened from
the death-sleep of a century and a quarter, presented its
first Address to the Queen. Your uncle. Archbishop
Sumner, read it as President
" When the Address was sent down from the Bishops to
the Lower House, I ventured to make my first move, and
was somewhat frightened by my own voice. It seemed to
me wrong that in a document emanating from the repre
sentative assembly of a great Christian Church there
should be no word which shewed that we belonged to
Christ; and I moved that the defect should be remedied
by the insertion of a few words containing the name of
our Saviour, Deans and Archdeacons whispered en
quiringly who the young proctor was that ventured to
correct the orthodoxy of the united Episcopate ; but they
adopted my amendment, all the same.
" When we went to Buckingham Palace in considerable
numbers, we had to wait a weary while in an antechamber.
Suddenly the doors were thrown open, and I think we had
the most royal scene I have ever witnessed. At the farther
end of the presence chamber the Queen was in front of

IV.] VICAR OF KENWYN AND KEA. 1 45
her throne, under a grand canopy. The Prince Consort
and some of the royal children were just behind her. All
the principal Ministers and great officers of state were on
the right and left. The Duchess of Sutherland, as Mistress
of the Robes, was on her right, holding the largest bouquet
I ever saw. The Gentlemen of the Body Guard in full
military dress lined the room and formed an avenue for us to
walk up under glittering chandeliers, etc., etc. I have never
been so much struck with any royal pageant since. It seems
to me, looking back now nearly thirty-five years upon it,
to have been much more striking than the Queen's opening
of Parliament. A royal wedding at St George's Chapel
is the only pageant of the kind which has impressed me
nearly so much. But I was very young to such things
then, going up from my distant home in Cornwall. I am
now old and bias/. The Archbishop read the Address and
presented it. The Queen replied sitting.
" She read with the clearest and most silvery voice, very
graciously, but with a rather emphatic distinctness, especially
when she came to the words ' My Supremacy,' which she
spoke significantly and incisively. We made our bows ;
the Archbishop and the Prolocutor (Dean Peacock) kissed
hand, and we backed out of the Royal Presence into
primeval obscurity. Possibly, Archdeacons Harrison and
Denison were there besides me. I cannot think of any
other living member of Convocation. So I relate to the
present Prolocutor what happened under his archiepiscopal
uncle, when the Queen first spoke, rejoicing that she is
now speaking again."
The letter is dated by the reference to " nearly thirty-five
years ago"; it would be in 1852 that this scene took
place. The question is often asked, whether Convocation has
justified the hopes of its friends, or has been a source of
danger to the Church, as its opponents foreboded ? We
are perhaps too near the time to be able to form a decided
judgment on these questions ; and, in truth, the whole
subject is still somewhat obscure. One thing is certain —
it has not justified the fears with which good and timid
Churchmen regarded it ; it may safely be said that the
10

146 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
influence of Convocation has throughout been conservative
and conciliatory. Extreme parties have failed to bend
it to their will ; and the deliberations and acts of the two
bodies, if narrowed in scope and often lacking in practical
results, have as a rule been dignified and moderate. That
Convocation has mainly taken its character from the High
Church party is obvious : this, however, is only to say
that the years of the revived activity of the two Houses
have also been the years of the vigorous advance of that
party. Considering the legal restrictions under which
Convocation labours ; considering the great excess of ex
officio members in the Lower House and the narrow
limitation of the electorate, by which all clergy engaged
in school work, all curates of parishes, all chaplains of
institutions, are excluded, it is wonderful to see how well
on the whole Convocation has justified the revival. Many
reforms in the Church have been carried through Parlia
ment in consequence of the representations of Convocation ;
great opportunities have been provided for the discussion
of matters affecting the welfare of the Church : above all,
the minds of men, irritated by the want of some definite
and recognised deliberative body, have been calmed and
to some degree satisfied. Diocesan Conferences and the
Church Congresses have also impressed on the English
people the fact that the English Church is full of life and
energy. It has shewn, too, that there is a vast breadth
of opinion within the Church, temperate and sober, averse
to pushing matters to extremes, prepared to tolerate a
good deal of eccentricity or even folly, if it is shewn that
the foolish or eccentric persons are in earnest and are
really, after their light, devoting themselves to the practical
service of Christ and His people. All things considered,
it is clear that the revival of Convocation, though the body
suffers greatly from lack of power to enforce its convictions.

IV.] VICAR OF KENWYN AND KEA. 147
has worked for good to the Church, and has perhaps done
as much as the deliberative action of a Church wedded
to the State can ever be expected to do. And were, one
day, the relation between Church and State to be broken,
here is the machinery with which our Church cou d
fashion a more independent life. In these days, in which
the State is more and more compelled to listen to the
popular voice, it is all-important that the Church also
should know what is going on around and within, and
should not shut herself up in aristocratic indifference.
The leading party in the Church has come to see that
the most important religious question of the immediate
future is the relation between the Anglican Church and
the people. By degrees we may even come to take the
people into our confidence, and listen to them with as
much courtesy and deference as we exact from them
when we talk, and as we have been wont to pay to our
superiors when they talk to us.
It comes then to this, that Convocation has already done
a very important work in the revived Church ; and that
the influence of this chief Parliament of religion in England
is likely to become far greater in the future ; the decisions
arrived at will have increasing force, and the moderation
of tone prevailing there, a moderation which has from
time to time been tested by unwise and extreme proposals,
will probably enable it to lessen the disruptive tendencies
certain to make themselves felt in any crisis of the history
of the Church of England. The existence also of the
House of Laymen, a modern innovation, may become a
guarantee that Convocation will take not a mere clerical
view of Church affairs, but will feel the weight and im
portance of the laity, who after all, did they but know it,
are the Church.
These overwhelming activities and interests were enough

148 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
to occupy the energies of the strongest ; and Mr. Browne,
undertaking his new duties with a weakened frame and a
courage far beyond his strength, was soon made to feel
that there were limits to his energies. He had unfortu
nately made himself liable to attack by a bad fall at
Lampeter, which had hurt his spine. A man so tall had
" too much territory to defend," and his back gave way
when he had ventured on the extravagance of over-work.
He had not been long at Kenwyn before, in 1850, a severe
attack of inflammation of the spine obliged him to take
to his bed. There he remained for several months. He
was thrown down, but not defeated ; these months of
enforced quietude were hailed by him as a providential
time of leisure in which to fulfil his promise to the
Lampeter lads. It is to this Kenwyn illness that we owe
the completion of the first volume of the work on the
Thirty-Nine Articles, on which so much of his reputation
rests. It came about thus. At Lampeter he was bound
to instruct his pupils in the articles of the Christian faith
and the formularies of the Church. Now, the Thirty-Nine
Articles were the obvious text-book for ' the purpose.
Their moderation, as an expression of the mind of the
reformed Church of England, and the way in which they
cover the whole surface of dogma, discipline, and Church
order, commended the Articles from every side to Mr
Browne's mind. His even-mindedness, his learning, and
his love of Church antiquity, diere found encouragement
and subjects ready to hand. An inferior teacher, feeling
the backwardness of the students, and alarmed by the
breadth and depth of the questions treated in the Articles,
would no doubt have contented himself with a formal
discussion of each; with a good bit of "learning by
heart" on the part of the students, and some slight
historical and other explanation by the teacher, the young

IV.] VICAR OF KENWYN AND KEA. 149

men would have seemed sufficiently equipped for their
Ordination examination. But Mr. Browne treated the
matter far more thoroughly : he handled the Articles as
living things ; gave the young men much to think about ;
got them to store up an acquaintance with theological
questions, which would come in very handily in their
public ministry afterwards ; and made his lectures a
thorough course of divinity. The students, feeling the use
fulness of this teaching, met together one day in the latter
part of 1 847, and agreed that they would petition the Vice-
Principal to publish his lectures as a permanent text-book
of Theology. Mr. Browne, however, found no means of
fulfilling his undertaking tlH after he had left Lampeter.
The earlier part of the work was forward when he came
to Kenwyn, though by no means ready for the press.
It was not till 1850 that the students received their
copies of the first edition of the earlier portion of the
work, and read what they had heard with so much profit in
the Lampeter lecture-room. Archdeacon Hardy gives us a
touch of the life of the patient worker in this time of his
physical weakness and suffering.
" It was felt," he writes, " as a real privilege by his clerical
brethren to be admitted occasionally to his bedside, to find
him, surrounded by his books, cheerfully working at his
Opus Magnum. I recollect one occasion on which I was
delighted by his asking me to copy out some Greek
quotations for his forthcoming work. Happily, while this
task was exercising his mental powers, his bodily strength
was quietly returning, and at last was fully restored. I
think he attributed the loss of bodily power to his having
over-exerted himself when ' stroke ' of the Emmanuel boat
at Cambridge. However this might be, our Church has
reason to be thankful for the repose thus given to him in
mature life, to her permanent gain."
The work thus brought into being was received at once
with much applause on every hand. The first volume

150 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
carried the exposition as far as the fifteenth Article ; and
after the lapse of three busy years the remainder of the
work made its appearance, and met with a similar reception
from students of Church doctrine and institutions. It was
felt on all sides that never before had the character and
claims of the English Church been set out so cleariy, and
with so littie to offend: men hailed the author as the
upholder of a moderate and conservative High Church
position. It was perfectly true, as the "Guide-Book to
Books " puts it, that here we have, " not a classic, but the
fullest book of the kind available." For lectures, commen
taries, expositions, cannot aim at being " classics " ; their
business is on another level. The question really is, whether
the book before us, being intended to explain the body of
Divinity of the English Church, does it in such a way as
to clear off difficulties, elucidate the propositions laid down,
steer a good course between conflicting opinions, and make
the doctrine and discipline of the Church easier to Church
men. The qualities required for such a work are soundness
of knowledge, especially in the whole sphere of the growth
of dogma and institutions, honesty and truthfulness of
spirit in dealing with the abstruse questions involved, the
rare gift of exposition, an orderly power of arrangement,
a charitable construction of other men's opinions, a genuine
belief in the truth of the main principles of the Christian
religion ; also a true sense of proportion, to balance between
things more or less essential and important ; and lastly
a pleasant style, bright without being poetical, simple yet
not bald. Now, in the main, Mr. Browne's Exposition of
the Thirty-Nine Articles possessed these important practical
qualities. We feel that we are dealing with a very honest
person ; he is devoted to the Church of which he under
takes to explain the theology and structure ; his convic
tions, however strong, do not degenerate into partisanship ;

IV.] VICAR OF KENWYN AND KEA. I 5 I

the middle position of the Anglican Church delights
him ; the views and opinions of those who hold a more
extreme position affect him little ; he makes all allow
ance he can, and realises that even a Church must have
room to swing. Above all, while he does not enter
sympathetically into the views of those opposed to him,
he treats all with a rare courtesy, and shews such charity
and moderation that the best of his opponents are won
to him even while they protest against his opinions.
The best account of the object of the work may perhaps
be found in the simple and straightforward words of the
introduction : —
" In the following pages an attempt is made to interpret
and explain the Articles of the Church, which bind the
consciences of her clergy, according to their natural and
genuine meaning ; and to prove that meaning to be both
scriptural and catholic. None can feel so satisfied, nor
act so straightforwardly, as those who subscribe them in
such a sense. But if we consider how much variety of
sentiment may prevail amongst persons, who are, in the
main, sound in the faith, we can never wish that a National
Church, which ought to have all the marks of catholicity,
should enforce too rigid and uniform an interpretation of
its formularies and terms of union. The Church should
be not only Holy and Apostolic, but, as well. One and
Catholic. Unity and universality are scarcely attainable
where a greater rigour of subscription is required than
such as shall ensure an adherence and conformity to those
great catholic truths, which the primitive Christians lived
by, and died for,"
Bishop Thirlwall, to whom Mr. Browne had dedicated
the work, " in affectionate gratitude for unsought and
unexpected kindness, and with deep respect for profound
intellect and high Christian integrity," replied at once, to
the receipt of the first volume : —
" Abergwil', Carmarthen, 30/^ September, 1850.
" Mv DEAR Sir, — On my return last Saturday from the

152 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
consecration of a church near Swansea, I found the first
volume of your Exposition of the Articles, I shall ever
value it exceedingly as a memorial of the relation which
existed between us, though I am quite ashamed of being
spoken of as your kindness has dictated in the Dedication.
I must however add that I have been very much pleased
with the plan and the execution of the work, so far as I
could judge of it from the exposition of the first Article,
which is all I have yet read ; and I believe that especially
in this diocese, it may very advantageously supersede the
best books hitherto used on the subject 
" Yours faithfully.

' C. St. David's.

Rev. E. Harold Browne."

The Dean of Exeter fully appreciates the via media
quality of the work, for he speaks of the want long
" felt by those who know how necessary it is that the candi
date for Ordination in our Church should be thoroughly
grounded in the principles of dogmatic theology. With
out this, some will be starting aside after the way of
Gorham, others will take shelter in Romish infallibility,
and still more, perhaps, will be captivated with Bunsen's
Church of the future, or the Pantheism of Spinoza."
And after the receipt of the second volume in April
1853, Dean Lowe writes again. After referring to a slight
grammatical error, he proceeds : —
" And now, having pointed out the only microscopic
blemish I can discover in your work, let me assure you
that I admire it as cordially as people are apt to admire
whatever entirely agrees with their own sentiments and
opinions, and places them in the most advantageous light.
In its lucid arrangement, its copiousness of illustration,
its clear and candid statements of conflicting opinion, and
the sound and impartial judgment with which those
opinions are weighed, it cannot fail to be of the highest
value to the theological student, and I most heartily wish
that all who peruse it may imbibe at least a portion of the
truly Christian spirit in which it is written."

IV.] VICAR OF KENWYN AND KEA. I 53
I am tempted to add a testimony of a very different
kind. The Rev. W. A. Hales, of St. John's, Heywood,
near Manchester, who in his day had attended the Norrisian
Professor's lectures at Cambridge, says : —
" There is a very humble tradesman in this town, in
whose sitting-room I was surprised and delighted to find
your work on the Thirty-Nine Articles. I was still more
surprised to find that it had been most carefully read and
annotated. Conversation with the man proved that the
book had been, through God's mercy, a guide to him and
a friend. It helped to lead him, he says, to the truth, and
it helps to keep him rooted and grounded in it."
Two little touches, shewing the influence of the work
in later days, shall close the subject
" I was being shewn," says a friend of the Bishop, " over
Birmingham Barracks, and was taken to see a school for
soldiers' children. The master examined before me in the
Catechism ; and on ' secondly, that I should believe all
the Articles of the Christian faith,' asked a boy, ' And how
many Articles of the Christian faith are there ? ' And
when the lad naturally hesitated, he added, ' Why, thirty-
nine of course,' . . no doubt an answer made in petto by
nine-tenths of the candidates for Orders after reading their
Harold Browne."
The other story has, I think, never seen the light ; I had
it direct from the late Bishop McDougall. One day many
years ago, soon after his return to England from Labuan,
the Bishop dropped in on his old friend and tutor Jacobson,
then Bishop of Chester. The Bishop was just setting out
for Convocation ; and Bishop McDougall went in with
him, and sat down for a few minutes to watch the assem
bling of the prelates. Presently, in came the Bishop of
Ely, and sitting down on a low seat stretched out his long
legs far across the chamber. " I say. Bishop, whose are
those tremendous long shanks?" "Don't you know?"

154 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
Bishop Jacobson replied, in his deep, gruff voice. " Why,
those are Harold Browne's Articles." And that was the
first time Bishop McDougall saw the man who afterwards
became his firmest and most affectionate friend.
In addition to this chief work on the Articles of religion,
Mr. Browne, during his stay at Kenwyn, published several
lesser pieces, which all bear witness to his energy, and to
the zeal with which he advocated the healthy develop
ment of the Church. Some of these publications were
sermons: thus, in May 1851 he preached an excellent
discourse on " The gifts of the Ascended Saviour," at the
triennial visitation of the Bishop of Exeter, held in St.
Mary's parish church, Truro ; then, a few months later,
appeared three sermons, preached in Kenwyn church, in
which can be traced very clearly the effect of that " Papal
Aggression " which caused so great a turmoil in England
in 1 85 1. All Protestant bodies were alarmed, regarding
it as a sign of confidence on the part of the Roman Church ;
and Churchmen were especially disturbed, because it carried
the war into their midst, by the appointment of Roman
bishops in some of the ancient dioceses. This, of course,
was on one side the aim and point of it, being the Vatican's
way of saying that it refused to recognise the episcopate
of the Church of England, and in its lordly way treated
the Anglican dioceses as non-existent. Mr. Browne felt,
with the whole body of High Churchmen, that here was
a distinct challenge, and he accused the Roman Church
of schism ; his sermon is a warm appeal to all English
people to rally to the Anglican Church, and to abandon
extremes : if all England had been united, the " Papal
Aggression " would never have been attempted ; it is the
rift of our unhappy divisions which enables the foreign
power to make a lodgment in our midst. He does not
pay much heed to the down-trampling of the British

IV.] VICAR OF KENWYN AND KEA. I 55
Church by the emissaries of Rome in the sixth century,
but holds that we, as the successors of the Church esta
blished by St. Augustine of Canterbury, have ever held to
the faith, while Rome, whence he came, has drifted far
away from the standpoint of those times. Very bitter to
the preacher was the action of the " Bishop of Rome,"
who had
" denied the very existence of our Church ; had put
bishops of his own making into the dioceses of the English
bishops ; and by parcelling out the land into new divisions,
and creating new titles in it, has usurped the authority of
our Queen, as well as treating our Church and our fellow
Christians as heathens, and our bishops and clergy as
impostors." Churchmen have since then become accustomed to the
sight of Roman prelates, and recognise and respect them
as representative heads of the Roman Obedience. It is
bad, no doubt, to find so good and ancient a theory as that
of one Bishop in one diocese unequal to the necessities
of Christian life in our day ; yet still it is so : and, after all,
the more vivid our faith in Christ, the more tolerant we
shall grow towards those who do not see things as we do.
Mr. Browne, at the close of this sermon, places the matter
on much higher ground ; for Christ hath made us free, and
we can therefore look without fear on the efforts made to
enthral mankind or to turn it from the open Book,
The second sermon is on Antichrist, a subject which
had great fascination for the Bishop ; he chose it a second
time in his old age, in 1883, when he preached at the
opening of the Reading Church Congress. The third
sermon, " On the Prospects of the New Year," is also
tinged by the influence of the so-called " Papal Aggression."
It is rather a sad review of the past than an attempt to
look bravely into the future ; it is perhaps most notable for

156 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
the closing sentence, which, coming from so warm and
sincere a defender of the Anglican Established Church,
proves that Mr. Browne would never have associated himself
with the extravagant language now popular respecting
the temporalities of the Church. " Once let the Church of
England fall, — I do not mean the Church Establishment,
that is but the shell of which the Church is the kernel and
the truth, — once let the Church, founded by apostles and
reformed by martyrs, cease to be the Church of the people
and their affections ; and be sure that Romanism or
unbelief will soon be the only choice that you will
have." There was yet another sermon published in this year,
one preached at Kenwyn on November 23rd, 185 1, on
" Religious Excitement," which was a grave protest against
the " Aitkenite " movement, shewing how an earnest and
careful parish priest in those parts should deal with the
revivalist excitements of the Celtic population.
The Rev. F. C. Jackson was at this time one of the
Kenwyn curates, and he describes in a characteristic letter
the different impressions left on different minds by Mr.
Aitken's preaching at this time.
" I remember," he writes, " the Aitkenite movement very
well indeed, and the effect it had upon Haslem, who spoke
to me about the impression old Aitken had upon him,
especially in a sermon he preached at Baldhu in a service
at which I helped. The sermon was on Gen. xxviii. 18
(Jacob's lie to his father) ; but the more it attracted Haslem
the more it repelled me. I remember how I felt that
Aitken had simply been converted to the Brianite faith ;
and the noise of his deep discordant voice eminently fitted
him for the line he had taken up. The singular tempera
ment of Haslem yielded to the bowlings of a man whose
sacred position and years gave weight to a doctrine which
all around him in the hands of the Brianite preachers was
pointless.

IV.] VICAR OF KENWYN AND KEA. 157
" I had much conversation with Haslem after this ; he
wanted me to join him in his convictions, but I could not.
. It all grieved Harold Browne : many and many a
serious talk we had together, and I found comfort in the
decided way in which he expressed views which were similar,
though less defined, in me."
The " Brianite " (or " Bryanite ") preachers were nearly
identical with the " Bible Christians " ; they split off from
the Cornish Methodists, under the leadership of Mr.
William O'Bryan, a local Wesleyan preacher. This gentle
man in 181 5 severed himself from the Wesleyan body
without any real difference of doctrine, and was followed
by a crowd of simple people, eager to live according to
the principles of the most primitive Christianity, as they
conceived it to be portrayed for them in the pages of the
Bible. They have at the present day a large number of
chapels in Devon and Cornwall.
The second volume of Mr. Browne's work on the Articles
was at the time engaging much of his time and thoughts.
No wonder it gave him some anxiety ; no wonder we feel
that a prayerful spirit was on him all the time, to keep
him from extremes and to " guide " him (for so his petition
ever ran) " into all truth." This second volume, which
appeared from J. W. Parker's press in 1853, contained
all the Articles on the Sacraments ; the subject which had
so lately filled the Western world with excitement. His
treatment of this side of the Church's system of Divinity,
a branch difficult and thorny in theory, and infinitely
simple by God's blessing in practice, is a judicious
exposition of the Anglican middle view^ on the subject.
The late controversy on Infant Baptism leaves no trace on
the fair and dispassionate surface of his treatment of the
Regeneration question ; he takes the Bishop of Exeter's
side, but so temperately and simply that his views were

158 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
generally accepted. This standard work on the English
" Confession " of the sixteenth century, on Anglican
dogmatic theology, and on the structure of Church order,
has won for itself in spite of the disfavour into which the
study of doctrine has unfortunately fallen, a position which
seems likely to be permanent It marks the standing-
ground of High Church theology in England from the
sixteenth century down to the present day. We do not
now deal with the intellectual problems of dogma with
that keenness and vigour with which they were handled
in the days of the Reformation. In those times the whole
energies of theological feeling were thrown into the great
contests which raged round doctrine and Church order ;
and the resultant bodies of divinity which emerged on
every hand bear witness to the struggles and the enthu
siasms of the day. The Augsburg Confession of the
Lutherans began it ; John Calvin was not far behind with
the " Institutes of the Christian Religion '' ; the Scots,
with their hard-headed intellectual temper, quickly framed
their " Confession of Faith " and " Book of Discipline " ;
the English Reformers put out the Thirty-Nine Articles ;
and lastly, the Church of Rome responded to the general
movement towards Dogmatic Theology by the issue
of the Tridentine Decrees. Perhaps, when the English
Church reaches the critical moment of a reaction from the
sensuous tendencies of the day — themselves a reaction
from the indifferent dulness of official religion earlier in
the century — the masculine study of dogmatic theology
may revive again, and once more be regarded as a
thing worthy of the study of the best intellects. We
may then wed the womanly side, as one may say, of
religion, the exercise of cultivated taste, the consciousness
of life in the family of the Church, the appeal to the
feelings and aspirations of frail humanity, with the more

IV.] VICAR OF KENWYN AND KEA. I 59
robust and systematised theology which by historic de
velopment has slowly been framed out of the glimpses
given us in Holy Scripture. We may then be able to
enjoy to the full the ripeness of religious life in which
the spirit of the Lord will give light to all the dogmas
and ordinances of the faith, and letter and spirit will no
longer stand in sharp contrast. We can imagine that in
such a time Harold Browne's work on the Thirty-Nine
Articles will surely have a fresh time of favour ; and
people will see in the learning, the charitable spirit, and
moderation of it, a true picture of the position occupied
by the English Church.
The structure of the Methodist bodies, which came at
this time much under Mr. Browne's notice, and the pressure
of the large area and population of his parishes, set his
active and constructive mind in motion in the direction,
which he ever afterwards followed, of seeing how far, and
under what limitations, the help of active Christian laymen
could be secured for the Church. In 1854 he read before
the Ruridecanal Chapter of Powder a paper on " Thoughts
on an Extension of the Diaconate and on Lay Agency,"
which was printed by request of the members of that
Deanery. The paper opens with a friendly recognition
of the good work done by the Wesleyan body, though he
seems, by an odd inversion, to attribute to their activity the
result that " nothing like the same proportion of our
(Cornish) population attend a place of worship now, when
compared with those who frequented their parish church
a century ago." There is a striking and tolerant passage
in this valuable pamphlet which ought to be quoted as
shewing with how broad a view Mr. Browne regarded the
limits of opinion. " I would rather," he says, " see a certain
amount of error (not fatal or fundamental) in the Church,
than see every one who cannot correctly pronounce all our

l60 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
shibboleths cast out." And the paper shews also that his
mind was already much set on the revival of synodal
action in the English Church " as a means whereby whole
some reforms might be safely brought into our polity."
The pamphlet is a very strong condemnation of the
surtout point de zele attitude often too common in the
clerical world.
Mr. Browne had only been at Kenwyn for three years
when disturbing influences began. Some time in 1853 there
seems to have been a wish that he should become a
candidate for the Hebrew Professorship at Cambridge ; of
this, however, nothing came ; in the same August he was
in touch with two men who afterwards were causes of
much anxiety to him. On August 25th, 1853, he received
a letter from Bishop Gray, of Cape Town, asking him to
suggest the name of some person suitable to be nominated
for the new Bishopric of Graham's Town ; the Bishop
would have been only too glad had Mr. Browne responded,
" Here am I ; take me."
Writing about it many years later, he definitely says
that it was so.
" Graham's Town was virtually offered to me before
Armstrong took it. I was obliged to decline it. I myself
was very ill at the time, and I had a dear child paralysed
and full of suffering, whom I could not have taken and
could not have left."
He had given himself to work in England and could not
leave his invalid daughter, and so he passed the matter
by. After a short delay the Bishop of Cape Town's choice
fell on Mr. Armstrong, who, together with a man destined
to create hereafter a great excitement in the Church,
Mr. Colenso, was consecrated Bishop in this year.
Mr. Colenso had been an active Incumbent in the
diocese of Norwich, a moderate High Churchman, zealous

IV.] VICAR OF KENWYN AND KEA. l6l
in the cause of Missions ; it was in consequence of the
advice of friends on the Board of the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel, and other stout Churchmen,
that Bishop Gray nominated him to the Duke of Newcastle
and the Primate, and he was consecrated Bishop of Natal.
Who can say what might have happened had Mr. Browne
been his colleague and neighbour in the work ? One thing
is certain, they would both have been the zealous friends
and champions of the native races, and the unpleasant strife
of later years, which brought no credit to any one, might
possibly have been avoided.

II

BOOK IL
1853— 1863.

163

CHAPTER I.
NORRISIAN PROFESSOR.
IN November 1853 Mr. Browne became a candidate for
the Norrisian Professorship at Cambridge. This office,
one of the chief theological posts in that University, used
to be filled by a very curious method of selection, the like
of which could hardly be found elsewhere. Candidates
had to send in their names to the " Three Stewards," the
Master of Trinity, the Provost of King's, and the Master
of Corpus, who selected two, whose names they submitted
to the Heads of Houses. Mr. Browne's application,
addressed to the Master of Trinity, runs as follows : —
" Novem.ber 24th, 1853.
" My opinions are, I beheve, in simple accordance with
the doctrines of the Church of England ; and I trust they
are consistent with the most entire charity to all who
dissent from her. Whilst I do not acknowledge anything
like latitudinarianism, I lay claim to large religious sympa
thies, and therefore have a peculiar dislike to exclusive
sectarianism." He then goes on to urge that the fact of his being a parish
clergyman should be in his favour, and ends by frankly
admitting and deploring the idleness which had hindered
his undergraduate success. On January 24th, 1854, Dr.
Archdall, Master of Emmanuel, wrote to tell him that
he and the Rev. C. Hardwick, Fellow of St. Catherine's
165

l66 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
Hall, had been selected. At their next meeting the
Heads proceeded to the election, and out of twelve present
ten voted for Mr. Browne, who was thereon declared to
be duly elected Norrisian Professor of Divinity, and was
admitted to the office on May 6th following.
" Everybody speaks of it," he writes on the day of his
admission, " as a most important and influential office ;
but all speak of it too as very hard work ; and alas ! at
first we shall be much the poorer for it . . . Professor Blunt
says that the society at Cambridge is particularly pleasant,
remarkably easy, and with very few people who talk to
shine, though so many who can shine if they aim at doing
so. May God in His goodness bless this new change
in our prospects and duties to them and to us, here and
hereafter, for our blessed Saviour's sake."
He appears to have been allowed to retain his old rooms
in College; for a little later (April 27th, 1854) we find
him writing to his wife : " I have been obliged to leave my
rooms in College, which recalled my boyish days, and if
I had stayed long in them I should have become a foolish
boy again in my old age. There was some danger of my
appearing in a straw hat and a round jacket, and going
down to the river to take the stroke oar in the boat."
His lectures began in the October Term of 1854. "1
gave my first lecture to-day. I felt very nervous at first
lecturing, the more so as I found my lecture was not
half long enough for the hour. However, I concluded
by an extempore lecture, and so got through the hour
pretty well." And speaking of the effort of beginning this
new life of teaching he says, a few days later : " I can do
twice as much here as I can at Kenwyn ; for I am sure
I should be half dead by this time if I had worked there
as I have done here for the last fortnight."
The interests and excitements of the University town
had acted as a tonic on his delicate frame. " I have invita-

I.] NORRISIAN PROFESSOR. 1 67
tions to dinner six deep," he writes, " which is dreadful.
You may guess, however, that I am not seriously hurt by
eating or writing yet ; for I walked a round to-day which
I am told is six miles ; I suppose in Cornwall I could not
•do more than half though I trust my powers of locomotion
are returning a little." And other work came swiftly to
him. He was made Examiner, which involved very much
labour ; and the University Press consulted him as to the
publication of books. Thus he writes (February 29th,
1856) : " I have a deal of work on hand just now, having
to read a MS. book of Mr. Scrivener's, a collation of several
•Greek MSS., to see whether the University Press should
print it. Besides, I have lots to do on my own account"
After a very short time the Professor was joined by
his wife and family, and occupied a comfortable house,
" Newnham Cottage," at the back of the Colleges. It was
divided from the grounds of King's and Queens' Colleges
by the Cam. A little wicket opening into an arched way
led to the house door. A garden gave room for the boys
to play boy-cricket, and enabled them to blow off their
redundant spirits while their father worked within. In
those days there were very few ladies at either University,
only Heads of Houses and a few Professors being married ;
and here and there, a wonder to see, a stripling daughter
growing up to womanhood. Dinners, except at the houses
of Heads, were very rare ; and to these only a select
few were bidden. The rest of the narrow University
public were entertained in large evening parties. Professor
Thomson used to say that " the Heads were asked to
•dinner and the Brains to tea." Mrs. Harold Browne, in her
Diary for 1856, in which she jotted down some of the
bright impressions of those days, thus describes the life of
Cambridge : —
" Our first dinner-party was at Trinity Lodge, when

1 68 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
Whewell was Master — and such a Master ! He towered
over all in mind and body ; he had a fine large leonine
head, with grizzly hair and shaggy eyebrows ; not one
good feature, but eyes which seemed to look into every
thing and everybody ; and when he spoke he sparkled all
over, and no one could think him plain. We met there
Trench, then Dean of Westminster, with his wife and
beautiful daughter. Whewell sat in the middle of his table
with Trench opposite, and they talked for the good of the
public on poetry, etc. I sat next to the Master of Downing,
who was most agreeable, having a constant flow of con
versation, but I could hear Whewell's hailstones over all
the patter. . . Perhaps the most delightful companion
of all was dear Professor Sedgwick, one of my father's
oldest friends. We often had tea with him in his rooms at
Trinity. On one of these occasions he was most entertain
ing ; he knew Sir Walter Scott very well, and said that
when ' Old Mortality ' came out he was so much delighted
with it that he was obliged to take off his coat and jump
over the chairs to get off a little of his animal spirits ; and
then he sat down and read again. He thought Scott's
best novel was ' Guy Mannering.' He was with Basil Hall
when he (Hall) bought the MS. of the ' Antiquary ' for
;£'30, much under its value. Sir Walter told him that he
thought the ' Antiquary ' his best novel ; and on Basil Hall
asking him, he wrote this opinion and his reasons for
thinking so on a flyleaf of the MS., so making it doubly
valuable. Sedgwick and Sir Roderick Murchison were
travelling abroad, and on reaching a viUage on the borders
of Hungary fell into talk with the village schoolmaster,
partly in Latin, partly in Italian. The schoolmaster,
finding that they came from England, asked whether they
knew Sir Walter Scott, and on their saying that he was
a great friend of theirs the little man threw up his arms
in ecstasy, crying out ' Thank God, I have seen two men
who know Sir Walter Scott ! ' "
And she adds : —
" There is a learned look even in the buildings ; the
streets and dwelling-houses not being very fine rather
adds to this effect. The College and University buildings
look Hke Hebrew and Greek characters among common
printed letters. Then, the passers-by in the streets are half
of them robed figures, with the square cap on their heads.

I.] NORRISIAN PROFESSOR. l6g
looking as if more learning \\'as hidden by those folds and
that becoming head-dress than could be possible under
a swallow-tailed coat and a high-crowned hat. Then you
constantly hear sweet-toned bells calling to prayer or to
lectures, or at five o'clock to what makes many run still
faster — to their respective College dinners. At this time
you see great numbers of undergraduates in their gay
costumes coming from boating or cricket, from two to four
being the usual hour for exercise, when all rush into the air
the moment their morning's work is over. The older men
take their constitutional to Trumpington or to Granchester,
or to the Observatory. Good causeways being on all these
roads, they only have to walk straight along, without the
trouble of thinking where they are going, which allows them
to ruminate on the walks of science, or to talk Theology,
or discuss University Reform with some kindred spirit."
Mr. Browne now thought it right to proceed to his
degrees in Divinity, and on March 14th, 1855, took his
B.D. Very shortly after. Professor Blunt who had been
a warm friend to his young colleague, died, and the im ¦
portant Lady Margaret Professorship, an office said to be
the richest in the University, being worth quite ;^i5oo a
year, became vacant. The death of Professor Blunt, " one
of the most honoured and lamented of the members of our
Church and Univer.sity," was a serious loss to the cause of
learned and moderate Churchmanship ; and great was the
anxiety and speculation as to who would succeed him in
this high office. College interests and theological pre
dilections clashed mightily ; and the struggle for the post
aroused unwonted interest.
The election, which followed on June 29th, 1855, ^^as in
some respects one of the strangest that had ever taken
place. In the first place, the candidature of Professor
Browne was a revolt on the part of the University against
the theological dominance of St. John's College. In former
days, and perhaps even to present times, the rest of the
University groaned not a little under the great weight of

I70 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
Trinity ; for that College, thanks to overwhelming numbers,
was able to exert preponderant influence in most elections.
On the other hand, for those theological posts for which
graduates in Divinity alone voted, St. John's, which had
a far larger list of B.D. and D.D. members than any
¦other College, perhaps than all other Colleges combined,
had long held possession of the Lady Margaret Chair ;
so much so that the last seven Professors had all been
Johnians. There were originally six candidates for the Professor
ship ; of these three withdrew, leaving in the field William
Selwyn of St John's, Henry John Rose, also of St John's,
and Professor Browne. It will be seen that the weight of
St John's was somewhat diminished by a party split ; the
effect of theological differences thus telling, though not
fatally, on the voting-power of the College.
The election on June 29th was preceded by a notice
from the Vice-Chancellor, Mr. Guest Master of Caius
College, to the effect that " no elector who is not present
at the commencement of the proceedings, to hear the
requisite documents read, and to take the prescribed oath,
will be entitled to vote." Among these "requisite docu
ments " was a Deed of Foundation of 1 502 w-hich regulated
the process of voting, laying it down that votes should be
taken man by man, beginning with the junior B.D., and so
upward by seniority to the oldest D.D. there present
After the oath had been duly administered to all the quali
fied-voters, a hundred and four in number, and while the
Vice-Chancellor was consulting with his assessors (the
Senior B.D. and the Senior D.D.) as to procedure, the
Registrary of the University began to call the names of
the B.D.'s, from the junior onwards. He had before him
the books requisite for determining the standing of the
electors, and began in accordance with the Deed of

I.] NORRISIAN PROFESSOR. 171
Foundation. As, however, there was considerable delay,
and the process appeared likely to be slow, a large number
of the electors went up to the Registrary's table to ask that
votes might be taken in any order ; the Vice-Chancellor
on being appealed to refused to be interfered with ; he
says in a letter written afterwards, " As we had not yet
considered the clause which refers to the order of voting,
and as the whole proceeding was in my opinion an inde
corous one, I would not allow our consultation to be
interrupted, and refused at that time to listen to them."
Hereon, the Master of Trinity naturally understanding
from this that the voting would take long, went out of the
Senate House so as not to waste time. Almost directly
after this, the electors having again appealed to the Vice-
Chancellor, he yielded, and the process of voting was
changed. The voting papers were all speedily handed in,
and on being counted, shewed the following result : —
Selwyn ... ... ... ... ... 43
Browne ... ... ... ... ... 43
Rose  17
Whereupon, without delay, the Vice-Chancehor gave a
casting vote for Mr. Selwyn, and declared him duly elected.
No sooner was this done than Dr. Whewell returned in
hot haste to the Senate House, and with no small indig
nation filled up his voting paper in favour of Mr. Browne
and tendered it to the Vice-Chancellor, who had not yet
retired. Mr. Guest however, refused to receive or record
it on the ground that the proceedings were closed. So
«nded this singular election, " under which," as the angry
Cornwall Gazette of July 6th, 1855, boldly says, "by the
conduct certainly irregular, and probably illegal, of the
Vice-Chancellor, the vote of the Master of Trinity was
lost" Had the case gone into the law courts, it is probable

172 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
that the Master of Trinity would have been upheld, and
either the result reversed or a new election ordered.
That the presiding officer should change the order of
proceedings in the middle of an election was a very
strong measure ; that no hour was fixed for the close
of the poll was a singular omission ; but that after this
the Vice-Chancellor, not being an elector, being neither
D.D. nor B.D., nor even in holy orders, should have given
a casting vote, so deciding the election, seems a most
dubious course of action. Scrupulous care ought to have
been taken that no advantage should be gained from
a surprise ; and on behalf of the rights of an elector
who had fully qualified to vote, and yet was excluded
because he had chanced to be absent at the undefined
moment at which the votes were taken, one would have
thought that the Vice-ChanceHor would at least have
given a long breathing-time before declaring the election.
The view always taken by law-courts, that they are the
protectors of threatened or neglected rights, would, had
the case been taken up for judicial decision, have been
much in favour of Dr. Whewell's claim. In the corre
spondence which ensued, the Vice-Chancellor's letters
addressed to Professor Browne are hard and cold, as of a
man who felt himself in a difficult position, and yet was
determined to defend himself against all attacks. They
contrast strongly with the charming spirit which runs
through all the letters of the aggrieved and hardly-
treated candidate.
Dr. Whewell, a few days after the untoward event of the
election, wrote Mr. Browne the foHowing letter : —
" Lowestoft, July t,th, i8;V.
" My dear Sir, — I wiU not deny myself the pleasure
of telling you that your letter gave me great pleasure. I
had thought that everybody, and you in particular, must

I.] NORRISIAN PROFESSOR. lyT,
have judged me unpardonably stupid and impatient, to
miss voting as I did. It ought not to have occurred, for I
was violating a rule which I received from high authority
and intended to observe. When the Duke of Wellington
came to the Installation of the Chancellor (the Duke of
Northumberland, I think), he arrived at my Lodge, and
insisted upon going immediately to where the Chancellor
was ; saying, ' I must be upon the spot Nothing like
being upon the spot I came to do honour to the Duke,
and must be on the spot' I came from Lowestoft to vote
for you, and ought to have been on the spot.
" I do not cease to regret that you missed a situation
which I think it was much to the advantage of the Univer
sity that you should have had.
" Believe me, my dear Sir,
" Yours most truly,
"W. Whewell,"
There were two reahy satisfactory results of this strange
election ; the one, the admirable letter addressed by
Professor Browne to the Cornish Gazette, in reply to their
account of the proceedings ; and the other, the real friend
ship and mutual respect which the successful and unsuc
cessful candidates ever after felt for each other.
The letter to the Cornish newspaper is so charming an
example of the fairness of spirit which characterised the
late Bishop, that it is here given in full : — ¦
" To the Editor of the ' Royal Cornish Gazette.'
" Kenwyn, /«/j/ gth, 1855.
" My dear Sir, — I should not think of troubling you
with a letter concerning my own affairs, but that, in the
notice you took in your last paper of the election for the
Margaret Professorship at Cambridge, I fear you may, in
your kindness to me, have conveyed to others an unfavour
able impression of a gentleman for whom I entertain a
sincere respect This impression, I shall be glad, if you
will allow me, to rectify.
" It is perfectly true that the Vice-Chancellor gave
notice that the voting should proceed in one way, and
afterwards, finding that way tedious, altered it to another.

174 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
It is also true that I thereby lost the vote of Dr, Whewell,
the Master of Trinity, and so lost the election ; for Dr
Whewell was not aware that the plan of voting had been
altered. Moreover it is true that this proceeding was
irregular and probably illegal.
But I am quite sure that the Vice-Chancellor had no
notion that, by making the alteration, he was doing anything
which would be unfavourable to either candidate. He no
doubt supposed that no voter had left the Senate House, in
which case the change in the proceedings would have been
of no consequence. I think, I may almost say, it would
have been a relief to him if the Master of Trinity had voted.
" Mr. Guest's change of plan and finally his casting vote
were certainly disastrous to me ; but there is no man in
the University whom I believe to be more conscientious in
the discharge of the duties of his office, or less likely to be
capable of an electioneering trick. Being a layman, he
would have had no vote but that he happened to be Vice-
Chancellor. In the first instance he did not vote at all,
leaving the election in the hands of the D.D.'s and B.D.'s,
to whom the Lady Margaret had generally confided it
Owing to Dr. Whewell's temporary absence, the members
of the Theological faculty divided equally, forty-three for
Canon Selywn and forty-three for me. Then of necessity,
and as I believe reluctantly, Mr. Guest exercised his casting
vote ; and I can have no reason to complain that he gave
it in favour of one so highly distinguished, and so generally
respected and beloved, as the present Margaret Professor
of Divinity. It was certainly a disappointment to find
that a majority of the Theological faculty originally
present and sworn were favourable to me, and that a
layman's casting vote decided against me. But I have
never once imagined that any person concerned in this
election acted otherwise than honourably, and to the best
of his judgment
" Thanking you for the undeserved terms of praise in
which you speak of me, " I am, dear Sir,
" Very faithfully yours,
" E. Harold Browne."
No sooner was this difficult matter of the election settled
than Professor Selwyn approached Professor Browne with

I.] NORRISIAN PROFESSOR. 1 75
the most honourable proposals. Selwyn was well off, and
had no incumbrances ; while Mr. Browne had a large and
growing family and no very plentiful private means ; his
Norrisian Professorship was but poorly endowed, and
having heavy outgoings at Kenwyn, and two houses to
keep up, it is probable that he was even the poorer for
his advancement Mr. Selwyn's suggestion, at first made
privately, ran thus : " You should give me half your income,.
and I .should give you half mine, and I hope we shall
find with Hesiod 6au> TfKeov rj^uav iravTo^ {Hesiod, Op. 40).''
He then goes on to show that the net professorial income of
the Chair is ^^1506. Mr. Browne replied that so serious
a matter ought to be carried out publicly and not by
private arrangement. Mr. Selwyn was quite willing for
this, and made application accordingly to the Heads of
Houses, and they after some deliberation consented to
the proposal.
About a year later appeared a Grace of the Senate to-
enable Dr. Selwyn, as Lady Margaret's Professor, to pay
i^700 a year to the Vice-Chancellor, to be by him applied
towards the augmentation of the Norrisian Professorship
so long as it was held by Mr. Browne, with a proviso that
if he vacated the post the augmentation should thereupon
fall back into the hands of the Senate, to be by them
disposed of as they might deem best, " for the encourage
ment of theological learning." In this way the two pro
fessorships were brought to nearly the same value, and the
full time and energies of two Professors of Theology were
secured to the University.
Anyone who has seen, in later days, the affectionate and'
even brotherly terms on which, when Mr. Browne became
Bishop of Ely, and Professor Selwyn was at his side as
one of the Canons of that Cathedral, these two dis
tinguished members of the now rising Cambridge School

176 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
of Divinity lived together, must have felt that their inter
course gave full proof of the charitable and tolerant spirit
which from the beginning has been the characteristic
mark of that admirable school.
By the terms of the bequest under which the office was
created, the Norrisian Professorship was much hindered.
Mr. Norris was an ardent admirer of " Pearson on the
Creed," and loaded his bequest to the University with the
injunction that his Professor should at every lecture read
this work to his pupils for the space of twenty minutes,
and then comment on it for forty minutes. This mistaken
enthusiasm for Pearson made the Professor's lectures
almost useless, and the custom was brought to an end in
i860, while Mr. Browne was still Professor, by a Statute
of the University.
Some Professors considered themselves at liberty to read
their share of Pearson on the Creed every third lecture, so
taking the three periods of twenty minutes in the lump ;
and thus, on the other two lecture days of the week, they
got an uninterrupted run of an hour for their own subjects.
Professor Browne, however, adhered to the letter of his
statute, and took his twenty minutes of Pearson every time,
much to his own annoyance and to the detriment of his
work. One of those who attended his lectures at this time
writes thus : —
" Although the reading [of Pearson] was clear and
intelligent, and the excellence of the matter undoubted
(Bentley used to say that Pearson's ' very dross was gold '),
it was a trying ordeal for a class of graceless undergraduates,
who were wont to show impatience unless occupied with
a class-book or lighter literature, which was read surrepti
tiously under the table, and would sometimes have to be
noticed. The Professor would always administer his reproof
in the most courteous manner, explaining that he was
compelled, in obedience to the trust, to occupy a portion of
the time with the somewhat dry reading. His kind manner

I.] NORRISIAN PROFESSOR. 1 77

always had the desired effect, and put to shame the
offenders." ¦
The truth is, the Professor was not by nature a strong
disciplinarian ; the law of love on which he ruled his own
life, and the life of his household, with success, was not
always safely applicable to the high spirits and merry
impudence of the undergraduate who is reading for Orders.
The present Master of Trinity has given me a happy
illustration of this weak point in the Professor's armour, an
illustration which brings out his gentleness of character,
and shews that he never could resist the fascinations of
a friendly dog.
" One term," said Dr. Butler, " when I was staying up
in Cambridge, after having lately taken my Master's
Degree, I went in all the glories of my new silk gown, to
attend a course of lectures the Professor was giving on
St Augustine. One day, a man happened to come in
late, and in with him came a terrier dog, whose master
had given him the slip by turning into one of the lecture-
rooms. After the affable manner of an undergraduate's
dog, the creature at once began to make the round of the
class, offering and receiving all kinds of friendly notice
from man to man. The whole lecture at once fell into
confusion and tittering laughter, and the dear Professor,
between his sympathy with the intruder and his gentle
ness, stood quite powerless, unable to quell the tumult
And so it went on ; the terrier, feeling much pleased by
the attentions he received and the effect of his polite
manners, went on calling on student after student until
at last he reached me, and I, thinking the game had gone
on long enough, and that I as a Master was bound to
come to the Professor's help, swept my ample silk gown
round the lively beast, and carried him out of the room.
Order was then restored and the lecture went on again."
Mr. Browne's lectures were of no common quality, and
many men of very varied characters were the better for
them. Thus Mr. Burnand, the humorous author of
12

178 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

" Happy Thoughts," has sent me a little extract from
his undergraduate diary : —
" I have been attending Harold Browne's lectures on
Dogmatic Theology. Splendid."
Mr. Burnand, although he has altogether moved away
from the Professor's side, transferring his allegiance in
matters spiritual to Rome, still looks back with gratitude
and affection on Mr. Browne's kindness to him in those
far-off Cambridge days, when in 1858 he was full of
perplexed uncertainties, and sought the kind sympathetic
Professor's advice, and never in vain.
" While he was Norrisian Professor at Cambridge . .
I attended Harold Browne's lectures, and was among the
very few who used to go and assault him on ' difficulties.'
He was always most considerate and courteous. I have
no doubt I was a bore, — ' a little Theology is a dangerous
thing.' I was deeply interested in my subjects, and, quite
unaided, made a list of crucial questions, familiar enough
to the student of Divinity. However, the kind Professor
gave me his extra time, and at last suggested that I should
put aside all other matters and go either to Wells (it was
very like telling me to ' go to Bath,' wasn't it ?) or to
Cuddesdon. The immediate cause of this advice was a
question I put to him, to which he was unable to give
then and there a complete and satisfactory answer. . . .
" Once again I wrote to consult him about another
difficulty. . . That is all I know of Harold Browne,
one of the kindest and gentlest of men, for whom I cherish
a reverent affection."
The present Archbishop of York, Dr. Maclagan, in
his letter of thanks to the aged Bishop of Winchester on
his congratulations at the time of his nomination to that
Metropolitan See in 1891, refers to a time, thirty-eight
years before, when he had got no small benefit by at
tending his lectures as Norrisian Professor. Another

I.] NORRISIAN PROFESSOR. Ijg
distinguished student of the time. Dr. Merriman, sends
me a somewhat different impression of the lectures : —
" I attended his lectures. They were very careful and
interesting in matter, a little dry and wanting in warmth
of manner."
And there are many others still living who look back
with pleasure and gratitude to the influence exerted on
them by one who always won the confidence and esteem
of young men, listened to them, drew them out, and gave
them kindly, wise advice.
From this time the work at Kenwyn (never, we may be
sure, neglected) necessarily took a secondary place. No
more literary work issued from the damp study against
the hillside, for Cambridge engrossed the whole attention
of the new Professor. He had lectures to prepare and
give ; he moved admirably along the lines of intellectual
hfe which form the great charm of the Universities ; he
was recognised as one of the chief factors in that moderate
theological movement, conservative yet faithful and truth
ful, which was now beginning to make itself felt. For
Cambridge scholarship, exactitude of thought, reluctance
to embark on new ideas, all now took a theological
direction : neither the poets nor the prophets of the
Oxford movement had their counterparts at Cambridge ;
where, instead of exploring new ground, and perhaps
wandering across the border into neighbouring folds, men
as a rule set to work on exegetics of the Bible, or on
the Evidences, or on the patient study of those Eastern
tongues which throw light on the early history of Chris
tianity. Mr. Browne returned to Cambridge at the critical
point of time ; the three men, whose work, with his, has
given stability to the theological movement of our time,
and has done so much to secure the Church of England

l8o EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
on the lines of sound scholarship, fair and honest criticism,
and a genuine historical appeal to the facts of the history
of early Christianity, were at that moment just coming
into prominence. Dr Westcott, now Bishop of Durham,
took his degree in 1848, Hort in 1850, Bishop Lightfoot
in 1 85 1. Dr Westcott, replying in 1890 to the Bishop
of Winchester's congratulations on his appointment
to Durham, speaks warmly of the way in which, on his
return to Cambridge to work under Dr, Lightfoot, he was
welcomed and encouraged by our Bishop. And Professor
Browne never spared himself was never a recluse, never
neglected practical chances of influencing men. Arch
deacon Emery says that : —
'' He threw himself actively into the religious work at
Cambridge ; attended gatherings of students for religious
purposes, especially for the Society for the Propagation of
the Gospel. In 1858 or 1859 he became an active member
of the Church Defence Association ; he was thoughtful,
moderate, judicious in all things."
Contact with Cambridge, and the quickened life of
moderate Churchmanship which marked that University,
could not fail to arouse all Professor Browne's energies,
and to send them flowing along the channel of a revived
Church life. No man was ever more distinctly a child of
Cambridge. His scholarship and his study of early
Christian writers formed one side of his industry ; his re
markable power of acquiring languages, his singular gift
of orderly thinking, his moderation of tone and character,
all these qualities came out during these years of quiet
work. His kindness attracted rather painful attention at
times : people thought they might appeal to him for
anything, and place any burden on his shoulders. There
is a letter belonging to this period from Charles Marriott
of Oriel, begging Professor Browne to revise a translation

I.] NORRISIAN PROFESSOR. l8l
of the Paschal Episties of St. Athanasius from the Syriac,
a work lately undertaken by Mr. Burgess. The Professor
was asked to take in hand this wearisome and thankless
task without the least remuneration for much expenditure
of time and energy.
The questions mooted by the so-called " Papal Aggres
sion," with the newly felt need of proving the stability of
the position held by the English Church, set Professor
Browne thinking much about the principles on, which
he must take his stand. He saw that there were two
lines on which the Reformation could be defended — the
right of men to free judgment, and the historic con
tinuity of the Episcopate. The latter appeared to him
by far the more important, and essential in a controversy
with Rome. When one of the two parties absolutely
denies the right of private judgment, the claim to it can
only be asserted by using it ; but if the Enghsh Church
can prove the continuity of its Orders, she will be on
ground which even her opponents must respect The
Romanists had shown how important they deemed the
point by labouring to discredit the English Episcopate
through the Nag's Head Tavern fable, and other such semi-
historical arguments. Mr Browne, without being profess
edly a historian, was quite convinced that the Roman
claim to possess alone a true succession from apostolic
days was historically unsound. His mind also brought
the chief doctrines in which Rome differs from antiquity,
and especially the new dogmas lately promulgated, to the
test of Scripture and the consensus of the early centuries
of the Church ; and as a result, he was firmly convinced
in his own judgment that Rome was an innovator,
and that his own conservative position was the only
sound one. Still he felt, as every sensitive person has
felt, the weight of dimension and antiquity urged by the

1 82 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
other side ; such lofty claims, backed by such dignity and
vastness of possession, the world has never seen. And
feeling this, he was led to ask how he could best show the
real strength and life of the English Church. The argu
ment from historical antiquity must be sustained, and the
orthodoxy of the English Church defended ; but more was
needed. And this led Churchmen, and Professor Browne
among the first to turn their attention to the organisation
of the Church at home, as well as to the relations in which
it stood towards other bodies of Christians ; that is, the
missionary and other episcopates of the English-speaking
world, as well as other ancient episcopal bodies which
denied the supremacy of Rome. The first of these matters
led rnen to aim at a more formal organisation of the
English Church, by convocation, by conferences, by diverse
echoes of synodal or parliamentary action : it became
necessary to shew that the Church of England was a
living and a self-governing entity, not a mere congre
gational aggregate of units, nor, on the other hand, a
department of the State, as its position as an Established
Church had led many to believe.
Hence, first, arose the deep interest with which Bishop
Harold Browne regarded all matters relating to the Con
vocation of the Church. Next, he did all in his power to
draw the daughter Churches of the English-speaking world
into closer communion with the mother Church. No one
ever watched or attended the Lambeth gatherings with
more zeal or more hope. Thirdly, he held out a friendly
hand to foreign episcopal Churches, whether among the
Greeks, or the old Catholics of Germany, or at Utrecht or
elsewhere. The practical outcome of this interest in the foreign
Churches was the creation of the Anglo-Continental
Society, which aimed at trying to draw together all

I.] NORRISIAN PROFESSOR. 1 83
episcopal, non-Roman Churches. This Society, though it
has never filled a large space in the interests of the
English Church (for men here hardly realise the import
ance of the currents of religious feeling and Church
government abroad), has worked steadily and zealously,
on rather old-fashioned High Church lines.
Mr. Browne at once began to take active measures to
persuade the English Church to stretch out a friendly
hand to the non-Roman part of Christendom, and in 1856
published a letter on the Eastern bishoprics. His friend
and colleague, Christopher Wordsworth, afterwards Bishop
of Lincoln, had also joined the Anglo-Continental move
ment and continued to be its champion and friend to the
close of his life. He, in this year 1856, proposed to move
in the Lower House of Convocation for an Address of
sympathy to the Eastern bishops. It was also suggested
at the same time that the English Church should place an
Anglican bishop at Constantinople, who might befriend
and instruct the bishops of the Armenian and other
Christian Churches lying under the dominion of the Turk.
The subject had been introduced to the notice of English
Churchmen by a letter from the Rev. L. M. Hogg, whose
attention had been called to it by the great influx of
Englishmen into Constantinople at the time of the Crimean
war. He saw plainly that the Turk would consent to
anything the English might at that moment suggest ; and
writing on the 20th February, 1856, he says there is quite
a providential opening " for encouraging friendly inter
course with the Greek and Armenian prelates and clergy,
and [for] the endeavour to present Christianity, through
our own Church system, favourably to the Turkish eye."
The letter suggests names of those who would be suitable
for such a post as that of an episcopal missionary, —
Archdeacon Grant, Professor Browne, and the Bishop of

1 84 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
Glasgow, Dr. Trower. Mr, Hogg draws a sketch of the
pohtical bearings of the moment, and urges Professor
Browne to obtain an Address from Convocation to the
Greek bishops, with special assurances as to the non-
aggressive attitude taken by the English Church. This
Address he hoped bishops present at the consecration of
the new English church at Constantinople would present
to the Greek bishops at that time.
This scheme for an out-post Bishop at Constantinople
came to nothing, as might have been expected ; we could
not in this way occupy the point of connection between
East and West, even in matters ecclesiastical, without
arousing suspicions, jealousies, and the very evils we
should most desire to avoid : such an appointment would
have had against it the open or covert hostility of every
state in Europe; and where the " Sacred Places" contro
versy had so lately raged, an Anglican bishop could never
have been regarded as other than an interloper. The
Greeks might perhaps have tried to play him off against
the Romans, as a part of that game of diplomacy which
has gone on for ages ; but the complications and risks
would have far exceeded the benefits arising from the
scheme. So it was dropped, and the occasion allowed to
pass ; yet it was not without value, in creating a more
friendly feeling between the Eastern Churches and the
English. Early in the following year Mr. Browne was called
away from these larger questions to matters nearer home.
He had to work his way through a most complicated
negotiation. Everyone in the diocese of Exeter, from the
Bishop downward, was anxious that he should be brought
up to the cathedral city, instead of being left far off at
Kenwyn. And the Bishop had a large scheme on hand,
by which the valuable living of Heavitree, with a canonry

I.] NORRISIAN PROFESSOR. 185
residentiary in Exeter Cathedral and perhaps the Arch
deaconry of Exeter, should be conferred on him, on
condition that he left Cambridge and became Principal of
a theological college to be founded under the Bishop's
wing at Exeter. Mr. Browne naturally would not abandon
his more important post at Cambridge for a local theo
logical college, which must, at first at least, have been a
venture. The archdeaconry was in the gift of the Bishop
of Exeter ; the canons residentiary are co-opted out of the
body of prebendaries (the latter having all been appointed
by the Bishop), and the valuable vicarage of Heavitree
was also in the gift of the Chapter, which was very anxious
to elect Mr. Browne into their body. Everything was held
in suspense by the Bishop's scheme ; and the following
letter from Dean Lowe shews how the Chapter regarded
the matter : — "Deanery, Exeter, February 16th, 1857.
" My dear Browne, — I most deeply regret, and I am
sure that every member of our Chapter will regret as
deeply as I do, the determination of the Bishop of Exeter
to make, as far as in him lies, your more intimate connexion
with our body dependent on your acceptance of the head
ship of his projected theological college — a condition
which I am sure you did right in promptly rejecting, and
which I hardly imagine he could seriously think you
^\'ould accept. But at the same time, I cannot but express
my strong conviction that however great the present
disappointment may be to us, it will end in a greater
disappointment to his Lordship, and will tend to your
ultimate advantage. By the death of poor Atherley,
Heavitree is now vacant ; our last accounts of Archdeacon
M. Stevens are somewhat better ; and under these cir
cumstances, I feel a pardonable curiosity to see how the
Bishop will play his game, and what will be his first move.
Nothing, I presume, that has yet occurred will interfere
with your discharge of the office of Substitute in our
Cathedral, at least during the present year ; but, should
anything of the kind turn up, we shall aU of us be most

1 86 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
anxious to consult your wishes, and to make any practi
cable arrangement to suit your convenience. For the kind
expressions of your friendship and regard towards me, I
am most unfeignedly and deeply grateful ; and believing,
as I do, that you are eminently qualified, by your deep
learning, your sound judgment, and your exemplary
moderation and candour, to adorn the highest offices in
the Church, whatever conduces to your happiness and
honour will be to me a cause of rejoicing.
" Believe me ever, my dear Browne,
" Yours most truly,
" Thos. Hill Lowe."
Letters from old Mr. Barnes, the much respected Chapter
Clerk of Exeter, shew rather more clearly what the scheme
was. It was proposed to endow the archdeaconry of
Exeter with the living of Heavitree and a canonry ; and
the Bishop's aim was to get Mr. Browne to accept the
living and canonry from the Dean and Chapter ; then, on
the next vacancy to the Archdeaconry, he would appoint
him to that also ; lastly, by means of Professor Browne's
popularity, he hoped to get Heavitree and the canonry
permanently attached to the archdeaconry, — so transferring
this valuable patronage to himself The scheme, however,
hung fire, because of the Bishop's wish to secure Mr,
Browne as Head of his projected College. Finding, how
ever, that he could not shake the Professor, he reluctantly
gave way ; and thus all was made smooth for the Chapter.
Chancellor Martin, in a letter dated February 22nd, 1857,
says : —
" I cannot resist my desire to write you a hne to express
my great pleasure at understanding that the Bishop has
relented on the subject of the theological college, and my
most earnest hope that you will not reject us, if the arch
deaconry, the stall, and the living of Heavitree should be
offered to you together. For the Chapter, for the City of
Exeter, for Heavitree and the archdeaconry, and for the
diocese, I really think the arrangement would be a most

I-] NORRISIAN PROFESSOR. 187
valuable gain, without precluding any future interests of your
own. . . . Has Mrs. Harold Browne ever seen the Vicarage
at Heavitree, with its lawn and garden and most con
venient connexion with the church ? I remember how
-well off" you were in that respect at Kenwyn. But Heavitree
is a very nice and most convenient clergyman's residence ;
and on a most healthy gravel soil and elevation."
The moment it appeared clear to Professor Browne that
the move to Heavitree would not oblige him to leave
Cambridge, he consented. The income was larger, the
position much more central, and, so far, nearer Cambridge ;
he would be a member of the Cathedral Chapter, welcomed
heartily by all, and within touch of the Bishop, with whose
opinions he was in the main in harmony. At Kenwyn and
Kea he had been obliged to have three curates ; and more
or less under his eye had been no less than five distinct
churches and six clergymen, with nine dayschools. As the
Cornwall Gazette (of April 17th, 1857) says : —
" All looked up to him with reverence and affection ; for
he was even less admired for his great talents and learning
than loved for his childlike simplicity, his gentle spirit, his
admirable discretion."
So that everyone turned to him for advice, for help, for
consolation ; and his parish duties were almost more than
he could bear : it was at Kenwyn that as he said, he had
" worked harder than ever he had in his hfe." Heavitree,
the daughter-churches having been long severed from it
though a large parish, was yet fairly compact, and in
many ways more desirable than Kenwyn. Then followed,
as soon as possible, the resignation of Kenwyn, a general
letter addressed to all his parishioners, and the preaching
of two; sermons which have been printed, on Easter Day,
1857. They can scarcely be described as "farewell
sermons ; " for the morning sermon deals solely with the

r88 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

topic of the day, and the afternoon discourse refers only in
a quiet way to his departure ; there are no affecting appeals,
no sorrou-ful leave-takings. He thinks it enough to bid
them farewell by leaving with them the sense of the Presence
of Christ.
His farewell letter is much more expansive than the
sermons, and full of wise advice, though it does not profess
any very strong regret : —
" To the Parishioners of Kenwyn and Kea.
" My dear Friends, — No doubt many of you will have
heard that I am not likely long to continue Vicar of
Kenwyn and Kea. I have felt for some time the great
difficulty of attending to the duties of the joint parishes, so
extensive and populous, and at so great a distance from
Cambridge, whilst I have the important office which I hold
in this University. I have long thought that the constant
presence of the Vicar was very necessary in so large a
sphere of labour. Hence, if nothing else had called me
away, I had well nigh resolved to resign the living this
summer. As it is, I have received a pressing invitation to
a new post of duty, which, for a time at least, I may hold
with my professorship at Cambridge ; and after much
thought and anxious deliberation, I have consented to
accept it. I trust that I have been guided rightly in this
decision. My chief motive in leaving you has been a desire
for your welfare. A Vicar who can devote all his time to
you, and v.hose strength is equal to the task, will, I hope,
be found to succeed me. May God's blessing and the
grace of His Holy Spirit rest on him and on you. I
doubt if he will love you better or feel a deeper interest in
your welfare than I have done, and still do. But he may
easil)- labour amongst you with greater efficiency and
success. " I have many amongst you endeared to me by ties of
family as well as of pastoral relationship, and am not
likely wholly to lose sight of you even in this world. Yet,
at present, I shall be able to pass but very few days among
you, and am glad of this opportunity to say but a few
parting words.
"Whatever may have been my infirmity and short-

I.] NORRISIAN PROFESSOR. 1 89
comings in my ministry among you, I have striven, to
the best of my power and by the grace of God, to teach
you the true doctrine of Christ's Gospel and of the Church,
whose minister I am. My great hope has been to in
culcate, first purity, both of faith and practice, and next
peace. There are many dangers in the present day to
faith and practice and to peace. We have all seen the
danger of straying to the right hand and to the left, and
how extremes on the one side ever lead to extremes on the
other. There cannot be such a time as the present, when
all old truths seem to be undergoing a new shaking and
sifting, without much and serious trial of every Christian's
heart. Let me pray you to hold fast to the form of sound
words which has been taught you, to shun controversies, to
shun extreme parties, to seek peace and ensue it. Let the
Church, which for centuries has held forth to your fathers
and to you, be your home here. Let Holy Scripture and
the blessed words of Christ's Gospel be your light Let
Christ Himself be the constant hope, the daily refuge of
your souls. Let the grace of God's Holy Spirit be that
which you seek, and pray for and trust to for help and
guidance through life. And strive to keep before your
eyes and hearts continually, in the midst of all that is
changing here, the unchanging presence of the Father of
our spirits, to which we are all hastening. He has
promised eyes to the blind, wisdom to the foolish, strength
to the weak, guidance to the wandering ; and if we rest
upon His promise, and strive to follow His guiding, we
may be sure that at last we shall be led safely to His
home. " Brethren, that the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the
love of God, and the feHowship of His Spirit may be with
you and your children for ever, is the earnest prayer of
" Your affectionate and faithful servant in Christ,
" E. Harold Browne.
"Cambridge, April ist, 1857.''
It was of this letter that the Professor, writing soon after
this time, says : —
" I had an unexpected compliment paid me last night.
Mr. Alex. Paull met a party of dissenters yesterday with
Mr. Gostich, the Wesleyan minister, at the head of them.

190 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
They talked about me. Mr. Gostich said he had a copy
of my parting address, which he would not part with for
£SO, as it was quite apostolical ; and after a further con
versation among ' our dissenting brethren ' about me, they
concluded by drinking my health."
Twice, after this time, we have pleasant notices which
shew how the Bishop cherished the memory of his Kenwyn
friends. In October 1876 he was at Truro, and preached
in Kenwyn Church to a full congregation a perfectly
simple and earnest sermon on one word, " Lost " (from
St Luke XV. 4). After graphically describing the sad
state of a lost sheep, a lost dog, a lost child, a lost soul, he
ended the sermon with the following touching reference to
the old days : —
" It is nearly twenty years since I lived here among you
as the pastor of this parish, where by God's grace I tried
to seek out lost souls. Many have gone to their rest
since that time ; many have grown up to manhood who
then were infants ; many middle aged persons have grown
old. I ask you all to think of your souls, and see how it
has fared with them during those twenty years since we
met here and parted. Have you found Jesus Christ, and
has He found you ? If you were lost on the mountains,
has He come and taken you on His shoulders and carried
you to His flock and sheepfold? have you stayed with
Him ? are you still His ? Or have you gone wandering
away again? If so, then I ask you to-day, once more
coming among you, no longer as your pastor, but as one
who once was, and who sees among you many familiar
faces,— I ask you to remember that you are free to repent
and return to Jesus Christ once more. Let past falls, past
wanderings, past losings of yourselves, make you more
watchful, more careful, more prayerful, and more deter
mined never to give up prayer and communion with God,
frequenting His Holy House, receiving His Holv Sacrament
that so you may be strengthened and fed by Christ and
kept in the arms of His mercy, and at last brought to His
home in Heaven, where there will be joy in the presence of
the angels of God over one who was lost and is found."

I.] NORRISIAN PROFESSOR. 191
And again, on a greater occasion, when as Bishop of
Winchester he took part in the consecration of Truro
Cathedral in October 1887, we learn how warmly his heart
clung to his old Kenwyn friends. The allusion to the
ritual used is very natural and characteristic. He was
large-minded enough to acquiesce in things indifferent,
where they did not mean some doctrine which he knew
to be wrong ; in which case they ceased to be indifferent
to him.
"... The services were gorgeous and elaborate, the
music very good. . . . The ritual was higher than I am
used to ; but I feel no repugnance to it if it does not offend
the laity. The congregations and meetings were crowded,
and very reverent. ... At eight the Mayor had a very
large reception, where we met hosts of late parishioners
and friends. . . . My old friends received me very warmly,
and listened most kindly to what I had to say. It was
touching and trying. . . . Yesterday we drove over to
Enys', and found Mrs. Enys somewhat aged, but very kind
and warm in memories of old times. Tom Philpotts and
his wife and a daughter of Henry Philpotts dined with us
yesterday. T. P. and I were at Eton together sixty-four
years ago. He is nearly eighty-one. I shall soon be
seventy-seven if I live. . . ."
With these touching utterances, which shew us the
venerable Bishop clinging to old friends and revisiting with
pleasure scenes of former activity, we may well bid farewell to
the seven years of his life at Kenwyn, and turn our eyes to
the new work before him. The change to Exeter was clearly
intended, by Bishop, Dean, and Chapter alike, to wean him
from Cambridge, and to settle him down in a life of per
manent usefulness in Devonshire. The forces of the life he
had led and of the work he had done were, however, far too
strong to allow his career to be thus diverted. By the time
a man has reached the age of forty-six, if there is anything
in him he has usually made his groove in the world, and

192 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
cannot well be dislodged from it It was eminently so
with Professor Browne. The world recked little of his
valuable labours at Kenwyn and Heavitree ; men knew
him as one who had written the book on the Articles at
Lampeter, and had made his mark as a theological and
linguistic authority at Cambridge, rather than as the
devoted parish priest As some Cardinals, for one reason
or another, become " Papabili " early in their career, so
Mr. Browne had been long marked out, both among his
friends and generally, for a bishopric ; and his work at
Exeter, important as it was, became quite secondary to
that he was carrying out at Cambridge.
Professor Browne was instituted to Heavitree on May 9th,
1857, and 'read himself in' the following day; he was
installed as Canon on December 28th in the same year.
His stay at Heavitree was very short ; he preached his
farewell sermon there on January 3rd, 1858. The present
Vicar of Heavitree, the Rev, Sackville H. Berkeley, says : —
" He first attempted any organisation of the parish in
the shape of districts for regular visitation, etc, ; and had
so great a power of attracting people to a personal attach
ment to himself that his departure after only about si.x
months' residence in the parish was lamented as if it had
been as many years,"
It must have been with real pleasure and even pride
that Mr. Browne remembered, as he went about his parish
work at Heavitree, that here one of his chief Church-
heroes and models, Richard Hooker, was said to have
been born into the world.
It was during the life at Heavitree that the writer of
this Memoir first enjoyed the privilege of spending a
couple of days under his roof and of seeing something of
the happy domestic life and halcyon days of peace which
made his home delightful, wherever it might be. I

I.] NORRISIAN PROFESSOR. 193
remember that at breakfast the question as to the MS.
readings of the well-known passage i Tim. iii. 16, " God
was manifest in the flesh," came up, and how much I was
struck by the promptness with which, after we had talked
a bit about it, he withdrew to his library, and came back
after a couple of minutes with a note of the MS. evidence
for and against the accepted reading, with the value of it
given, almost as if it had been a mathematical formula.
It was this clearness and distinctness of vision which gave
to all he said so much weight Men felt that he was a
safe guide, because he could look at both sides and weigh
arguments and probabilities and strike a fair balance.
Mr. Browne had now severed his connection with
Cornwall ; this gave the Cornish clergy the opportunity,
which they were only too glad to accept, of paying him
a high compliment. He had, from the revival of Con
vocation, represented them as their Proctor in the Lower
House, and he had been re-elected by them early in 1857.
He now, however, felt bound to place himself unreservedly
in their hands, offering to resign at once, if they considered
it right. The clergy however, without the slightest hesita
tion, begged him to retain his post for they were quite
clear that they could not be better represented ; and he
accordingly continued to be their Proctor for some time
after he had become a member of the Exeter Chapter
And now foHowed a quiet time ; it has been said of
Bishop Harold Browne that his life at this time ran in
septennial periods, — nearly seven at Lampeter, seven at
Kenwyn, and seven as Canon of Exeter ; and of these
three successive epochs the last seems to have been the
most tranquil. It was a time in which all looked up to
him as an adviser, if not as a leader ; the Chapter of
Exeter regarded him as their strong man ; his old friends
appealed to him for help in various ways ; frightened 13

194

EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

clergy and others, thrown off their balance by " Essays
and Reviews " and by the terrible Bishop of Natal, looked
anxiously to see what answer he would make to these
developments of the modern spirit of criticism ; and lastly,
the Bishop of Exeter seems to have never given up the
hope that Mr. Browne would help his project for some
better, or at least some more direct, system of teaching
for candidates for Orders, and, immediately after his
installation as Canon, addressed him a letter on the subject
of theological learning and study in the English Church.
Mr. Browne, while he felt as much as the Bishop did
the need for far more careful training of young men
destined for the sacred profession, could not forget that
at Cambridge he had their education already much in his
hands ; and he certainly had no wish at all to give them
that narrowing type of seminary teaching which is almost
inevitable in a theological college.
Writing on December 29th, 1857, the Bishop says : —
" I consider Chapters as a very important part of our
ecclesiastical system ; but in order that they should perform
their functions usefully, they ought to be composed of
highly qualified members. Theological attainments, where
they can be found, as in you they are found, in a high
degree and of a most sound and truly catholic character,
are such a qualification as ought to command a place in
the Chapter with which their possessor is connected. Our
Church particularly needs a higher theological tone in her
clergy, and is unhappily very deficient in proper seminaries.
She depends at present altogether on the exertions of a
few individuals like yourself This ought not to be. My
anxiety is to supply, as far as my opportunities shall
enable me, this great deficiency in the diocese of Exeter.
Before you return to Cambridge I hope you will gratify
me with a visit. I am very desirous of talking with you
on this, and on other matters."
And, three years later, a letter from Bishop Philpott
shows that he was still anxious on this subject, and had

I.] NORRISIAN PROFESSOR. 1 95
caught something of the despondent tone affected by the
Episcopate when the Universities ceased to be closed
against all except members of the Church of England.
This act of common sense and justice had thrown the
clergy into a kind of paroxysm of alarm. A generation
has passed since that day, and all who have really known
the Universities then and now will confess that the
Christian faith and practice are really stronger in them
now than in the old protected days.
It is interesting to notice that Mr. Browne was appealed
to by others also to help in the matter of theological
colleges. In November 1858 he received a letter from
B'shop Wilberforce of Oxford, asking him whether he
could recommend a fit person to be head of the new insti
tution at Cuddesdon. The Bishop of Oxford does not
invite him to take the post, though he probably had him
in his mind's eye when he described the sort of man he
wanted : —
" I want," he writes, " a gentleman, a theologian, a man
who will influence the young men, and one who is a
thoroughly sound English Churchman, and who will dis
courage all party symbols and excesses and puerilities in
religion." Many lesser matters also occupied Mr. Browne's attention
at this time. His old and well-loved friend, Matthew B.
Hale, was induced to accept the semi-missionary bishopric
of Perth in Western Australia. It is on record of him
that he struggled hard to escape from the necessity of
having to adopt the style and title of " My Lord," holding
that as a colonial bishop he would be better without it.
The legal authorities, however, held that he must accept
the courtesy-title, and he had to yield. The moment he
had made up his mind to accept the bishopric he wrote to
Mr. Browne, to beg of him two favours ; first, to preach

196 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

the sermon at his consecration on St. James's Day, 1857 ;
and secondly to consent to act as his commissary in
England — an office which he cheerfully undertook, al
though it involved a large amount of dull business-work.
He did it till he was promoted to Ely, and rendered
" services," says the Bishop, " of infinite value to me, and I
am quite aware that they were extremely troublesome to
him." These years were not altogether devoid of literary
results. They saw the publication of a sermon entitled
" Holy Ground," preached in Waltham Abbey Church on
the eight hundredth anniversary of the foundation of that
Abbey ; and of another discourse preached at Aylesbury
on behalf of the Societies for the Propagation of the Gospel
and for Promoting Christian Knowledge, both of them in
i860. Also a brief defence of the war in New Zealand in
the days when his brother. Sir Thomas Gore Browne,
was Governor ; this appeared at the end of the year 1 860
or early in 1861. The chief work of this time was a
volume of seven sermons, all preached before the Univer
sity of Cambridge, two of them in 1855 and the rest in
1859. These are admirable discourses, very varied in
subject and treatment. His tone of mind, though he
hardly appreciated the liberal theologians, was always
kindly and fair ; if he was a controversialist at any
time, his weapons were neither barbed nor poisoned.
He was now approaching a very critical period in the
history of English religious thought ; if he was not swept
along with the current of daring speculation and enquiry,
at any rate he was not swept off his legs by the panic
which possessed the souls of less learned Churchmen.
But before we enter on the stirring times in which bitter
controversy raged around "Essays and Reviews" and
Bishop Colenso, we must devote a little time to an episode

I.] NORRISIAN PROFESSOR. 197
of these peaceful years, and describe the efforts made in
vain to secure for Canon Browne the Deanery of Exeter,
now vacant by the death of Dr. Lov/e. Mr. Browne
published a friendly and sympathetic memoir of the late
Dean in the Guardian ; he does not seem to have been
aware of the efforts then being made by his friends to get
him the Deanery. Lord Palmerston was at that time
Prime Minister ; and the Exeter people, from the Bishop
downward, were horribly afraid lest some Low Churchman,
as seemed only too probable, or, more alarming still, some
Liberal Churchman, should be appointed. Their wishes
and fears alike led them to do their utmost to get it for the
Norrisian Professor. The scheme in the mind of the Bishop
of Exeter seems to have been to have Canon Browne in
the Deanery as a first step towards the fulfilment of his
wish for a Cornish Assistant Bishop. Had Mr, Browne's
friends been successful, instead of being Bishop of Ely
and Winchester he probably would have ended his life
among his Cornish friends and kinsfolk. Archdeacon
Downall did his very best. He was Chaplain to the Duke
of Bedford, deemed omnipotent among the Whigs of that
day, and writes as follows to his patron in February 1 86 1 : — •
" I do not think that, search the country through, there
could be found a safer, more moderate, more valuable
person, as a gentleman, a scholar, a divine, than Canon
Browne ; nor [one] more free from all Church party extra
vagances, or a more truly devoted Chri.stian man."
But he piped in vain ; the Deanery was never offered to
Mr. Browne.
At this time he also printed a thin volume of Sermons
entitled " Messiah as Foretold and Expected ; A Course
of Sermons on the Prophecies of the Messiah, as in
terpreted by the Jews before the coming of Christ,"
The publication was welcomed cordiaHy by persons of

198 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
many different shades of opinion, and pointed to some
reaction against the utterances of the more extreme High
Church writers. The Professor shews how the sacrificial
theory of the Christian revelation, much insisted on from
opposite sides, first by the " Evangelical " school, and
then, in connexion with the Holy Communion, by the
later Anglicans, came from the Jews ; how Jewish terms
were commonly used by Christians, till metaphorical
expressions came to be treated as statements of fact ; and
how the Jewish doctrines of sacrifice and atonement had
thrown a deep shadow over the progress of Christianity.
It may be said with some truth that these Sermons were
the beginning of what inevitably follows when a healthy
movement passes into the hands of enthusiastic partisans
who push principles beyond their fair development and
try to keep their party moving by unwise advances. Pro
fessor Browne's Sermons are learned and sober-minded,
nowhere reactionary or extreme in either language or
thought. It was a pity that the " Essayists and
Reviewers " and Bishop Colenso, who in their earlier days
had mostly been warm High Churchmen, failed to emulate
his moderation of thought and word. An eloquent writer
dealing with these Sermons of his, ends by begging the
author to complete the cycle of his theological plan by
publishing a second course of sermons, on " The Royalty
and Coming Kingdom of Christ ; "—that is, on the ofus
consummatum of the Incarnation, — so as to bring before
men's eyes " not the cross only, but the throne," not the
" suffering of Christ " only, but much more, " the glory that
should follow." It is certain that this advice was in full
accord with his mind, and would have rounded off" his
scheme of theology. Years after, when the completion of
the Great Screen of Winchester Cathedral was under dis
cussion, and his formal opinion was asked by the Dean as

I.] NORRISIAN PROFESSOR. 199
to placing a majestic figure of the Lord in Glory on the
central cross, amidst a great company of adoring and
rejoicing saints, the aged Bishop expressed himself as
decidedly favourable to the proposal, because he not only
thought it artistically superior to any other treatment, but
still more because he deemed it a more true representation
of the complete work of redemption and of the final triumph
of the Cross.

CHAPTER II.
THE TROUBLES IN THE CHURCH : " ESSAYS AND
reviews ; " BISHOP COLENSO.
WE approach a dark moment in the history of the
English Church. Men lost their balance ; once
more were heard the voices of those who " woke from sleep
and shouted ' -namus! " Few seemed even to pretend to
preserve a judicial mind. Those who, like Professor
Browne, endeavoured to treat the matters in dispute
calmly, to be courteous to the disputants, and to uphold
the truth by frank enquiry in the spirit of charity, were
regarded with distrust, and often were abused more bitterly
than the men who had caused the turmoil.
We are come to the days of " Essays and Reviews,' and
to the " Commentary on the Romans " and the " Penta
teuch and the Book of Joshua critically examined," with
which the Bishop of Natal startled the tranquil Church.
Here was a man who, instead of confining himself to what
are accounted proper missionary labours, not only brought
historical criticism to bear, with more zeal than discretion,
on the ancient fabric of the Pentateuch, but also was
led, by the references in the Gospels to Moses and the
children of Israel, to speculate on questions about the
relation of the divine and human natures in the Person of
our Lord, and of the possible limitation of His knowledge.
Thanks to the clear sketch of this period in the pages

Ch.II.] the TROUBLES IN THE CHURCH. 20I
of Archbishop Tait's Life, our task is vastly lightened. It
would be wearisome to retrace the whole story of these
half-forgotten matters, which in their day blazed and
exploded with volcanic energy. We have only to en
deavour to make clear the position taken up by Harold
Browne. Though he was perhaps one of the most orthodox
and dogmatic of English Churchmen, to whom the strife
was most painful, — for the innovators seemed to him
hasty, violent, and theologically unsound, — he never was
betrayed into violent language. He tried always to dis
tinguish between the statements he so much disliked and
the side-issues on which the orthodox party wished to
fight ; he deprecated the vehemence of certain zealous
spirits who, in their eagerness to condemn error, were
prepared to limit the English Church to a narrow platform,
unworthy of the catholic breadth of her true position.
Thus, he never hesitated, in the case of Bishop Temple,
to stand by one with whom, theologically, he was not in
sympathy, when the newly-made Bishop was attacked
with ignorant outcry. Still more was this judicial temper
visible when Bishop Colenso, against whose writings,
as we shall see, he testified with vigour, was being dealt
with so as to introduce new and dangerous precedents
into the constitution of the English Church. The great
weight of his known orthodoxy and character stood
between the erring Bishop and his opponents, and he
helped effectually to arrest proceedings which were being
pushed forward with feverish zeal. It was clear to him
that here were men who, to secure their adversary's con
demnation, were for loosening, even for breaking, the
ties which connect the Church in the Colonies with the
See of Canterbury.
It had become plain to thinking minds that the action
and reaction of parties within the Church of England had

202 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
reached a point at which there was no standing still. The
High Church movement, strong in the enthusiastic support
of the younger clergy, had far outstripped the slow,
cautious, and simple Churchmanship of the bulk of lay
people in England. The average Churchman, suspicious
of high ideals, and penetrated with a hereditary fear of
Romanism, looked with the gravest anxiety on the new
ideals placed before him. To him, the gospel in its
primitive simplicity was enough ; the Bible was sacred in
the English version ; his leaning towards Puritanism was
daily shocked by men who introduced elaborate ritual,
and seemed to preach a gospel which mingled the world
as it is with the Church of Christ, pleasing alike the
light votaries of London society and the hard-pressed
dwellers in the dark places of our cities. The Evangelical
school had its strength in the middle classes of England,
and could not appreciate a movement which seemed to
attract alike the frivolous and the downtrodden. The
older school had not set much store by learning ; the
votaries of the newer opinions prided themselves on their
University culture, on their sympathy with the progress
of Art, on their serious study of patristic literature. It is
clear that the one company was essentially conservative,
suspicious of change and innovation ; while in the other
were plenty of eager spirits, greedy of novelties and ready
to move in any direction towards which freedom from
prejudice, a bold disdain of old convention, the noble
curiosity which prompts to venturesome advance, might
lead their willing feet. After a while, some of the most
distinguished of the party fled to the shelter of Rome,
guided partly by devotion to a high ideal of the Church,
partly by a feeling akin to despair in the presence of
modern criticism. For side by side with these two well-
defined parties had grown up a third company, touched

II.] THE TROUBLES IN THE CHURCH. 203
with the spirit of the time, conscious that modern study
had thrown new light on many of the old bases of faith;
eager to " prove all things," and to assert the paramount
sanctity of Truth. Enquiry was in the air.
Among the more active-minded of the High Churchmen
was a knot of men who were not afraid to court enquiry,
to face difficulties fairly, to speak frankly on matters which
filled others only with alarm. The strength of the Broad
Church movement, which has never wished to be a party,
is largely drawn from men who first were High Churchmen.
Between those who pressed on Romewards, and those of
the coming school, who longed to treat religious problems
in a liberal spirit, stood, and still stand, the great bulk
of the High Church party, as immovable as their Low
Church brethren, and sometimes joining hands with
them in the sad business of repression. Many prominent
members of the liberal school had carried their earlier
speculations on authority, whether of the Bible or of the
Church, on the spiritual life of the Church, and on the
presence of Christ, to a point which seemed to their old
friends alarming and dangerous. More and more was
the new school convinced that the task of searching into
the truth is laid on us all. Naturally, they had to swim
against a swirling tide of alarm and dislike ; the denun
ciations of scared ignorance, the remonstrances of official
Churchmanship, roused in them, only too readily, the natural
passions of anger and contempt For it is so much easier
to disapprove than to disprove ; for the latter one must
know, for the formea" one need only feel. The unhappy
result of this irritation appears in the bitter and scornful
tone in which the liberal theologians wrote. By faults of
manner, and a too obvious wiUingness to startle their
opponents, they threw away their case. In their unguarded,
sometimes unwarranted, assaults on established ideas they

204 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
only remembered that they would fain be the champions
of liberty of discussion.
The two men of this school who were the most prominent
at this time were eager for truth, and willing to sacrifice
themselves for it : it is hard not to sympathise with
them, though we feel that their enthusiasm, and the
opposition they encountered, threw them off their balance
and marred their work. Emancipators must give and
take wild blows. It seemed to them that truth was being
lost behind screens and barriers, and, in the assault on
these, it looked as if they were attacking the truth which
lies behind. One has to be careful to give them credit
for their high aims, and at the same time to make
allowance for the terror they aroused. No party comes
out of the strife with honours unblemished ; the general
verdict, after thirty years, is that both sides made blunders
in the conflict. We have re-learnt the priceless lesson that
our Church has room within her walls for men of very
different types ; for a large liberty of opinion ; for a wise
freedom in usages. We have learnt, too, how to deal
charitably with our neighbour's views, and to aim at
adapting the Church to the necessities of successive ages.
Bishop Harold Browne was among the most important
of the contributors to this happy result. His share in the
controversies of the period was always marked by genuine,
true Christian feeling, and by a desire for fairness of treat
ment as beautiful as rare in those angry days.
I have ventured to select his successor at Lampeter,
Mr. Rowland Williams, as the representative of the temper
of mind and thought which found expression in " Essays
and Reviews " ; and the other name can be no other than
that of Dr. Colenso, Bishop of Natal, around whom raged
a wild strife of almost unequalled bitterness. The assailants
of estabhshed views seemed at times quite as much pre-

II.] THE TROUBLES IN THE CHURCH. 205
judiced on the side of novelty as their antagonists were
for the old ways. If some of the combatants were con
vinced that orthodoxy, without either knowledge or charity,
was a sufficient panoply, others were ready to believe that
to be orthodox was simply to be wrong, and were at no
pains to hide their scorn for antagonists who did not
understand the subjects on which they dogmatised. A
bold face often bears down a modest spirit.
" Essays and Reviews," which in its day created so
great an excitement in the religious world, appeared early
in i860. The seven contributors joined in an Advertisement,
in which they laid it down that, while all the contributors
had a common aim, " to encourage the free handling of
rehgious topics in a becoming spirit of truth," each was to
be held responsible for his own Essay only. The " common
aim " was to arouse a spirit of enquiry, and to deem no
matter too sacred for criticism. It was rather hard for them
to avoid being regarded as responsible for one another's
statements ; for they were at one in wishing to arouse
men's minds — some more, some less ; all agreed to eschew
conventional views on even the most essential points. No
wonder that an attempt was presently made to fasten the
odium of certain crude speculations found in one or two
of the Essays on the backs of all the members of the
company. The mass of the clergy, frightened and uncon
vinced, soon began to clamour for the condemnation of
the " Septem contra Christum," as a scornful opponent
called them, parodying ^schylus ; and the conduct of the
attack was not a whit less violent, in its way, than had
been the conduct of the vulgar mob at St George's-in-the-
East, or at St. Barnabas', Pimlico. They used language
naively echoed by Canon Perry, when he writes that the
volume was " not so much a danger to the faith, as a
grievous offence on the part of the authors ; " they called

206 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
on the seven to resign their positions in the Church, and
to brand themselves as traitors ; they called on Convocation
to condemn them and the book. A swarm of more or
less ephemeral replies issued from the Press ; some even
of the most thoughtful and liberal of the bishops were
very severe on the Essayists. The learned Bishop of
St. David's condemned them in no measured terms ; the
Bishop of Oxford, S. Wilberforce, led the assault in the
Upper House of Convocation ; Bishop Hampden, to the
astonishment of those who had fought against his election
as Bishop of Hereford, clamoured for the prosecution of
the writers : the general feeling was, as Canon Perry
phrases it, that they were " traitors to be punished rather
than fair disputants to be answered." True, the manner
of the writers was as unfortunate as their matter was
alarming ; yet nothing can justify the blind fury with
which they were attacked, and the studied insults heaped
on them.
The Houses of Convocation showed far more moderation
of tone and more sense of the proprieties of religious
controversy than was pleasing to the crowd. The Upper
House replied with gravity and good sense to an Address
signed by ten thousand clergymen, reserving judgment,
while it regretted the publication of the volume. In the
Lower House, moved by Archdeacon Denison, a " grava
men " was drawn up and presented to the Archbishop of
Canterbury, praying for a committee to formulate a case
against the volume. This was agreed to by the Upper
House ; a committee of the Lower House was accordingly
appointed, and Archdeacon Denison became chairman
of it
In spite of the activity of the Archdeacon, who drew
up an analysis of the volume, in order to show the evil
that was in it and especially to make, if he could, the

II.] THE TROUBLES IN THE CHURCH. 207
several authors responsible for the statements of each, the
committee did nothing. Suits had been instituted against
two of the writers in the Arches Court, and till these were
settled Convocation thought it wiser not to intervene. It
was not till June 1861 that the two Houses were free to
condemn the volume, and did so. The case before the
Court lingered on, with an appeal to the Judicial Com
mittee of the Privy Council ; it was not till February
8th, 1864, that that body, while refusing to pronounce
any opinion on the design and general tendency of the
" Essays," declared that no technical contradiction of the
Thirty-Nine Articles or of the formularies of the Church of
England had been proved, and so, reversing the judgment
of the Court below, reinstated the two writers in their
benefices. Professor Browne's share in this acute controversy was
straightforward and simple. He met the negative tenden
cies of the book with a well-reasoned and temperate
statement" of the orthodox views ; and here his stores of
learning and fairness of mind gave him a great advantage.
He spoke of the subject in a genial and even friendly
spirit. At the time of the highest excitement, in Decem
ber 1 86 1, his eldest son, Harold, who was then at school
at Rugby under Dr. Temple, won a Divinity prize ; and
Professor Browne, writing to a friend, says : —
" Harold got the second Divinity prize. Divinity at
Rugby does not of necessity = heresy, for whoever ex
amined him, I coached him. By the way, did you ever
hear the question put by an Oxford to a Cambridge man,
' I say, is not one of your "pokers " a great coac/i ? ' Can you
translate it ? "
Soon after this incident he addressed a charming letter
on the controversy to Canon Cook of Exeter, with whom
he was on intimate terms of friendship, literary and

208 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
personal. The Canon had been attacked, and charged
with too great liberalism in dealing with the volume ; and
Professor Browne writes : —
" Such censure cannot be of the slightest consequence to
yourself but it is a sign of most evil omen to the Church,
when those who profess to be her champions imagine that
the cause of truth is promoted by bitterness of tone and
arbitrary dogmatism."
And yet he felt acutely the faults of the Essayists, and
bitterly deplored their tone and conclusions. He was
prepared to do all in his power to counteract the tendency
of the volume, and to express, with convincing argument
and learning, his disagreement with the authors. His
first contribution to the controversy took the somewhat
cumbrous form of a course of sermons preached in the
University Pulpit, and afterwards published in a thin
volume. In a letter to a friend (dated May i6th, 1862) he
describes his object.
" I am glad you approve of my sermons on the Messianic
prophecies. They receive the approbation of your Bishop
and of many scholars and divines ; but 1 doubt if they will
circulate greatly, simply because they are sermons. I am
surprised to hear that you think the subject not one of
general interest. I should have thought it at all times a
subject of universal and deep interest : and at this moment
the fierce assaults of the Essayists on the Prophecies, their
denial of the existence of prediction at all in the Old
Testament, and especially of predictions of Messiah, ought
to make it a subject of special importance. In short, if
Bunsen and Rowland Williams be right, that there is no
such thing as predictive prophecy, I do not see on what
principle Christianity can be defended. It was from this
feeling that I wrote and preached, viz., that this was now
the point in dispute between believers and unbelievers."
At the time that Professor Browne penned these some
what despondent words, he was overwhelmed with sorrow ;

II.] THE TROUBLES IN THE CHURCH. 209
for he had just lost a little babe, taken from them in May
1862, and was full of anxiety for the safety of his beloved
wife. A few months after the publication of " Essays and
Reviews " we find an invitation addressed to Professor
Browne from Dr. Thomson (then Provost of Queen's
College, Oxford, afterwards Archbishop of York), asking
him to write the essay on Inspiration in a volume to be
entitled " Aids to Faith." Professor Browne, although his
hands were very full of University work, did not decline
the proffered task and honour. He was pleased with the
scheme, and with the views of Dr. Thomson ; he also
wished to present the current theory as to Inspiration in
a calm and moderate manner ; he therefore accepted the
call, and set himself to the difficult task of writing a clear
statement on the subject.
In " Essays and Reviews," the two papers which had
appeared to cut most deeply into the body of orthodox
theology were that on Miracles, by Mr. Baden Powell, and
that by Mr. Jowett on the difficulties and discrepancies of
Scripture. Against Mr. Baden Powell, Mr. Mansel wrote
an ingenious if unconvincing Essay on Miracles ; and, in
defence of Scripture, Mr. Harold Browne was pitted against
the other Essayist He defines the objects of " Aids to
P""aith " to be—
" to aid weak faith, to help doubting and distressed minds.
Anything like strong dogmatic statements would only
repel such. We were not fighting against the heresies
and infidelity of ' Essays and Reviews,' but trying to help
those who were puzzled, and the like of them."
He adds : —
" I was asked in the middle of July to write it by the
1st of September (1862). I did so in the midst of much
other labour, and felt much dissatisfied with it not as
14

2IO EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
regards its principles, but its mode of working out its
purpose. But that purpose was to prove to doubting minds
that, whatever difficulties might occur to them as to degrees
and modes of Inspiration, and many other incidental ques
tions, still there was abundant proof of a special miraculous
and infallible Inspiration of Holy Scripture. This is
enough to prove that Holy Scripture is an infallible
depository of religious truth. Everything else is but
secondary. I had no call to define dogmatically ; but
if it had been otherwise, I am much disposed to think that
in the present state of things, when the Church has never
defined the nature of Inspiration and the Scripture speaks
but generally on it, he must be a very rash man who would
venture to lay down definite rules, and to excommunicate
those who will not abide by them."
Modest and unambitious words these, which while they
mark the moderate tendencies of his mind, explain also
why the essay fails to solve the very intricate problems
with which it deals. For he aimed not so much at a new
or scientific theory of inspiration, as at such arguments
as might reassure anxious souls, disquieted by the rough
treatment of what they had hitherto been content to take
on trust. It is very interesting to see in this same letter,
written from Cambridge, a note of the theological charac
teristics of his surroundings.
" My belief is that this University has been preserved
from danger of Romanism, and I trust also from danger
of Rationalism, by the general prevalence amongst us of
a liberal and forbearing spirit. We have not been wholly
free from oscillation, but on the whole, for the last thirty
years we have been free from violent party spirits, and, in
the main, sound in the faith of the Church of Christ, the
Church of our Fathers."
Here we have a just statement of Professor Browne's
own position in these stormy days. Oxford, with her
acuteness of criticism, her active spirit of enquiry, was ever
throwing out new theories of life and faith, setting in

II.] THE TROUBLES IN THE CHURCH. 211
motion one theological party after another, generating heat
and motion, and taking the lead with all the ideas which
have influenced thoughtful men in England during this
present century ; her ablest sons have often heartened up
the Church of England with fresh ideals and hopes of a
noble future. On the other hand, the tendency of Cambridge
teaching and thinking has been to draw men into a more
placid middle course ; and while her great school of
theology has far surpassed all Oxford efforts in everything
that concerns solid learning and scholarship, it has fallen
behind its rivals in stimulating power. Professor Harold
Browne combined the learning and general power, the
moderation and courteous charity, which one seems to
feel and breathe as one passes through the streets of
Cambridge, or sits a guest within the walls of her magni
ficent Colleges.
Mr. Browne's Essay on Inspiration, then, is addressed
not to the free-thinker, or to the exponent of new theories,
but to anxious and religious minds puzzled or frightened
by these new views. He does not touch any prior question
as to the existence of Inspiration. He first assumes
that God, the Divine Spirit has spoken to mortal man,
and asks only. In what way? with what limitations? Is
there an actual inbreathing of knowledge, a direct afflatus ?
or has the Holy Spirit by raising man, given him more
sight and more insight? Next the Essay sketches the
history of the subject, as shown in Jewish and Christian
thought ; it recognises no Divine message save in the
Bible. It then deals briefly with certain views on the
subject : first, with that propounded by S. T. Coleridge, and
developed by Mr. Maurice ; here Mr. Browne shows some
suspicion as to the view that poets and artists are in a
degree inspired, and seems inclined to limit the function of
inspiration to what is contained in that phrase of a Collect

212 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
which prays that "by God's Holy Spirit we may think
those things that be good " ; a kind of moral guidance into
all truths bearing on the conduct of life. Mr Morell's
" Philosophy of Religion " is next passed under review.
Then, as becomes a Cambridge thinker, he treats of Paley's
bold argument, assuming nothing, and building up the
faith on foundations which would be accepted by unbelievers,
with a characteristic warning that " definite theories of
Inspiration are doubtful and dangerous " ; there is a human
element and a Divine element, — who shall define their exact
relations? In fine, he is content to sum it up in this:
" Granted a God, then Miracle is not merely possible,
but probable ; and Inspiration may be classed among God's
miracles of mercy towards mankind."
Such an essay might, from its devoutness and clearness,
appease many a doubt in pious souls ; it did not aim at
advancing the theory of the subject, or at converting the
unbeliever. We miss the living interest in the subject
displayed, some years before, by Dr. Pusey, when he speaks
of the way in which St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans was
written. " St. Paul," he says, " before he wrote must have
frequently taught and written on the great point of doctrine,
not as a mere machine, but as one whose understanding
was enlightened ; and then, with this illumination of the
soul upon him, summed up his inspired thoughts in the letter
to his converts." Yet Mr. Browne was not so narrow as his
great contemporary, who, when suspected of German theo
logical leanings, in 1828, wrote that he did "not essentially
differ from those who regard it (Inspiration) as dictation."
The whole controversy is now a thing of the past The
two volumes, " Essays and Reviews " and " Aids to Faith,"
slumber peacefully side by side on many a theologian's
shelves, and men have learnt to treat their Bibles with
more discerning reverence, and to recognise, as Mr. Browne

II.] THE TROUBLES IN THE CHURCH. 21 Z
desired that they should, the Divine wisdom contained in
earthen vessels ; nor do faithful Christians any longer
shut their eyes to the evidences of human weakness, which
are as little able to shake our faith in the Divine message
as a soiled dress can hide the life within its folds ; the one
is as little essential as the other. For God ever speaks to
man through man's imperfect nature.
Professor Browne's article in " Aids to Faith " was so
temperate that to some keen-nosed Churchmen there
seemed to be in it a whiff of dangerous tolerance. Bishop
Thirlwall alludes to certain growls of dissatisfaction.
" I am grieved to learn that the moderation and candour
which you showed in your contribution to the ' Aids to
Faith ' have exposed you to attack as ultra-liberal ... It
is a sign of most evil omen to the Church when those
who profess to be her champions imagine that the cause
of truth is promoted by bitterness of tone and arbitrary
dogmatism." The angry feeling aroused by " Essays and Reviews "
was still warm when a new alarm arose. When the history
of the influence of the American and Colonial Churches
on the Mother Church is written, it will be seen that the
outburst of literary and theological zeal in Natal did more
to ascertain and settle the relations of Colonial Dioceses
to one another, to their metropolitans, and, above all, to
the Patriarchal See of Canterbury, than to influence the
general current of thought or to secure any advance
in theological study. That these shocks to established
beliefs are wholesome in the end anyone will allow who
understands the way in which the spirit of Christian faith
tends to evaporate while the organism of a Church seems
still to live. No faith is worth much which cannot stand
attack. The Church may indeed be semper eadem ; but

214 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
she is, and must be always, the same with a difference.
She must adapt her framework, methods of action, points
of view, insistence on doctrine, now to one phase of the
world's growth, now to another. At the time of Bishop
Colenso's appearance on the scene, the receptive capacity
of Churchmen had been very seriously taxed ; and he
unfortunately mixed much that was crude with much that
was shrewd. Like the Essayists, he showed more anger
against conventional theology than enthusiasm for the
Gospel. He also used great boldness of enquiry without
a corresponding training in the principles of theological
controversy, or the laws of evidence, or the details of
linguistic knowledge.
The position taken up by Professor Browne was twofold
and interesting. The Colenso excitement began while he
was still Norrisian Professor ; and he grappled at once
with what appeared to him to be the Bishop's erroneous
opinions as to the credibility of the early books of the Old
Testament ; and, incidentally, as to the doctrine of Our
Lord's Divine Person and knowledge. But before the
controversy had advanced very far, Mr. Browne was made
Bishop of Ely, and this synchronised with the constitutional
development of the strife in South Africa. The startled
world of religious people now saw that the champion who
had contended so well with the pen against the Bishop
of Natal's opinions now seemed anxious to protect him
in the Upper House of Convocation. In the desire to
vindicate orthodoxy Convocation overlooked the other
side of the struggle ; only a few cooler heads hesitated
to make the English Church ratify all the acts of the
Bishop of Cape Town. The whole controversy tended to
help forward the deliverance of Colonial Churches from
State establishment and interference ; it also seemed not
unlikely to weaken the direct relation between the Colonial

II.] THE TROUBLES IN THE CHURCH. 21 5
Bishops and the mother See of Canterbury. A man so
jealous for the Anglican Church and the authority of the
home Episcopate as Harold Browne was could not but
look with disfavour on the bold steps taken at Cape
Town. When in 1853 Bishop Gray had selected Mr. Colenso
for the bishopric of Natal, he rejoiced greatly in his
choice, seeing the daily growth of the Christian faith in
Natal. Colenso, for several years, did earnest and en
lightened work in his diocese. No man has ever seen
more clearly the importance of the Church's influence
among the natives. He was the disinterested friend and
champion of the black race. He founded stations, in
which the natives were encouraged to settle under the
protection of the missionaries ; he worked hard at
the Zulu language, and laid the foundations of a South
African literature by creating a Zulu dictionary, being
eager to reach the hearts of his black flock through their
own language ; he endeavoured to adapt the services
of the English Church to the rudimentary state of belief
and knowledge in which even the most advanced of his
native converts must long remain. But ere long Bishop
Gray began to take alarm. Some of the Bishop of
Natal's English helpers proved ill-fitted for the work ;
some of his changes in the Liturgy were bold, and might
be dangerous ; at any rate, they were introduced on his
sole authority ; in some respects he seemed too ready to
cqmply (as in the case of polygamist converts) with native
prejudices. In a letter which Bishop Gray wrote in 1856,
expressing his anxiety on the points mentioned above,
he ends by saying that " if he will only learn caution and
deliberation this wiH do no harm. His fine, generous, and
noble character will triumph over all difficulties."
This very frankness and earnestness, coupled with a

2l6 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
fearless love of truth, and a desire to present Christianity
in the simplest and most intelligible manner to the native
converts, carried Bishop Colenso forward with dangerous
rapidity. Early in 1861, Bishop Gray gives voice to his
anxieties, which were not without foundation.
" The Bishop of Natal," he says, " is a very wilful, head
strong man, and loose, I fear, in his opinions on vital
points. We shall have," he adds, " to fight for revelation,
inspiration, the atonement and every great truth of Chris
tianity before long."
Before many months had passed the Bishop of Natal
justified some of these forebodings by publishing a new
translation, with commentary, of St. Paul's Epistle to
the Romans; and the summer of 1862 saw the begin
nings of the work which created so great a stir in the
Church at home and in South Africa — ^the first part of
" The Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua critically exam
ined." This was followed in January 1863 by the second
part of the work, in which the Bishop unsparingly criticises
the sacred narrative. The outburst of feeling in England
was very strong ; nor did Bishop Colenso's reply to the
remonstrance of the English bishops tend to allay the
excitement. We have seen how Mr. Browne had dealt with the earlier
period of the strife. The work on the Pentateuch now
brought him again into the field. He felt bound to
dedicate all his strength and knowledge to a sound and
temperate consideration of the important questions in
volved ; and in the spring of 1863 delivered and published
five lectures on "the Pentateuch and the Elohistic Psalms''
in direct reply to the Bishop of Natal.
We learn how strong was his feeling on the subject
from a brief utterance of distress and almost of despair in

II.] THE TROUBLES IN THE CHURCH. 21 7
one of his letters at this time. Writing from Cambridge,
January 19th, 1863, he says : —
" What a sad business is Bishop Colenso's apostasy !
It is difficult to call it by a milder name. There is every
appearance of a great crisis, a great conflict between faith
and infidelity. Yet I feel hopeful of the issue ; but God
only knows whether Antichrist with his lying wonders
may not be permitted for a time to prevail."
Men seemed to think that the episcopal standing of the
offender was a great aggravation ; as if it were the special
duty of a bishop to ask no questions and to avoid all the
burning topics which might be warming the world around
him. It was all the more trying and inexplicable to them
when, a short time after, the man who had expressed
himself so strongly against the Bishop of Natal was
found ranging himself by the side of those three or four
cautious prelates who aimed at seeing justice done. They
failed to see how dangerous was the proposal to stifle all
freedom of discussion, and knew too little about Church
order and authority to appreciate the arguments with
which, a little later, this little group of Bishops resisted
the attempt to make the English Church approve all the
violent acts of the Bishop of Cape Town.
Professor Browne's lectures, which appeared in May
1863, were a masterly defence of the older view of the
relations between the early books of the Old Testament
and the declarations of the Gospel, and formed by far the
ablest reply to Bishop Colenso. Without softening down
the controversy, or seeking for a middle course in it, or
showing a moment's hesitation in pointing out where in
his opinion the Bishop was wrong. Professor Browne
throughout deals with his subject in a way which made
him a model controversialist. There may be sadness in
his tone — there is no bitterness ; he does not try to blacken

2l8 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
his adversary's character, to impute to him evil motives,
to heap on him detestable epithets. The Httle volume is
carried through in the spirit of the brief introduction
prefixed to it : —
" I trust," he writes, " I have nowhere expressed myself
with the bitterness or insolence of controversy. Deeply
as I regret the course which the Bishop of Natal has taken,
widely and painfully as I differ from him, I know him to
be a man in whom there is very much to esteem, and I
feel that he deserves all credit for his former self-denying
labours in the cause of the Gospel."
Well may we say with A. P. Stanley, that happy would
be the day when controversy was carried on in the spirit
of this volume. " Christ Church, Oxford, May zyd, 1863.
"My DEAR Sir, — I have to thank you for your Five
Lectures and for the courtesy with which you have quoted
from my book.
" Would that even a quarter of the replies to Bishop
Colenso had been written in the spirit of kindness and
forbearance which breathes through your pages, and what
a different spectacle would our Church have presented —
and what a different effect, probably, produced on him !
" Yours faithfully,
"A. P. Stanley."
The Lectures open with the most important of the
questions raised by the Bishop of Natal, by discussing the
nature of our Saviour's testimony to Moses, and ask
whether we can believe that when our Lord declared that
" Moses wrote of Him " he did so in ignorance of the
discovery which modern criticism has just made, that
" Moses perhaps never lived, certainly never wrote." The
Professor here does little more than entrench himself behind
the Church's belief in the Divinity, and, consequently, the
omniscience, of our Lord. He is silent on the difficult

II.] THE TROUBLES IN THE CHURCH. 219
questions as to the effect of the Incarnation on the rela
tions between God and man, or as to what Scripture says
of the limitations imposed on His human nature. The
second Lecture deals with the striking " numerical diffi
culties in the history of the Exodus," making a strong
case for the credibility of the narrative, if the supernatural
in it be granted. The third and fourth Lectures are a
masterly treatment, by a patient and real scholar, of
the supposed " Jehovistic and Elohistic phenomena in the
Pentateuch." This is perhaps the ablest portion of the
reply ; here the Professor's academic studies and gifts
tell most decidedly. He takes up, discusses, and over
throws the Bishop's arguments one by one, and turns his
weapons on himself The last lecture is on a topic entirely
suited to the Professor's temperament Bishop Colenso
had charged the Law of Moses with inhumanity. Now,
no man ever had a finer sense than Professor Browne
had of what is due on grounds of brotherhood and
humanity to our fellow-creatures, whether men or animals.
His treatment, therefore, of this matter was sure to be
just and sympathetic. The lecture, accordingly, after
showing that the main facts stated in the history of the
Exodus can be proved to be true, ends by elaborately
comparing the Mosaic code of law with that of civilised
nations in ancient and modern times. He easily proves,
as any one conversant with the history of justice in our
own country is aware, that the Mosaic code was far less
severe than those of many a boasted Christian civilisation,
even in modern days.
This little volume was received, as it deserved, with
much applause and goodwill ; even those who were
•opposed to the conclusions in it were able to thank the
author cordially for his fair and gentle spirit. Some of
the letters he received are curious and interesting.

220 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
The Bishop of Lincoln throws a lurid light on the
methods of controversy, and shows that not only the
orthodox thought it safer not to read their opponents'
books. The " enlightened " are often quite as illiberal as
those they oppose.
" One of the worst features," says he, " of the prevalent
scepticism is its unwillingness to hear and weigh both
sides. A really scientific man of my acquaintance refused
to read McCaul's book which I had sent him. He was
' satisfied with Colenso, who was unanswerable.' How
would such a reply be designated in a question of physical
science ? "
And, one may add, how would the man of science, whose
special boast is the openness of his mind to argument,
have denounced any one who refused to read his books
or to weigh his arguments, when they ran counter to the
opinion of the day ?
One direct result of the publication of the five lectures
was an invitation to Professor Browne to take part in the
projected " Speaker's Commentary." The ability and
linguistic skill of the Professor's writings marked him out
as the man best fitted to undertake the Pentateuch.
" Pray do not refuse," says Canon Cook ; " I cannot
imagine a more important work, if it be well done, and
there is no name which would give more confidence than
yours in the most delicate and difficult part of the whole
undertaking." Harold Browne was at once attracted by this proposal,
regarding it as a distinct call of duty ; he liked the
thought of a group of careful and moderate Churchmen
uniting to elucidate the Scriptures ; he regarded the re
newed interest in the Bible as a hopeful sign, and wished
that the revealed bases of our religion should be handled
in such a way as both to win back those who had been

II.] THE TROUBLES IN THE CHURCH. 221
alienated and to strengthen those who still held to them :
the Commentary should aim at being clear, simple, explana
tory, without entering into abstruse questions or even
directly answering attacks. As he used to say that the
best Church Defence was the strength which comes of doing
one's duty, so here he held that the best defence of the Bible
lay in an intelligent and reasonable use of it as the guide
of life. He therefore agreed to take part in the work ; and
in a letter to Lord Arthur Hervey, afterwards Bishop of
Bath and Wells, he shows with how keen an interest he
entered into even the details of the scheme.
" The Close, Exeter, July \th, 1863.
"My dear Lord, — I do not know whether you may
have heard that Murray is proposing to publish a Com
mentary on the S.S. in six volumes. The scheme was
started, I believe, by the Archbishop of York, the Speaker,
and some other eminent clergymen and laymen. Mr
Cook, Preacher at Lincoln's Inn, is to be the general
Editor. Each section (such as the Pentateuch, the his
torical books, the poetical books, the major prophets, the
minor prophets, the gospels, the Pauline epistles, etc.) is
to have a separate editor The New Testament will be in
the hands of Professors Jeremie, Jacobson, Mansel, Bishop
Ellicott, and Dean Trench, I believe. I have been pressed
into the service as editor of the Pentateuch and writer of
the commentary on Genesis, — -certainly the post of danger,
though perhaps the post of honour too. It was so urged
on me that I could hardly refuse it I trust a strength
greater than my own may support me ; for I feel very
doubtful of my own qualifications in any way. But enough
of this.
" Your Lordship's name has been mentioned to me by
Mr. Cook in connection with the Book of Deuteronomy.
I can say most truly that I shall be heartily thankful if
you will undertake it. It is rendered doubly important
now by Colenso's attack on it in his third part Your
learning, soundness and yet liberality, qualify you for it
very signally.
The plan is to print in octavo. About equal parts of

222 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
text and commentary, or text : commentary : : 2 : 3.
The Commentary to be critical in its basis, but popular in
its form, giving such explanations as any sensible fairly-
educated layman may require and be satisfied with ; any
thing like philology, etc., being put in an appendix.
" Murray is very liberally disposed, so that there is no
difficulty in getting help or buying books. He proposes
to pay ;^20 for sixteen pages of notes, or perhaps, say,
about ;^i a page, as Mr. Cook thinks it may be safer to
leave a margin, and not to count on the full ;^20. The
work is to be done and ready, i.e., written and read by the
respective editors, by October ist, 1864.
" If you have Doyley and Mant you will find a page
beginning Genesis xxii. 19 and ending x.xiii. 10. That
page, text and notes, nearly represents a specimen page
which I saw set up at Murray's. I think Murray's octavo
page contained a little less than Doyley and Mant's quarto
page ; and it was only printed as a trial. The recent
attack on Scripture and the consequent alarm produced
in many minds have suggested this work.
" The whole work is to be printed in six volumes of
about six hundred pages each, at 145-. a volume, it is
hoped. I suppose we shall be allowed one volume for the
Pentateuch, but I am not certain about that I sincerely
hope that you will think favourably of the request I now
forward to you. I do not know whether Mr. Cook means
to write also, but he empowered me to open negotiations
with you. The other contributors at present proposed for
the Pentateuch are Mr. Thrupp and, Mr. J. J. Stewart
Perowne. The other editors for the Old Testament are
Jeremie, Professor Selwyn, Mr. Cook, Dr. McCaul, and
Professor Lightfoot. " Yours faithfully,
" E. Harold Browne."
Before this work could even be begun. Professor Harold
Browne had been named Bishop of Ely. And yet he was
one of the first to be ready with his portion of the Com
mentary. No man ever worked harder or more rapidly
than he did ; so that, though 1864 was a year crammed
full of new work, he still succeeded in grappling with the
Book of Genesis, until early in autumn 1864 he sent to

II.] THE TROUBLES IN THE CHURCH. 223
the general Editor, Canon Cook, a substantial portion of
his share. " Exeter, September 12th, 1864.
" My dear Bishop, — I am delighted to have your
Commentary : it is not a bit too long, and cramfuU of the
best things said in the best way. If you do not object
I will have it set up at once and sent to all our fellow-
labourers. I am quite in good heart now. If you can get
your part done (and you have fairly broken the neck of it)
no one has an excuse for delay. Thrupp will get on fast
enough. I will get Pascoe to send a specimen to you
soon. Rawlinson will be ready within a reasonable time.
I shall have Job ready by the early spring, and be far
advanced with my portion of the Psalms. Plumptre is sure
to finish Proverbs, and has already sent me a considerable
instalment well executed. Birks is getting on fast with
Isaiah, and has sent the notes on twelve chapters. I have
no doubt that the Old Testament wiH be in print within
two years, and that we shall have enough to satisfy all
reasonable people before the end of '65.
I expect much delay about the New Testament, but
when the writers see the other part advancing, they will be
stirred to emulation, and I shall take care to have a good
specimen from a first-rate hand as soon as possible.

"Yours sincerely,
"F. C. Cook."

CHAPTER III.
life and work in CAMBRIDGE, 1853— 1864.
THE fruitful years during which Mr. Browne was
Norrisian Professor at Cambridge and Vicar of
Kenwyn were days of incessant work and much anxiety.
With a large and growing family ; with a very liberal heart,
as of a man who cared little for money and was eager to
do kind acts to all around him ; with two homes to keep
up, and frequent journeys to make ; it is not strange that
he found himself much straitened, and was tempted to
undertake more work than his strength justified. In those
clashing days the Norrisian Professor was inevitably
sucked into the fray. He now also felt the deepest
anxiety for his poor invalid daughter, who was becoming
ever more and more helpless. There is no telling how
much ripening and strengthening of Christlike love and
patience came to him and his from this permanent source
of anxiety. " I'm sure," cries sympathetic Reginald Barnes,
at that time one of the Kenwyn curates, " that her life has
been made a blessing to them, in calling out their patience
and constant care."
Other matters also occupied his thoughts. His anxieties
over the education of his boys are shewn in a letter he
wrote to Mr. James, who had undertaken to guide the
early studies of the eldest son, Harold, then about eleven
years old. When Mr. James found it no longer possible
224

Ch. III.] LIFE AND WORK IN CAMBRIDGE, 1853— 1864. 225
to be both curate and tutor, the question of a school
became pressing. We are so content with our public school
system — and, with all its drawbacks, there is so much to be
said for it — that Professor Browne's strong dislike of it
strikes us with surprise, as something quite unexpected
in an Eton man. The immense improvement in school
life was perhaps not recognised everywhere, and perhaps
the memory of his own easy-going days at Eton made
him unwilhng to submit his sons to influences which had
interfered, he thought, so seriously with his own progress
in after-life. That education at home has its own distinct
advantages is quite true ; these advantages, however,
obviously have to be set against distinct disadvantages.
The intermediate course is that of day-school education,
in which boys are educated in community, while they
retain the benefits of home. This system has had to face
all the resistance of old school and family tradition, and
it is only now, thanks to the rapid improvement and spread
of day-schools and to the aggregation of the Enghsh
people in towns with their children to be taught, that this
type of education is forcing itself into its true position.
Professor Browne's own sympathies were with the older
or ' Public ' schools, yet he shrank from submitting his sons
to their influences. Consequently, Harold, the eldest boy,
was kept at home as long as possible, although his father
was not able himself to supervise his education. By 1855,
however, the problem had begun to take more urgent
form. Harold was now old enough to mix with his fellows
and to get advantage from the larger life of school. And
yet the foHowing letter shews how much Mr Browne
shrank from exposing a shy retiring boy to risks, and how
anxious he was as to the right course. The question of
the narrow purse was also a very important matter, as the
following extract shows : — 15

226 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
" I need not be ashamed to add that I cannot afford to
send my boy to a good school. If possible, I should
reduce my present expenses very considerably; but my
poor little girl renders that almost impossible. Two nunses
and a horse and carriage are scarcely enough to attend
on her, and her troubles give occupation to the whole
household. I am therefore obliged to keep an establish
ment far larger and more expensive than I can afford."
This, however, was not what pressed most on his atten
tion. In a letter to Mr. James, written from Cambridge,
February 24th, 1853, he discloses freely and frankly his
view as to the risks of school life.
" The conviction," he says, " of a quarter of a century,
has never with me given way for a moment, namely, that
schools are nurseries of evil, especially for young boys.
If I could afford to send Harold to a public school, which
is utterly impossible at present, I should not do so, on the
ground I have stated ; and private schools are generally
admitted, even by the advocates of school education, to
be, for the most part, if not universally, very bad places.
I am perfectly aware that I am by my own system
[i.e. by educating his son at home, with help from one of
his curates] not advancing my boy's prospects of success in
the world, as no doubt school is the best place to learn.
But as I beheve it is also the most certain place in this
wicked world to learn wickedness, I therefore believe that
I am consulting his eternal good, if not his temporal. In
the many conversations I have had with advocates for
school education, I have never yet met with one who
would deny the imminent, and almost inevitable, danger
to young boys of receiving moral injury from going to
school. I am not prepared to deny that at fourteen or
fifteen a school well conducted may be a desirable place.
But the strongest argument I have heard in favour of
public schools at all, is that if a boy gets well through a
public school, he is proof against every other danger, as
that is the greatest to which he can be exposed. I
heard the argument used by a clever person a few days
ago. And is it really right to expose young children to
the greatest spiritual danger which human nature can
encounter ?

III.] LIFE AND WORK IN CAMBRIDGE, 1853— 1864. 227
" My own experience of home education has been
favourable ; for I know, or have known, a great many
men, brought up strictly at home, who have turned out
the very best specimens of Christian gentlemen.
" I could very much wish that my boys could never
associate with any boys who have been at school at all.
Indeed, I do not let them mix much with any schoolboys —
and when they do mix with them, I hope it is mostly in
active games and amusements ; and I seldom fear evil
when boys work hard or play hard. But I should be
very rejoiced, if it were possible, that they should only
associate with boys who had never been at school at all."
The close of this severe indictment against Public
Schools will come as a surprise to many who knew the
Bishop as a genuine public-school man ; one of those
who, in thoughts, bearing, and in all that makes up social
position, belonged to that somewhat exclusive fragment
of English society which regards the Public School as
an established institution not so much for education, as
for the equipment of ¦ young men in all the necessary
furnishings of the English gentleman. The truth is that,
as years went on, and his bright sons grew up around him,
Mr. Browne became more and more sensitive as to the
all-important questions of morality, and grew unwilling
to expose his boys to influences through which he himself
had indeed safely passed, but which might easily prove
fatal to a young lad's character. Yet after all, in spite
of his most natural anxieties, Mr. Browne in the end sent
his boys to school ; and they came back to him, first from
Twyford, and then from Rugby, strengthened in mind
and character, and fitted for their work in life.
In addition to his work at Cambridge and Kenwyn,
Professor Browne was always a most zealous and interested
supporter of everything which would tend to the expansion
and development of the Church of England. During these
years we have evidence of his strong interest in Missions,

228 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
and in the work of the Anglo-Continental Society. We
shall see how throughout his life these objects occupied
his thoughts and tinged his prayers and elicited his
heartiest efforts. A letter dated Cambridge, November
27th, 1854, indicates this tendency of his mind, while it
also shows us the innate modesty which forbade him to
think that he might himself become the influential leader
of religious opinion in Cambridge ; his many engage
ments and duties hindered him from taking that leading
place which he might have held with great benefit to
the younger generations of University men. The Univer
sities are not easily moved and won. The undergraduates,
who are a world to themselves, make their own heroes
after their own fashion ; the men who influence them—
and they are few and far between — are either bold and
original-minded champions of some new phase of religious
or philosophical faith, or, on the other hand, quiet, earnest
sympathetic persons, who attract to their side successive
generations of religious lads. And the men who affect
the currents of thought and opinion among the seniors, are
usually those who have continued long in the University,
with a tone of mind superior to the somewhat carping
criticism of Common-room society. Though in many
respects Professor Browne was eminently well fitted to
occupy this position, he lacked time and leisure, and,
perhaps still more, the ambition which loves to call the
listening crowd around a man's chair.
" The Bishop of New Zealand has been here," he writes,
" preaching and speaking with marvellous power. I fear
he leaves us to-morrow. Cambridge appears to me to
want a helmsman very much just now. Professor Blunt
had immense influence for good a short time since ; I fear
it is a littie loosened now. Partly perhaps that he is
older, and a race has risen up that knows not Joseph
as he was in his vigour ; but more, it may be, because

III.] LIFE AND WORK IN CAMBRIDGE, 1853—1864. 229
he is not quite up to the age. The theology of the day
is not the theology of fifteen years ago. High Churchmen
are still High Churchmen, taken out with a difference.
I fear, if a clever Germaniser came among us, he would
take many captive at his will. As it is we have no such,
happily, to take a lead."
It was during the stirring years of this decade, in
which England's horizon of interests, political, commercial,
religious, seemed to be daily growing wider, that Professor
Browne became the leading spirit in the Anglo-Continental
Society. The sympathies of the average Englishman are
not easily excited on behalf of foreign Churches or distant
efforts for a reform in religious faith and usage : we know
little about the ways of thought, the aims, the difificulties,
of earnest people in other lands, and find it very hard to
overcome the barrier of our insularity ; it is also true that
the very moderation of the position taken up by Professor
Browne and his friends repelled the more ardent spirits.
The Anglo-Continental Society has never been largely
supported, although for about thirty years it has been
engaged on a very interesting effort ; the Church gene
rally has shewn it little favour ; few have cared to
proclaim to the world that the Anglican Liturgy, the
Anghcan Episcopacy, and Anglican Divinity steer the
level middle course. On both sides, within the Church,
men looked shyly on the Society ; some because they cared
little about Christian uniformity and were content with
more general views as to Christian unity ; others, because
they were suspicious of claims which seemed to them to
deny the Protestantism of the English Reformed Church,
and because they were afraid of Rome ; others again,
because they did not think the Society friendly enough
towards the unreformed Churches. From one cause or
another, this Society has had a hard course to steer, espe-

230 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
cially when appealed to on behalf of men struggling to
release themselves from the rule of the Roman Church. It
has had to diffuse knowledge about the English Church
without proselytising ; it has had to reconcile two hostile
principles, the one involving opposition to the dominant
theology of Rome, the other endeavouring to shew to the
Roman Obedience that the English Church is orthodox,
duly constituted, and in all respects a Church, and that
this Church above all things desires to recognise and be
recognised by other Churches, even if they do not agree
with her on every point. The Society was also anxious
to befriend all those who struggled to reform the Roman
Church, and those whom the Vatican Decrees had driven
out of her pale.
The Society sprang out of a visit paid by two clergy
men, brothers, to Spain in the year 1853 : James Meyrick,
Fellow of Queens', and Frederick Meyrick, P""ellow of
Trinity, Oxford, now Rector of Blickling in Norfolk ; both
moderate High Churchmen. They were much struck with
the ignorance of Spaniards as to the very existence
of the English Church, We English people always are
astonished if inhabitants of other countries do not know all
about us and our institutions, and comfort ourselves with
the belief that if they had our Constitution and our Church
all would be weH. These two clever and earnest men
became more and more convinced, as they mixed with the
Spaniards, that if they knew more about the English
Church it would shew them how to compass a conservative
reform in their own Church, to clear away corrupt usages
and extreme doctrines and superstitions, and to make
them, without organic convulsion, a Reformed branch of
the Church Catholic.
On returning home, the Meyricks founded a little Society
for the purpose of opening friendly communications with

III.] LIFE AND WORK IN CAMBRIDGE, 1853— i86<i. 23 1
the Churchmen of Spain and of other countries, as occasion
might serve ; and appealed to English Churchmen for help
in making better known abroad the principles, the doctrines,
the discipline, organisation, and position of the Church of
England, This Society must be carefully distinguished from the
" Association for the Promotion of the Unity of Christen
dom," which came into being about the same time. The
two were from the outset antagonistic. The Anglo-Con
tinental Society was based entirely on Anglican principles,
and aimed at persuading Churchmen in all parts of the
world to return from mediaevalism to primitive doctrine ;
it set its face against proselytism, and hoped for internal
reformation. The other Society seemed more inclined to
seek for peace as a suppliant to Rome, and to abandon the
independent claims and position of the English Church.
Consequently, the one was inclined more to work among
the Greeks, the other rather to submit itself to the Latins.
From the very first Mr. Browne was greatly interested
in a movement which seemed to provide an opportunity
for testing, in a larger arena, the soundness and force of
Anglican principles. The Anglican Church, he hoped,
would become the model of many a reformed Episcopal
National Church : the Governments of Europe would look
with favour on a movement which, by detaching the clergy
from the obedience of Rome, would render them more
national : it was thought that as Hume had said, govern
ments would feel it their true interest to support National
Churches, as bulwarks to thrones and institutions often
threatened, sometimes sadly shaken.
In 1863 another change came to Professor Browne. He
had long felt that the charge and care of Kenwyn was too
much for him, and that his Cambridge duties made it
almost impossible for him to go on with both. Yet he

232 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
clung to Kenwyn, from love of his flock, and also because,
in spite of the improvement of his stipend as Professor,
his growing family made it hard for him to live within his
income. Now, however, the repeated insistence of the
Bishop of Exeter broke down his reluctance, and he agreed
to make the changes necessary before he could become
Principal of a new Exeter Theological College.
He had no great love for such Institutions as the Bishop
desired to see at Exeter. He thought them narrowing in
tendency, and that their students took the stamp of some
one leader, and stood apart from that wholesome Enghsh
life with which the more manly and less trained clergy
were in sympathy. He believed, in fact, that they were
but poor substitutes for the general cultivation of the
Universities, and regarded the system as one likely to
hinder rather than to forward the usefulness of a parish
clergyman. There had already been a tendency towards
this specialised education for Orders, due partly to strong
growths of party feeling in the Church, and partly to
the throwing open of the Universities. There can be no
doubt that the Bishop of Exeter's aim was to secure greater
dogmatic unity among his clergy, and to provide them
with weapons fit to combat the more liberal theology of
the day. He hoped, by securing the orthodox Professor
from Cambridge, to raise up a clergy theologically High
Church, while he also got the credit of having placed a
moderate and peace-loving divine at the head of his new
College. The Royal Cornwall Gazette of June 26th, 1863,
says that " the success of the new Theological CoHege at
Exeter is now generally considered to be secured by the
appointment of Canon Browne to the office of Warden."
This new post an office without emolument, had been first
filled (on Mr. Browne's refusal of it) by Dean Ellicott,
who had vacated it on his promotion to the bishopric of

III.] LIFE AND WORK IN CAMBRIDGE, 1S53-1864. 233

Gloucester and Bristol ; then at the beginning of 1863
the Bishop of Exeter again urged Mr. Browne to under
take it ; and he did so, unwillingly, yet seeing no way of
escape. His nomination shortly after to the bishopric of
Ely released him, and was a fatal blow to the Theological
College as such. The Bishop of Exeter afterwards founded
in its stead a Theological Students' Fund, to help young
men in preparing for Orders at one of the Universities ;
and this is still in full action.
All through these years there seems to have been a desire
to detach Mr. Browne from Cambridge, and to attract him
to a permanent position in the Exeter diocese ; and in this
the Bishop, the Dean, and the Chapter all joined.
Early in 1857 the Chapter of Exeter offered him the
vacant Vicarage of Heavitree. It was understood that this
piece of preferment was to be the beginning of such a
series of promotions at Exeter as might enable him to
resign his Professorship and to devote himself entirely
to diocesan work. It was to be followed by a Canonry
Residentiary in the Cathedral, and, on the next vacancy,
by the Archdeaconry of Exeter. This, however, did not
fall in during these years, and the offer of the bishopric of
Ely directed his steps elsewhere. A letter to Mr. James
shews how much harassed in mind he was, and how little
confidence he had in his own health at this time : —
"Truro, April Zih, 1857.
" I have, from hour to hour almost, thought I might be
able to add to my letter a statement of my own plans for
the future. Since Christmas the Chapter and myself have
been in brisk correspondence about Heavitree. I have
over and over again refused it But it has been most
kindly pressed on me, and at length I have accepted it,
on certain conditions which I wiH explain to you, though
probably it must be in confidence. Meanwhile, and at the
moment that Mrs. Browne had gone a hurried journey to

234 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
see Heavitree and learn about it, it pleased God somewhat
suddenly to call my dear suffering child to Himself She
was, for her, very well when her mother left home. She
caught a cold, which seemed severe but not dangerous ;
but suddenly it assumed a kind of quinsy or croup form,
and terminated fatally in a few hours. The grief of
parting was much aggravated by her mother's absence.
But we can only, for our dear child's sake, be thankful that
she has been called to rest, and is, we trust, in Paradise. . . .
I said I would tell you on what conditions I am to hold
it [Heavitree]. The Bishop and Chapter have agreed that
the Archdeaconry of Exeter, with its Canonry, shall be
annexed to Heavitree, permanently if possible. I believe
the Archdeacon would, if asked, resign in my favour. He
has often told me he would before this arrangement was
made. But I wish to make trial of it first I do not
know that my strength may not fail in the work of the
parish and the climate of the West. It is therefore agreed
between the Chapter and myself (with the Bishop's full
approval) that I shall continue to hold my Professorship at
present, and when the Archdeaconry falls, shall take it,
unless I find health likely to fail, when I may resign both
Heavitree and the Archdeaconry, with its stall. One of
my doubts has been the propriety of giving up my Pro
fessorship, which is now well endowed and is a most
influential post. However, so it stands at present.
.... I left my party pretty well at Newnham. My
wife, my sister Maria, and poor Lane were sadly worn, but
improving. It is a cause of great thankfulness that none
of us died or quite broke down, before my poor little
sufferer was called home."
The death of his poor suffering daughter, who had never
from her infancy known a day's good health, and was
a very serious tie to them, was a deep sorrow. No
one, unless he has known it himself can realise how soon
the very afflictions of a suffering child endear her to her
parents ; the more helpless she is, the more care and
thought are lavished on her, the more powerfully she en
twines herself round their heartstrings, the more acutely
they feel it when God mercifully removes the poor sufferer

Ill,

] LIFE AND WORK IN CAMBRIDGE, 1853-1864. 235

No sooner had Mr. and Mrs. Browne bidden a last
farewell to their dear daughter than they had to get ready
for their removal from Kenwyn. It was a very sad and
painful time for them ; and the kind Professor felt the
strain to be almost too great His letters of this period
refer continually to the feebleness of his health ; he hardly
seemed equal to the task of taking leave of one parish and
entering on another. We find him, barely a fortnight
after the death of his daughter, occupied with the arrange
ments for his new cure. We have a letter couched in the
kindest terms, written from Cambridge (on April 20th,
1857) to Mr. James, in which he doubts whether he ought
to accept his offer to transfer himself with the Professor to
Heavitree. Mr. Browne saw clearly that the suburban
parish demanded robust men to work it and as he felt
himself far below what he could have wished in point of
strength, he naturally felt that it would never do for all
the staff to be weaklings.
" Barnes," he says, " is still delicate, though better, and
very zealous. I fear," he adds, " you are not a very strong
man. I know I am not a very strong man, and am on the
road to fifty  I am pretty well worn out with taking
leave at Kenwyn, where I met abundance of kindness
and regret Reginald Barnes and I are feeble folk."
Again, two months later, we find him describing himself
as very much overborne by work : —
" I rather want help soon — I have a good deal of duty
at the Cathedral this summer. R. Barnes goes abroad
the end of July. We have confirmations coming on. I
have much work for Cambridge, and am much worn with
work at Cambridge and Kenwyn, and here, succeeding to
the sorrow of my dear child's last sickness and death.
Now, too, the weather in which I have had to work hard
here is overpoweringly hot. The parish is very pleasant,
but it is rather too populous ; and I ought to have no
second hard duty, as I have at Cambridge.

236 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
" I have unfortunately to work for two duties, either of
them more than enough for my strength. I have many
lectures to work [at] for Cambridge, and to work in my
parish too ; and I have not had one week without parochial
work or University work for near four years. I am there
fore hoping to find a week or two to take a holiday myself
before the summer is quite gone — I hope before my strength
is quite gone."
Heavitree, with Mr. Browne's other serious calls and
duties, was really too heavy a burden ; and in truth
he could give so Httle time to it, that the parish, less
humble-minded than Kenwyn, began to grumble at a Vicar
who was obliged to go off" to preach elsewhere and to
leave his pulpit to be filled by curates. However good
a preacher the curate may be, the parish deems itself
neglected if the rector is often absent ; and Mr. Browne,
during his short tenure of this living, preached but rarely.
" He is to return," says one of the curates, " to-morrow,
in time for a parish dinner at the Horse and Groom. No
very pleasant form of martyrdom for any Vicar, but for
him especially unpleasant, as he hates public speaking, and
as the captious part of the parish are angry at his being so
much away from the church. He has not preached above
seven or eight times there, as the Cathedral employed him
during the last month, and it will take him away again for
three weeks in September. I heartily wish he had less to
do, but I am afraid he means to take the Cathedral work
again next year."
" The captious part of the parish " naturally took excep
tion at a Vicar whom they met on Sunday mornings,.
as they were going to church, on his way to preach
in cathedral. In fact, Mr. Browne's stay at Heavitree
really lasted only one Long Vacation, and during that
time was much interrupted by other caHs. Yet in this brief
time he won the hearts of his parishioners, and was un
wearied in house-to-house visitation. It is clear, however,

III.

LIFE AND WORK IN CAMBRIDGE, 1853—1864. 237

that his Cambridge work had become more important
than ever in his eyes ; and where a man's heart is, there
will the best of his work be done.
So things went on for the rest of the year 1857, till in
December Dr. John Bull, a stout pluralist of the old school,
resigned his stall in Exeter Cathedral. Dean Lowe at
once wrote to Professor Browne, to say that he and the
Chapter had decided to offer him the vacant Canonry,
and concludes his letter (of December 12th, 1857) in these
friendly and flattering terms : —
" I can most truly add that it affords me the highest
gratification to have this opportunity of marking the very
high sense I entertain of your personal character and
theological attainments, and of the credit which will accrue
to the Capitular body from having your name enrolled in
the list of its members,"
Just after Christmas, the Chapter Clerk, Mr. Ralph
Barnes, cited Mr. Browne to appear in Chapter on Monday,
December 28th, 1857, to pray, in the accustomed form,
" to be admitted to the place of Residentiary now vacant."
Very grateful he was at this release from the embarrass
ments of his position.
'.' The difficulty of holding my office here [at Cambridge]
with Heavitree pressed on me so heavily, and the prospect
once held out to me seemed so distant that I felt it would
be almost impossible to hold on ; and God's good providence
seems to have opened a path for me, when all seemed
closed." Though the resignation of Heavitree was a great relief
at the time, the actual leisure gained appears to have been
very small. The very next year he speaks of himself as
being " worked off his legs," and a little later, the death of
his sister Louisa in his house at 'Newnham, near Cambridge
(January 4th, 1859), added to the sense of gloom and

238 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch
almost of despondency visible in his letters ; he was over
worked and did too much for his delicate health. Few
men have ever had a sounder constitution, or one more
free from organic weaknesses ; and yet from childhood to
old age he was ever reminded of the frail tabernacle of the
body ; the high sense of duty and resolute spirit with
which he faced the masses of work which accumulated
around him, kept him always on the verge of a break-down
in health. This is his record of himself at this time, in
Lent 1859 : —
" I always seem to have more [to do] than I have time
to do. At present the great number of sermons and public
meetings I have to get through add to my labours ; Lent
Sermons are innumerable now, and we have all sorts of
National Society, S.P.G., etc., etc., meetings going on ;
besides that, I have five sermons to preach as Select
Preacher, beginning on Good Friday, which require some
trouble to write."
And in the same year, on Advent Sunday, he looks
back on the past with a distinct touch of sadness : —
" It is twenty-three years this day since Advent Sunday
November 27th, 1836, on which day I was admitted to the
Holy Order of Deacons. Much has passed since then, and
many serious thoughts rise from the retrospect. In the
great Advent hereafter I can only pray, ' Per crucem et
passionem tuam Miserere mei Domine.' "
The truth was that he never could protect himself from
his friends. Any one who besieged him with sufficient
assurance could get what he wanted. He would far rather
knock himself up with over-work than give himself and
an acquaintance the pain of a refusal. Consequently,
every one who wanted a special sermon, or a speech at a
meeting, or a little help in money, at once turned to
Professor Browne and added a mite to the weight of his
burdens. It was this very willingness and kindness which

III.] LIFE AND WORK IN CAMBRIDGE, 1853— 1864. 239
made people grumble at him. More selfishness, and the
art (which comes naturally to most of us) of thinking first
about oneself would have saved him from many serious
annoyances at this time, as well as from grave risks to
health. A new set of critics now rose up against him, this
time assaulting him through the public Press. While still
at Kenwyn he had been elected Proctor in Convocation ;
and after migrating to Heavitree continued to represent
the diocese. Now, however, that he had entirely ceased,
on resigning the Vicarage, to be a parochial clergyman,
there arose a feeling that the country clergy ought not
to be represented by one of the Cathedral body. Men
pointed out the obvious fact that the Chapter was already
plentifully represented in Convocation, and that therefore
the rectors and vicars of the diocese ought not to send
another canon as their spokesman. There can be no
doubt that for all practical purposes the beneficed clergy
could not have had a more admirable representative than
Professor Browne. His learning, moderation, soundness in
Church views, and deep interest in the consultations of
the newly revived Convocations, fitted him perfectly for
the post and the country clergy would not have found it
easy to choose a better man. Still, men of more pro
nounced views, one side or other, thought themselves
aggrieved ; and a complaint by a clergyman who signed
himself " Presbyter Devoniensis " brought the matter to a
point, and called for a reply ; for the " Presbyter's " letter
made some rather serious allegations against Mr. Browne,
as his answer (dated June 6th, 1859), sufficientiy shows.
" ' Presbyter Devoniensis ' does me great wrong in saying
that I am anxious to be Proctor for the diocese. It was
pressed upon me. I confess that when I was once brought
forward, I should have been sorry to be rejected, and that

240 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
I felt it a great mark of kindness and confidence from
the Cornish clergy ; but I never wished it. He wrongs
me too in saying or hinting that as a Cathedral dignitary
I do not sympathise with the working clergy, and that
I neglected or partly neglected my parishes when I had
them. I worked in every way at Stroud, at Exeter, and
at Kenwyn, till such work ruined my health. My broken
health, more than any other cause, made me desire a
change of work, and you know that when I was a Professor
I had three curates where my predecessors and successors
never have had more than one, that my parishes might not
suffer by my absence. He is too civil about my acquire
ments and abilities, but in all this he does me great wrong,
and his letter is only calculated to increase that jealousy
which the Exeter clergy feel so much towards the Cathedral
•clergy. Otherwise, I cannot complain of what he says ;
for I can quite understand the wish to have a Proctor
always living in the diocese, and had no idea of continuing
to represent it"
It was a fair and a frank reply : if the diocese wished
to send him thither, he was glad to go, leaving to them to
consider whether they were right in choosing a Cathedral
dignitary instead of a parochial representative.
During these years Professor Browne was busy with
professorial lectures and many sermons, which were the
popular expression of his lecture-work. Beside his few
pages on the New Zealand war, we have, in this year
i860, several separate discourses : he preached in Waltham
Abbey Church on the eight hundredth anniversary of
the foundation of that great House, the reputed burial-
place of King Harold. Canon William Selwyn had been
asked to preach, and replied, that at Harold's grave it
-would be sacrilege for a William to preach ; why not
ask Harold Browne ? He also preached a sermon for
the Missionary Societies at Aylesbury, entitled " Life in
the Knowledge of God," and seven University sermons
on the Atonement and other important subjects. In all
these publications Professor Browne steadily increased his

III.] LIFE AND WORK IN CAMBRIDGE, 1853—1864. 24I
reputation as a sober-minded and moderate Divine.
People saw that while other thinkers and writers of the
High Church side were pushing eagerly forwards, and
that perhaps without clearly defining their goal, Mr.
Browne held firmly to the somewhat inflexible system of
polity and doctrine contained in the formularies of the
Anglican Church, which he justified by an appeal to the
belief and practice of the early Christian Church. The
general result was that, during these Cambridge years,
though he himself was often depressed, often in bad health,
and suffering from the narrowness of his means, still, his
reputation in the Church and University grew steadily ;
and it was everywhere felt that it could not be long before
he would be called to occupy some still more important
office. He knew his own mind; he was orthodox, with
a certain natural liberality of tone ; a good scholar, a
practised theologian, a refined and cultivated gentleman,
with all the qualities which attract, and none of those
more difficult and original characteristics which repel,
the lords of promotion. His University expressed this
feeling about him both by naming him as one of her
Select Preachers at this period and by persuading him
to write a full account of their programme of theological
studies for the University Student's Guide. He accordingly
contributed an excellent paper on the subject, treating it
very practically and simply, and giving the young student
sound and sensible advice. In it he says that —
" It is evidently an axiom with the University of
Cambridge that a sound divine should be first a sound
scholar and an accurate thinker. Hence, she encourages
her younger members to devote themselves rather to exact
science and accurate scholarship than to moral or theological
enquiries. The principle is one of undoubted excehence ;
we must only be careful not to carry it too far. More
over, we must bring another principle to bear. It is this.
16

242 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
No Study will ever be successfully pursued which is not
taken up by the heart as well as by the head."
And he goes on to warn men against cramming and
all unworthy ways of finding out the minimum of work,
thought, and knowledge which will squeeze a candidate
through the gate of examination ; he protests, in fact,
against work for a temporary object, with no nobler aim
as to knowledge or self-improvement.
During these last years of his Cambridge life Professor
Browne did much theological work. He contributed his
article on Inspiration to the "Aids to Faith" in 1862;
and published a course of Sermons, preached before his
University, on " The Messiah as foretold and expected,"
In the next year (1863) he printed his five valuable
Lectures on the " Pentateuch and the Elohistic Psalms,"
a volume which had a sale of extraordinary rapidity for
a controversial work, and passed into a second edition in
the following year. He also contributed an Article to
the Quarterly Review on " The Conversions to the Church of
England" (October 1863), and worked out the introductory
and other matter connected with the early portion of the
Speaker's Commentary. These literary labours were aH
largely tinged with the controversial tone of the times ;
one reads Colenso or Baden Powell on every page ; and
it is not too much to say that of all the champions who
descended into the lists on behalf of the older theology,
no one did so much to steady waverers as the Norrisian
Professor With these works the earlier period of Professor
Browne's literary activity comes to an end ; for after the
end of 1863 his attention was withdrawn from these
matters to the practical care and charge of a large and
difficult diocese. They were, in fact his final efforts in
the field of active controversy.
In all this period we are deeply impressed v/ith the

III.] LIFE AND WORK IN CAMBRIDGE, 1853-1864. 243
honesty and directness of purpose which mark his writing,
and with the unfailing courtesy of his manner and language
towards men to whom he was painfully opposed. From
this time forward all his writings are sermons, addresses,
pamphlets, numerous but fugitive. The main period of
his literary work is over ; the pen ever drops into the
second place when the crosier comes into use.

BOOK III.
1864 — 1874.
ELY.

245

CHAPTER I.
APPOINTMENT AND ADMINISTRATION.
FOR some years past people had been saying that
Professor Browne must be made a Bishop. There
had not been wanting indications. When the See of
Ripon was vacated by Dr. Longley in 1856, it was thought
that he was to go there. And Bishop Philpotts of Exeter
had promised him that, when it could be arranged, he
would make him his Suffragan Bishop. It was also
thought that he would have the Deanery of Ely when it
feH vacant In a letter to Mr. James dated December 4th,
1858, he refers to the rumours on the subject : —
" Thanks for all you said about the Deanery of Ely.
Though the papers had my name up for it, I never thought
I should be offered it I too strictly eschew politics to be
a favourite with any Ministry, so that I especially wonder
how I had so narrow an escape of Ripon. But I had
quite determined not to accept the Deanery, if it had been
offered me. I like my work here and my charge at Exeter
far better than I should have liked to live eight months in
the year at Ely. I should have been poorer, probably
less healthy, in a position of less influence and power of
usefulness, and so probably less useful and less happy."
The moment the bishopric of Ely fell vacant on the
death of Bishop Turton, every one seemed to feel that
Professor Browne was the right man for the " Cambridge
bishopric." And he too, deeply as he felt the responsi-
247

248 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
bilities of the episcopal office, desired the promotion.
There were matters on which he felt strongly, and as to
which he could not have a free hand except as a bishop ;
he had a natural wish for a change of work, for he had
never been quite happy as a teacher and lecturer. He
was also conscious of a real gift for organisation, for which
his life at Cambridge and Exeter provided no sufficient
opportunities. Though his opinions in Church matters
were not those of Lord Palmerston's advisers, he had many
warm friends, and public opinion ran strongly in his favour.
He was not left very long in suspense. On January 20th,
1864, came the Prime Minister's letter with the offer. It
was accepted at once, without presumption and without
hesitation. The choice of the Crown proved very acceptable.
Numberless letters of congratulation poured in the
moment the appointment was made public. The news
papers re-echoed the general satisfaction ; few nominations
have ever met with so little adverse criticism. The
Guardian says that it is a choice " which no party can
claim as a triumph ; " he is "a sound and learned divine,
a popular professor, an effective preacher, an influential
member of his University, and a hard-working, expe
rienced, and dearly-loved parish priest. He is connected
with no particular school or section of the clergy, and is
quite free from, and superior to, all party associations and
party influence." And it sums up with a phrase which comes
very near the truth, that he is " not a party man, with High
Church proclivities." On the other hand, the Record is not
offended, though it might have preferred a man of a different
type, and actually reprints the letter which, in his own
defence, some seven years before, he had addressed to that
journal. The Standard says, somewhat oddly, for it is not
very true, that " his creed is not so much a conclusion of

I.J APPOINTMENT AND ADMINISTRATION. 249
the head as a conviction of the heart" — the phrase is
intended to be very complimentary ; the article goes on
very justly to say that " the secret of his power and the
sum of his preaching is Christ Jesus the Lord." The
Morning Advertiser strikes in with a jarring note. The
appointment, no doubt, [is excellent, — we are willing to
concede so much ; but will the new bishop duly smash the
infidels? Is he really what the "Interest" calls sound?
He is not a teetotaller, so far so good ; but is he safe on
the other half of the platform ? And he is solemnly
warned against " the Ewalds and Strausses and Renans,
the Colensos and Jowetts of the present day, who . . .
praise and patronise the Bible, while they criticise its
statements." But the queerest of all ways of looking at the appointment
is that of the John Bull, which in announcing the nomi
nation takes occasion to say that there has been a great
change in the character of the promotions lately made by
the Crown, and unfolds the deep reason for this change.
Mr. Gladstone, as usual, is at the bottom of it all :—
"Lord Palmerston may perhaps in his more recent
distribution of Church patronage have desired to save if
possible his clever colleague who represents the University
of Oxford from the mortification of being at last dis
missed by his longsuffering constituency."
So that it is clear to this sapient party-print that the
Prime Minister, in order to ingratiate himself with the
Oxford Tories, selected a Cambridge man, who had never
taken the sHghtest interest in party poHtics, as Bishop
of Ely.
The only thing approaching a criticism on the selection
is the statement, repeated in most of the papers, that the
new Bishop is a man of delicate health and constitution,
who may not have strength enough to pull together the

250 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
diocese after the feeble administration of his aged pre
decessor. Bishop Turton.
Among the almost innumerable letters of congratulation
which poured in on Professor Browne at this moment
there are one or two of a certain interest, which show how
many men of very diverse views and temperaments united
in a chorus of satisfaction at the appointment. He says in
a reply to Mr. James that he sometimes has to answer
seventy letters a day.
One of the first of these many letters is from the greatest
of modern theological scholars, Dr Lightfoot, afterwards
Bishop of Durham. "Trinity Coi.lege, January 2%th, 1864.
"Mv DEAR Browne, — I hope I may so far trust
rumour as to offer you my very hearty congratulations
on your appointment to Ely. It has delighted everybody
here. For we shall not look upon you as taken away from
Cambridge, but as secured for us for a longer time than we
otherwise could have hoped to retain you."
Dr. S. M. Schiller-Szinessy sends a card " with profound
respects and sincere congratulations," and a characteristic
Hebrew text (i Sam. x. i), ^'^k in'?r!5-^V "3": lO?')?-'? Ki'pQ
The Dean of Ely writes with delight at having " to
certify to H.M. the election of the very man whom I
should have decided to elect, had there been no terrors
of praemunire to help my decision " ; and Bishop Trower
says : " I do believe that if Lord Palmerston had asked
the votes of all (whether clergy or laity) who are most
known for seeking the peace and prosperity of Jerusalem,
the result would have been the same."
Among the many glad voices came one from the United
States, from Bishop Williams of Connecticut, who writes
on February 9th, 1864: —
" I cannot refrain from sending another note after my

I.] APPOINTMENT AND ADMINISTRATION. 25 1
former one, to say how truly thankful I am to God for
having committed this important trust to your hands.
I assure you the news occasioned almost as lively satis
faction on this side the Atlantic as it could have done in
England. Had you seen the joy of my young men you
would have realised that many whom you perhaps may
never see with the eye of the body, honour and love you.
If ever it could be a subject of congratulation to receive in
trust the Episcopate, it cannot be in our day. But one
may thank God for the Church, if not for the person
selected. And I hope you will allow me to assure you that
in these coming Easter days there will be prayers for you
in these far-off regions, as well as among those where your
life and its ties are found."
A Welsh vicar from the mountains writes very charac
teristically, rejoicing, thanking, begging : —
" I have never seen your published volume on the
' Atonement' and I do not know where to get it I happen
to be now in correspondence with a Unitarian minister of
some note who is wavering in his faith. I have no standard
book on the subject. You must please forgive me once for
all for asking you to send me a copy of your Lordship's
sermon. In case you refuse, the Socinian may conquer
me, as my arguments are nearly exhausted."
Mr. George WiHiams writes one of his amusing letters
from King's : — "January 2'jth, 1864.
" My DEAR Browne, — It is a goodly practice of Chris
tian kings on coming to the throne to proclaim a general
pardon and amnesty for all political offences committed
under their predecessors. May I hope, now that you have
succeeded to the triple crown of Ely [an allusion to the
arms of the See, three crowns or] that you will follow this
example, and condone the ecclesiastical offences committed
during the time that the See had no Bishop and no
prospect of one, i.e., before the demise of your predecessor ?
You know that certain busy-bodies, myself among them,
took upon themselves, during this long voidance of the
See, to organise a series of Lent sermons in the restored

252 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
University church, in which we wished you to take part.
Please don't put us into the ecclesiastical court but
proclaim a pardon in the University pulpit itself by taking
part in the course. It is more important than ever that
you should do so, now that you are to be Bishop."
There were also letters from many bishops, welcoming
him into their circle with a respect and affection which
continued to the very end of his long Episcopate.
There is a touching letter from a poor old couple at
Lampeter, which comes eloquent with feeling : —
" Lampeter, February %th, 1864.
"Sir, — i hope you will excuse my great liberty in
writing to you, but I could not help it, as indeed. Sir, Jane
and myself cryed with joy when we hird the glorious news
that you was made a Bishop. May the Lord be with you
and Mrs. Browne, and we hope that you and your family
are well. " From your obident servants,
"Enoch and Jane Jones."
The Bishop of Exeter was so much engaged on his plans
and schemes, that he clearly regarded the appointment
mainly as it affected himself He hates Crown appoint
ments; and refuses to recognise the right of the Minister
to nominate to the canonry left vacant by this promotion
to a bishopric ; he speaks of not interfering as an act of
forbearance — he could have stepped in between the Minister
and the Canonry, but did not.
Archdeacon Thorp of Kemerton adds a pretty touch of
the new Bishop's childhood : —
" The union of sound learning, pastoral experience and
moderation, free from all party prejudice and connections
in the man placed in such a relation at once to the
University and the Church, cannot fail to call to my mind
the little boy, my fellow-traveller on the top of the coach
to Aylesbury, \\hose legs, now long enough, did not

I.] APPOINTMENT AND ADMINISTRATION. 253
then reach down to the footboard, when I, a young
Fellow and Assistant Tutor of Trinity, made his first
acquaintance." The Archdeacon seems rather to pity Professor Browne
for his promotion, holding that Ely is not considered a
favourite diocese among existing or expectant bishops.
It may be well here to add a reply which the Bishop
Designate addressed to his old friend and fellow-worker,
Mr. James : — " Close, Ys^kiev., January y^th, 1864.
" My dear Walter James, — My heartiest thanks for
your very kind letter. I am indeed blessed with kind
friends, and am most thankful for the universal welcome
which has greeted me. Few greetings can be more accept
able than those which come from an old friend and colleague
like yourself I greatly need your prayers, for the work is
great and the times are troublous. My strength is small
and much needs the support of God's grace, I do not know
when my consecration is likely to be : not till after Easter,
no doubt
" I have only discovered to-day, to my dismay, that the
Ecclesiastical Commission Acts added two counties to my
diocese, and at the same time took away half or two-thirds
of my patronage, leaving me with a great University and
a great fen district, and less patronage than almost any
other Bishop. This cannot but damp my work.
" Yours sincerely,
" E. Harold Browne,"
One of the old friends at Kenwyn sent a very touching
little note: —
" I hope that one day we shall meet together in Heaven,
where parting shall be no more. I have to bless God that
I am still in the same ladder that you represented at
Kenwyn, that leadeth from earth to heaven."
There are a few indications of the spirit in which Pro
fessor Browne himself regarded the change that was coming

254 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
to him. One of these is the note in which he asked
Professor Jeremie to preach his Consecration Sermon
(undated) : —
" My dear Friend, — I rejoice to hear that you are
better, and thank you for your admirable sermon. I am
so much obliged to you for holding out the hope that you
will preach at my Consecration. The Archbishop appoints
April loth, a day which will do well for your subject I
should think, as the Gospel is on the Good Shepherd who
giveth His life for the sheep. I do not know yet whether
Canterbury or Westminster Abbey will be chosen.
"Ever yours gratefully,
" E. Harold Browne."
Westminster Abbey was eventually chosen as the place ;
the day, however, was changed. In the interval between
his nomination and consecration Mr. Browne remained
very quiet ; almost the only public appearance made by
him being at the meeting of the Exeter " Home for Fallen
Women," held towards the end of January. Here his
address was simplicity itself a few straightforward words,
based on the infinite love and self-sacrifice of Jesus Christ,
a sacrifice extended to the most soiled of sinners. One
can well believe that his every thought and utterance
during this time was touched with a deep humility, and
that he truly desired to follow in the steps of the Good
Shepherd, and to offer himself for the flock to be entrusted
to his care.
He was consecrated alone in Westminster Abbey on
Easter Tuesday, March 29th, 1864, by the Archbishop of
Canterbury, his old friend the Bishop of St David's, and
the Bishop of Worcester. Dr. Jeremie, the Regius Pro
fessor, preached the sermon, of which " in the Choir not
a syllable could be heard." The enthronisation at Ely
followed a month later. Edward Harold Browne became
full Bishop of Ely on AprH 26th, 1864.

L] APPOINTMENT AND ADMINISTRATION. 255
The diocese of Ely had been inevitably left much
to itself during Bishop Turton's time ; no new agencies
had been introduced ; the regular official work of the
bishopric was feebly carried on by an aged and infirm
prelate ; the relations between the University of Cambridge
and the See had been left to take care of themselves. The
renewed life of the English Church had already touched
the Episcopal Bench when Harold Browne was made
Bishop of Ely ; and it is not too much to say that in
certain aspects of that revival of devotion and energy,
and in the determination to render the organisation and
machinery of the Church equal to the new calls daily
made on her, he stood pre-eminent If he lacked the
inspiring eloquence of Bishop Wilberforce of Oxford, and
the strong-willed vehemence of his friend Henry of Exeter,
he had, as a full compensation, the power of attracting
and swaying men, the advantage of knowing his own mind
and of not being afraid of acting on it ; he had also a
marvellous energy and love of work, which enabled him to
revive Church feeling in the diocese, as by some electric
force. More than in any other thing, the secret of his
success as a bishop lay in his personal character. A man
of peace and a man of high principle, he steadied the
Church at a time when it was rocking violently ; he did
more than any other prelate to restore confidence to the
bulk of Englishmen attached to their Church, desirous of
its welfare, and content with a moderate High Church
texture in its services and organisation.
The charm of his personal character was much enhanced
by his modesty. Holding so highly as he did the doctrine
of the apostolical origin of Episcopacy, he never allowed
his office to be treated disrespectfully ; yet no one found
access to his private heart by paying court to him as to
a great man. In a letter to his old friend Mr. James, he

256 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
takes him seriously to task for calling him " My Lord "
and " Your Lordship."
" It would really oblige me," he writes, " if you did not
write ' Your Lordship ' quite so much when you are
corresponding with an old friend. I am quite willing to
receive the respect due to my office, however unworthy
I am to fill it ; but I do not like to feel that there is
any distance between you and your affectionate friend,
"E. H. Ely."
His humility attributed all the dignity to his office, and
nothing to himself: it was very touching to observe with
what deference he would listen to men far beneath him.
He was always ready to assume that there was a value
attaching to the opinions of others, even of the young.
One friend tells me how he himself then a young Fellow
just fresh come from College, walked one day in the Palace
garden at Ely with the Bishop and a noted and learned
Hebraist of the time, listening to an animated discussion
between them on some disputed passage in the Book of
Genesis. He was not a httle startled when the Bishop
turned to him, and with evident sincerity and gravity first
restated his own view and that of his friend, and then
asked his young companion for his opinion, as though he
had been set there as umpire between them. The kindness
aiid modesty, which seemed to put the youthful scholar
on a level with the learned bishop, gave him a pleasure
never to be forgotten. And it was characteristic of all his
more controversial work : he treated every opinion with
courtesy, listened to arguments, gave grounds for his own
opinion, and brought things to a peaceful issue. As a
consequence, very few implacable disputes, very few
virulent controversies, no law suits, no trials of criminous
clerks, or other miseries of the kind, troubled the repose
either of Ely or of Winchester.

I.] APPOINTMENT AND ADMINISTRATION. 257

His favourite apophthegm on episcopal authority was
the ancient formula, "Let nothing be done without the
Bishop ; " it seemed to be the germ of his commission,
as deriving it from primitive episcopacy.
At the same time, though he was a distinct High
Churchman, he could see the good in strains of thought
different from his own. He was no party man in politics,
though all his character and his sympathies and opinions
were conservative ; and the same condition of things also
prevailed in his diocesan work ; he carefully avoided giving
a party complexion to his dealings with the questions
which from time to time arose. He was no longer the
champion of the advanced movement as he had been at
Exeter ; his position is exactly stated in a letter of this
period, in which a friend, thanking him for his primary
Charge, says : —
" It is, I think, exactly what was wanted, and wiH, I am
sure, give great satisfaction as well as instruction to that
moderate party in the Church who wish to keep in that
middle course in which our Liturgy directs us to go."
The Bishop carefully defines his position in a reply to
Mr. Green, formerly M.P. for Bury St Edmunds : —
" The National Church ought to be comprehensive and
tolerant, giving fair scope to that diversity of feeling and
opinion which has, and in this world probably always will
prevail among those who worship the same God and trust
in the same Saviour ; and I never will be a party to
narrowing the bounds of the Church so far as to reduce
it to the proportions of a sect. Still, I am very desirous
that the law should be so clearly pronounced as that
we may know definitely what is permitted and what is
forbidden." In this side of his character as Bishop, that is, in the
tolerant High Church aspect of it he desired to follow in
the footsteps of that predecessor of his both at Ely and
17

258 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
Winchester, the saintly Lancelot Andrewes, as to whom
he himself said that there was no one whose memory he
venerated so much, or whose example he would so gladly
follow ; " the very best type of the English High Church
divine," he called him. At the end of his career, when
one of the speakers on occasion of his retirement ventured
to liken him to his saintly predecessor, the Bishop was
completely overcome with emotion at being compared
with the man whom he had ever regarded as his model
and example.
Such was the new Bishop of Ely. And in other respects
it was a very happy appointment. The diocese needed
a firm and gentle hand ; and the University was not
always easy to deal with. True, Cambridge is not so
difficult as Oxford ; the relations between Cambridge and
Ely have been more cordial than those between Oxford
and Cuddesdon ; yet, for all this, a Bishop of Ely should
walk warily in dealing with the University. Bishop Harold
Browne was the very man for it He had won the respect
of the University by his writings and character ; his con
nection with his College, Emmanuel, was always most
cordial. The Cambridge part of his episcopal work was
altogether successful.
So too was his organisation. His proposals were
reasonable, his way of commending them equally modest
and learned : he could set out his views with a singular
clearness and persuasiveness. The result was that through
out his ten years at Ely the diocese moved responsively
to his call. There is no state of things so happy for a
man as this : he has his convictions ; he can expound
them well ; he has the motive -power in him which makes
them operative ; he sees his plans taken up, pushed forward,
getting happily into work. And the Bishop's new impulses
infused fresh life into the large and straggling diocese.

I,] APPOINTMENT AND ADMINISTRATION. 259
Under his fostering care Diocesan Conferences came
into being. They were new then, and aroused the
interest of clergy and laity in all parts. People came
together who had scarcely met before ; grievances might
be ventilated ; fruitful suggestions put out ; new organisa
tions for diocesan work begun ; men felt that their work
was being noticed and directed. More was done for
schools, for ruridecanal work, for foreign missions ; also
for missions in the more modern sense of the word, for the
efforts, that is, to arouse a deeper spiritual life in England
by special services, addresses, and other awakening agencies.
The interest of the laity in Church matters was stimu
lated ; work was found for people of every kind ; the
experiment of deaconesses was made at Bedford and
elsewhere. It is a sign of his great desire to attract lay
help, that he did not hesitate to say that on lay Church
men no greater burden should be laid than arose from the
calls of a consistent Christian life, and from a belief in the
Apostles' Creed.
The Confirmations in the diocese were much more
carefully attended to ; and the Bishop introduced a new
and more effective form of address to the candidates.
The Rev. John Hardie of Tyntesfield, near Bristol, one of
his earliest chaplains, who accompanied him on his first
confirmation tour, writes with a vivid recollection of this
happy change in the character of these important services.
" I recall," he writes, " with great pleasure his addresses
to the candidates. They were quite unlike those ordinary
echoes of the teaching already given by the parish priests ;
for the Bishop uniformly took some passage from the
Lesson appointed for the day, and on that founded extem
pore teaching which was good to be heard by all present,
old as well as young, and calculated to make a deep im
pression on all for its earnest simpHcity."
No sooner was Bishop Harold Browne enthroned than

26o EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
he had to answer addresses from different parts of his
diocese. These replies show us the temper of mind with
which he began his work. Speaking to the Rural Deanery
of Cambridge, he at once strikes a note of moderation.
Our Church, he says, is neither superstitious nor rationalist
Clergy mix with the laity. He adds that "the study of
objections, though it may perhaps oblige us to take a
wider view of some points than we had at first expected,
has not led to more doubt, but to the deeper and more
abiding certainty " ; — a wise word to the alarmists, who
are ever running to hide their heads in the sand. " Church
Defence " associations also drew from him a simple
declaration against panic. He told them that " Church
Defence consisted as much or more in developing the internal
efficiency of the Church as in warding off" attacks from
without ; " and he struck the note, on which he had only
touched in speaking to the Rural Deanery of Cambridge,
by hoping that his clergy " would take counsel with their
brethren of the laity," He added that he had hesitated
about accepting the presidency of their body, because the
clergy ought to be doing direct spiritual work, while the
laity warded off attacks and managed the temporal affairs
of the Church. Throughout his episcopate Bishop Browne
did all in his power to enlist the active help of the laity ; he,
at any rate, never fell into the mistake of confusing Church
and Clergy, He had, too, a natural and healthy shrinking
from the fighting organisations ; they seemed to him to be
adverse to spiritual life, and to make men think they are
doing God service, when they are only indulging in excite
ment. In his address to his Rural Deans in 1872, while he
states clearly enough his anxieties as to the attacks made
on the English Church, he adds significantly and wisely : —
" In general my own feelings are strongly opposed to
anything like agitation in defence of the Church. Even

I.] APPOINTMENT AND ADMINISTRATION. 26 1

now I fall back on the principle which I have always
advocated, viz., that we should begin by eradicating the
abuses and increasing the efficiency of the Church. . . .
It is apostolical in descent, in organisation, in doctrine and
in its work. The more fully it can be exhibited as all
this, the more surely wiU it maintain the character of its
foundation, and the more will it endear itself to the hearts
of its children. . . . The more efficient we can make the
Church, the more surely we shall contribute to its per
manence and prosperity."
When the Additional Curates Society, this same year,
asked him to take the chair at one of their meetings, he
took the opportunity of wisely laying it down, that
the true way for Church advance was first to get the
living agencies to work before meddling with " bricks and
mortar." If the men have the right spirit in them, and
are faithful and active, the necessary appliances will follow
almost of themselves ; schoolrooms, lay helpers, new
churches wHl spring into being. And similarly, referring
to Bishop Philpott's gift of ;£¦ 1,000 to one of the churches
in Exeter, he says : —
" I am generally a little doubtful about building new
churches. An increase of clergy seems so much more
needed than an increase of churches, and licensed rooms
make good chapels-of-ease among a poor people."
These words go to the root of the matter ; one may
easily retard the work of religion by church-building un
dertaken unadvisedly ; while the influence of a good and
devoted man is as great in a cottage as in a cathedral.
His first ordination on Trinity Sunday, 1864, gave him
the opportunity of speaking his mind practically and
plainly to the candidates. He commended to them the
course of action he had himself always followed ; the
minister must make himself personally acceptable to
his people, and ;must " acquaint himself with their own

262 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

objects of thought,"— a piece of advice which needs to be
repeated again and again. He urged the candidates
always to be " men of business," to avoid self-conceit,
which, while it is " always odious, is more signally so when
it shows itself in the professed follower of Him who was
meek and lowly of heart." He then touches on a subject
always in his mind, the relation of the Church to the
workins man, or, as it was then the loftier use to call him,
" the Poor." The phraseology is rather old-fashioned : " If
you wish the poor to respect you, you must respect them."
" When you enter a peasant's hut do not keep on your
hat, do not use any of the airs of a superior."
In the following November the Bishop held his primary
visitation at Sudbury in Suffolk ; and took occasion to state
with admirable clearness, a clearness not always pardoned,
his views as to the English Church's doctrine of the Holy
Communion. He proclaims that it is that of the primitive
Church, which regarded it, as we do, " as an eucharistic
offering of Prayer and Praise." And he continues : —
" So long as the Communion is called a Sacrifice, the
Presbyter a Priest, and the Holy Table an Altar, only in
the sense in which they were called by the primitive Chris
tians, the names may be innocent and possibly edifying.
So long as it is desired only to pay due reverence to the
highest ordinance of Christ in His Church, and to honour
Christ by honouring His Sacraments, there can be no ground
of censure. But if by all this ceremony it be meant to
indicate that there is not only a spiritual presence of the
Saviour, when His feast is ministered, but a distinct local
presence in the bread upon the table, then there is not only
a sacrifice of praise and a solemn commemoration of the
sacrifice of Christ but also a renewal of Christ's sacrifice,
and a propitiatory offering Him up anew for sin — then
there surely is reason enough why we should dread the
recurrence to these ceremonies which certainly meant thi.s,
and which have fallen into desuetude simply because they
did mean this. It is thought, perhaps, that the sacrifice of

I.J APPOINTMENT AND ADMINISTRATION. 263
the Mass is not one of the greatest evils of Romanism,
resulting only from excess of reverence and devotion. But
in truth the most observable fact in the history of Roman
doctrine is that, while it has highly exalted the great
cardinal truths of Christianity, it has, by the very honour
so bestowed on them, overshadowed and obscured them.
It has preserved and embalmed them, so that their true
lineaments and early history cannot be hidden, and yet by
the process itself it has deprived them of life and strength.
The respect paid to Mary arose at first from the still higher
respect felt for her Son and Saviour. Its highest develop
ment — the Immaculate Conception — originated in devout
reverence for the sacred manhood of Jesus ; but it is now
a fearful heresy against the Incarnation itself placing a
mediator between us and our Saviour, separating from close
and immediate contact with sin-stricken humanity Him
whose presence can alone heal and restore it. In like
manner the sacrifice of the Mass unmistakably witnessed
to the primitive faith in the great truth of the atonement
through the sacrifice on the Cross. But its practical effect
has been not to teach a trusting in the Saviour's love and
eucharistic commemoration, or a faithful receiving of Christ,
but rather a looking day by day for a fresh sacrifice atoning
for fresh sins. So neither is that peace of the conscience
really attained which springs from a sense of pardon
secured by the one offering made once for all ; nor perhaps
is that salutary dread of sin cultivated, which the Apostle
impresses by reminding us that, ' If we sin wilfully after
that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there
remaineth no more sacrifice for sin ' (Heb. x. 26). It may
be that some who would revive that high ceremonial of
which I have been speaking do not wish to revive the
doctrine or the practice emphatically condemned by our
Articles, but merely to lead us back to an aesthetic mediaeval
sumptuousness of worship. Surely, if this be all, it is not
for this worth the while to risk, and more than risk, the
peace, the unity, perhaps the very being of our National
Church." It will be seen from these words how far he was from
sympathising with the later High Church developments.
He became seriously alarmed, indeed, at them, and thought
the acts and utterances of men, with whom in the main he

264 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

still agreed, were both hard to reconcile with the plain
sense of the formularies of the Church of England, and also
calculated to irritate quiet people. There are, no doubt,
many who can remember, as the writer of this Memoir
remembers, how anxiously he used to scan the manifestoes
of the party ; and with what regret and even distress of
mind he came to the conclusion that their language could
not be brought into line with that of the Prayer-Book and
the Articles.
The ten years of Bishop Harold Browne's episcopate
at Ely are specially marked by his attempt to recast and
strengthen the organisation of the diocese. He used to
say that the Church of England was the least organised
of all Churches, and that if at any time she were dis
severed from the State, she would have no machinery
for carrying on her work. The fear of disestablishment
was ever on the Bishop, and led him to try at once to
strengthen the institutions of the Church, and to call out
her true life by uniting her members, clergy and laity
working happily together in earnest faith in Christ, He
never lost sight of the great importance of enlisting the
help and goodwill of lay people in Church work.
His scheme of diocesan life may be sketched thus :
At the head stood the Bishop, the father of his diocese,
the centre of its spiritual life and corporate activity. Close
to his side he wished to place : (i) the Cathedral staff,
the Dean and Chapter, to be his counsellors and most
trusted agents. This for the whole dioce.se. Then, (2) by
means of his Archdeacons, each in his archdeaconry, he
hoped to reach every corner and to learn something of
every parish. (3) Under, the Archdeacons he ranged
the Rural Deans ; by whose means he hoped to learn
much as to the opinions of his people. (4) Once a
year there should be a Diocesan Conference held in each

I.] APPOINTMENT AND ADMINISTRATION. 265
archdeaconry ; (5) and the Rural Deans were asked to
hold ruridecanal Chapters. (6) Lastly, he looked with
much favour on some scheme for Parish Church Councils,
in which, under the care and presidency of the incumbent.
Church people might meet discuss, and arrange aH matters
relating to Church work within their parishes. He hoped
to see growing out of all this organisation fresh efforts to
spread the gospel ; lay-agencies fostered ; a permanent
diaconate begun, and deaconesses appointed ; fresh life
infused into Church education, new strength breathed
into the societies, missionary, social, or other ; and, by
these means, fresh vigour given to every portion of the
Church's life. He also desired to make his views known,
and his influence on religious thought fek, by his Charges,
on which he expended great pains.
I. From Bishop Harold Browne's earnest desire to bring
all, including the Cathedral body, into the diocesan
organisation, came the distrust with which he regarded
those difficult dignitaries, the Deans of his Cathedrals.
They were so hard to bring into line ; their appointment
by the Crown gave them a kind of independence ; the
ill-defined relation of Bishop and Dean to the Cathedral
Church, and the peculiar position of the Deans, tried him
rnuch. Thus, he had not been long at Ely before a conflict
broke out. He sent to the Cathedral to say that on a
certain day he proposed to hold a Confirmation there ; and
the Dean, in posting up the notice, did so, after the way
of Deans, with "By order of the Dean" at the foot of
the paper. This seemed to the Bishop an attack on his
episcopal authority, and he resented it ; even going so far as
to have a case drawn and submitted to counsel. Writing
to Lord Arthur Hervey, his Archdeacon, he says : —
" There is no doubt that when the Bishop orders a
service for his Confirmations or visitations, the service is

266 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch

wholly his own, and that he is entitled to order it exactly
as he chooses. I was doubtful whether this extended to
the Bishop's own Cathedral, as Deans have always tried
to make themselves extra-diocesan, I have, however. Sir
R. Phillimore's and Dr. Tristram's carefully drawn opinion
that a Bishop is undoubtedly head of his own Cathedral
in the fullest sense ; that he can order services and officiate
so long as he does not contravene the Cathedral Statutes."

't>

The opinion runs thus : —
" I. We are of opinion that the Bishop is by law the
head of his Cathedral Church (of the New Foundation),
and that he is entitled to officiate in the services of the
Church, subject to such legitimate limitations as may be
directly or indirectly imposed by the Cathedral Statutes.
2, We are of opinion that the Bishop, independently of the
Cathedral Statutes, is Ordinary as regards his Cathedral."
And, eight years later, when in 1872 the establishment
of the Cathedral Commission had led to farther discussion
on the subject, he wrote a strong letter about it to his
Dean, and ends by saying : —
" I so far agree with you as to feel that the uncertainty
as to the relation of a Bishop to his Chapter cannot be
allowed to continue. It might do very well in the end
of last century and the early part of this century, when
Cathedrals were looked on as pleasant places of repose ;
but not in the (I trust) increasing life of the present time.
I have deprecated legislation as a mode of settling such
questions, because the most likely to be detrimental to.
Cathedral establishments. If legislation should prove to
be the only possible plan, it must be risked, though I
believe that it will in the end ' make a solitude and call
it peace,' "
And in the Bishop's published " Letter to the Dean of
Norwich," written in the same year, there is a distinct
touch of irritation. " Does it seem unreasonable," he asks,
" that the Bishops should believe that they have some
status in their own Cathedrals, and are not merely there

I.] APPOINTMENT AND ADMINISTRATION. 267
on sufferance, and while there, under the authority of
their own Deans ? "
The Bishop may have been over-sensitive on the point,
and inclined to give it more weight than it deserved ; yet
there was reason in his remonstrances, and ground for
them. In his " Letter to the Dean of Norwich" he says : —
" For many years the late Bishop (Turton) had been
very much on the shelf from ill-health, so that he and the
Dean had never been in the Cathedral together, and the
Bishop had probably not officiated in the Cathedral during
the whole of the then Dean's incumbency. The Dean,
my good and valued friend [Dr. Harvey Goodwin], had
evidently the impression that he was the Ordinary, that I
could do nothing in the Cathedral but with his consent.
He objected to my taking any part in the services, except
the Absolution in the Communion Service, and the Blessing ;
though this he afterwards gave up. If I held a Confirm
ation or an Ordination, or preached a sermon for a charity,
there was always a printed notice issued, ending with ' By
order of the Dean.' "
In accordance with ancient Church usage, the Cathedral
is the Bishop's parish church, his parish being the diocese.
This was very clear in early days, before parochial
divisions existed ; and it is most wholesome for all that
the Cathedral Church should be so regarded. It should
be the central place of worship for the diocese : and the
clergy of it, under their Bishop, should be an important
element in diocesan organisation. The older conception
of the Dean and Chapter was that of " Custodes ecclesise " ;
the modern notion is that their work is far wider, and
that the more a Cathedral body lives for the diocese
around the better it will justify its existence. The old
traditional hostility between Bishop and Dean is fast
dying out, as the renewed hfe of the Church finds plentiful
work for all to do. Even if " learned leisure " were lost,
— it is already far rarer in reality than in name, —

268 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

Cathedrals will gain fresh energy and a new lease of life
by coming into contact with the mother-earth of real work.
The old notion of " learned leisure " ranks with that of the
"endowment of research." It is beautiful in theory, it
breaks down in practice. What has the leisure of all the
Cathedral precincts produced in all these years ? Where are
our monumental books, our contributions to the advance
of knowledge, our learning leavening the fabric of the
Church? There are no such things. In the future, let us
hope, the Cathedrals will be the mothers of life and enthu
siasm for the dioceses : the men most capable of orga
nising Christian work will be there ; theology, moral science,
practical goodness, will all look to the Cathedral clergy
for help and guidance. Then the Cathedral Church will
become the true centre of the diocese, the home of its
common devotion ; not merely the great ornament of the
city in which it stands, but itself a city set on a hill, that
all may see it and rejoice, and run thither for light for
shelter, for counsel, as they strengthen themselves and
gird up their loins for the pilgrimage of work for Christ.
This difference over the relations between the two
offices happily had no effect whatever on the personal
friendship between Bishop and Dean. The writer of these
pages well remembers a visit to Ely at Christmas 1865.
On reaching the Bishop's house we found Professor Selwyn
there in great excitement over some private theatricals
shortly to be given at the Deanery : great was the
rejoicing when it was found that we knew all about the
right dress for a Danish priest in which part the kindly
Professor was himself to appear. The little piece was a
play adapted by Dean Harvey Goodwin from a Danish
drama, entitled " Fetter Karl," and the Dean acted as
prompter, while his clever daughters and Professor Selwyn
acted the play. Nothing could have been more pleasant

I.] APPOINTMENT AND ADMINISTRATION. 269
than the relations between them and the Bishop, who took
the warmest interest in the performance, and watched the
turns of the little comedy with great amusement. In
truth, two men of the high qualities of Bishop Harold
Browne and Bishop Harvey Goodwin, who then was
Dean, could never have allowed estrangement to follow
after any disagreement. After the Bishop of Carlisle's
death, we find our Bishop writing thus : —
" His death is indeed a great sorrow to us. We and
our children were almost like one family at Ely, and we
have been as brothers ever since."
2. In respect of his work with the Archdeacons, who
represented the four divisions of his large diocese, Ely (for
Cambridgeshire), Bedford, Huntingdon, and Sudbury (for
part of Suffolk), it is enough to say that no bishop ever
worked more readily, more unweariedly, or in a more
brotherly temper with his officers. His warm friendships
with that kindred spirit. Archdeacon Emery, with Bishop
McDougaH, who followed him to Winchester, and with
the late Bishop of Bath and Wells, are memories of the
most sacred kind. His Archdeacons nobly seconded him
in all his efforts, and helped to arouse fresh life through
out the diocese.
3. But if all went weh with the Archdeacons, it was
not quite so simple with the Rural Deans. They were a
revival of a very ancient office in the Church, and it was
not clear at first whether a place was not being made
for them at the expense of the Archdeacons, and also
whether the clergy in their districts would acknowledge
their authority. Jealousies and difficulties seemed inevitable.
How were Rural Deans to be appointed ? To whom were
they responsible ? to Archdeacon or Bishop ? How should
a Rural Dean enforce his authority? What were his

270 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
proper functions ? All seemed vague, and there were no
safe usages or precedents to guide. The Bishop attacked
the problem at once. Writing to Lord Arthur Hervey in
September 1 864, he says : —
" I could almost wish the Rural Deans in the diocese of
Ely, like those in Exeter, were elected by the clergy,
subject to the consent of the Bishop. They would then
represent the clergy, and a meeting of Rural Deans would
be a representative body."
We see by another letter, dated August 12th, 1865, the
difficulties which beset the matter.
"Returns of Rural Deans. — I am sorry to say this is
a vexed question. I hear many murmurs of discontent
Some of the clergy decline to send answers to such ques
tions except to me directly. They do not recognise the
right of a Rural Dean to demand them, or of the Arch
deacon to be the medium of communicating to the Bishop.
" A., who, poor fellow, is not very sound in brain, having
taken a fancy that the questions emanated from Archdeacon
Emery, has taken every opportunity of protesting against
the questions themselves. I have no doubt that I cannot
by a general commission to my Deans Rural authorise
them to make enquiries not submitted to by the clergy.
Finding these in use, and well received in the diocese of
Norwich, I feared no evil."
The Bishop, in his thorough consideration of the organi
sation of his diocese, thought much of the importance of
the Rural Deans. He appealed through them to his clergy,
and encouraged them to hold Ruridecanal Chapters, " in
which the subjects discussed should be chiefly practical,
and directly connected with pastoral and missionary labours,
or with Church extension and efficacy." He also consulted
these local Chapters on practical matters, and tried to
make the subjects submitted to them bases for deliberation
in his Conferences.
4. The Church Congresses, which began to be held in

I.] APPOINTMENT AND ADMINISTRATION. 27 1
1 86 1, led to a wish for something more practical and nearer
home, that is, for Diocesan Meetings, in which not only the
larger questions of the day, but local matters also, might
be discussed, and the conditions of the Christian life
quickened by consultation and brotherly discussion. In
1863 the Archdeacon of Ely issued a paper on the subject ;
it was also brought before Convocation, and, on the whole,
•opinion seemed favourable, though it was not at first clear
what should be aimed at Some thought that it should be
a Diocesan Synod ; others desired a representative body
of clergy and laity. The Diocesan Synod had been dis
continued in England since the days of Henry VIII. ; it
was an assembly of aH beneficed and licensed clergy in a
diocese, summoned by their bishop. It is described (in
Burn's " Ecclesiastical Law," ii., p. 366) as " the assembly
of the bishop and his presbyters, to enforce and put in
execution canons made by general councils or national
and provincial synods, and to consult and agree upon rules
of discipline for themselves. . . . These were not wholly
laid aside, till by the Act of Submission (25 Henry VIII.,
c. 19) it was made unlawful for any Synod to meet but by
royal authority."
To these Synods the bishops apparently also summoned
the deacons and a certain number of laity, who were to
appear and make presentments as to the state of their
.several parishes. In the Synod the bishop made enquiries,
heard synodical causes and gravamina, and reported to the
diocesan Synod what had been decreed in the provincial
Synod ; lastly, he published, on his own authority,
diocesan constitutions, which, after being accepted by the
Synod, became of force in the diocese, with appeal to
higher authority.
The advantage of giving every clergyman in a diocese
a chance of taking part in such meetings is obvious ; still,

272 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
there were great difficulties. Synods of the kind were
illegal, their decisions would have no binding force ; the
numbers would be too large for conference ; and the
same tendency which in the lay world had commuted
personal attendance into representation would be sure to
act on Church assemblies also. Lastly, though the laity
were recognised, they were not an integral part of a
Synod ; and it was felt that no system could succeed
without the co-operation of the laity. Consequently, while
Diocesan Synods, properly so called, have only been held
here and there, yearly Conferences of clergy and laity have
become the custom in many dioceses.
Bishop Harold Browne, while other bishops were hesi
tating or averse, pressed boldly forward. He was both
prompt and cautious. He held an informal Conference
in the first year of his episcopate, 1 864 ; he then sent
letters to the rural deaneries of the diocese, to elicit the
opinion of his clergy ; and when these replies had come
in, summoned a Conference of the Dean and Chapter,
the Archdeacons and Rural Deans, on December 13th
and 14th, 1865. This Conference determined that there
should henceforth be: (i) Ruridecanal Chapters, composed
of all incumbents and licensed curates in the several
rural deaneries ; and (2) Ruridecanal Meetings of clergy
and laity, summoned by each Rural Dean, and consisting
of the clergy of the rural deanery as above, the church
wardens of each parish, and other laymen (to be selected
by the clergy and churchwardens) up to one-third of the
number of parishes in the rural deanery.
These two Conferences, in 1864 and 1865, were informal
and tentative ; the latter set going a system of Diocesan
Conferences which had to be modified afterwards. There
were to be two Conferences on two successive days ; on the
first day the Dean and Chapter, the Archdeacons and the

I.] APPOINTMENT AND ADMINISTRATION. 273
Rural Deans, met under the Bishop's presidency ; on
the second day there would be more general conference
of clergy and laity, one layman from each rural deanery
being invited to join the clerical company. It is clear
that this scheme was far too narrow to stand long. The
clergy generally are not always in the humour to be set
aside ; and a Conference of purely official persons, most
of them nominees of the Bishop of the diocese, could
never be regarded as representative of the mind of
Churchmen generaUy. No doubt, the diocese of Ely
was feeling the way as a pioneer for other dioceses ;
people were cautious at the outset, and thirty years ago
they were in a far more irritable temper over Church
matters than now. The Bishop's complex scheme was,
however, soon set aside, and by 1 868, the double system
being abolished, the whole Conference was thrown open to
clergy and laity.
Beside organisation, the Conference of 1865 did some
good practical work. It arranged for a Diocesan Fund,
administered by a Diocesan Society, which should collect
in one the scattered efforts already being made to advance
the main branches of Church work in the diocese. The
Fund was dedicated : (i) to spiritual aid, by providing
curates, readers, deaconesses or mission women, in popu
lous or widely scattered parishes ; (2) to the augmentation
of poor benefices and the endowment of new parishes ;
and (3) to the giving of grants in aid of poor clergy in
difficulties. The Conference also considered Church educa
tion and inspection of schools, missionary studentships,
and parochial organisation for home and foreign missions.
Thus it will be seen that the Bishop carried out into
practice the opinion he had expressed at the opening of
the Conference, namely, that " the subjects discussed should
be chiefly practical and directly connected with pastora'
18

274 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

and missionary labours, or with Church extension and effi
ciency." And to keep somewhat nearer to his ideal, he hit
on the plan of holding his Conferences at different centres,
.so that, in fact, they became what one might call Archi-
diaconal Synods, coupled with a system of lay repre
sentation. At these four different centres, one in each
archdeaconry, and usually at Bedford, Bury St. Edmunds,
Cambridge, and Huntingdon, he introduced as much variety
as he could ; he found the fourfold Conference a very
severe tax on his strength, though he persevered with it
throughout his Ely episcopate. When he passed over to
Winchester, and found a general yearly Conference in
existence, he made no attempt to alter the arrangement,
though he more than once publicly referred with favour
to the Ely plan. Nothing allured him so much in the
larger scheme as the benefit to isolated clergy of meeting
and exchanging views and opinions with their neighbours.
That isolation or " Congregationalism " of parishes always
weighed heavily on his mind : —
"Clergy and laity," he said, "have hved isolated, divided,
and disjointed, misunderstanding, suspecting, distrusting
one another. . . . Above all, I have it at heart to break
down that isolation, that wall of separation, which divides
one clergyman from the other, and the clergy in general
from the laity."
For he had not only the larger views of a man who has
seen something of the worid around him, but also a strong
belief in the corporate and united character of a Church,
as a body in which all are brethren in Jesus Christ, and are
bound to avoid isolation and the risks of solitude.
In the subjects discussed in these eariier Conferences
the Bishop avoided abstract topics, or anything which
might lead to heat and irritation. Early, however, in 1867
the Church Defence Association of Cambridge perhaps

I.] APPOINTMENT AND ADMINISTRATION. 27S
dissatisfied at a system which sounded so peaceful a note
and seemed to avoid fighting questions, their favourite
business, addressed a memorial to the Bishop on the
question of the revival of Diocesan Synods. The Bishop
replied that Diocesan Synods are a part of the constitution
of a National Church, and that they were clearly contem
plated by the English Reformers. He urged that in such
Synods the laity must also have a voice, partly because
it was in accordance with ancient Church usage that
all the members of the body politic should have the right
to appear, and partly because it was wise to welcome
them, as they would inspire confidence, and procure
acceptance for the decrees to be promulged. He points
out that synodical action exists and succeeds in America ;
and that in his belief the effects of it on the Church at
home would be happy. Church Congresses, he adds,
have already proved that men of very different views can
meet and discuss points of difference in a charitable
spirit. He thinks it would not be hard to provide
accommodation at Cambridge for about seven hundred
clergy and about thirteen hundred churchwardens, in all
a body of about two thousand. He thinks that the subjects
for discussion ought to be selected by a committee, under
the Bishop's eye ; and concludes by suggesting that at
first matters of detail might well be left to him. And
finally he says that as he took an active part in the first
Church Congress which was held there, so he hoped that
now it would be followed by nearly if not quite the first
Diocesan Synod ever held in modern times.
This reply was followed by a circular, dated January
25 th, 1867, addressed to the Rural Deans, by whom, as on
a pivot, he hoped to set the system moving. In it he is
" anxious to know the sentiments of the clergy and faithful
laity of his diocese on the questions raised." The circular

276 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
shows how much he had at heart the revival of constitu
tional life in the English Church in the face of the perils
threatening the whole fabric ; for the Bishop was no
optimist, and was always inclined to take an alarmist view
of the relations of the Church to the people of England.
" There is an increasing danger," he writes, " from
enemies both within and without ; clergy and laity will
have to draw closer together and consult more freely and
fully for the maintenance of true doctrine and of sound
discipline." And he goes on to give a very simple account of the
genesis of the modern Diocesan Conference : —
" It was with this and with the well-known example of
St Cyprian full in my memory (Ep. xiv., p. 32 : Oxf 1682)
that in the first year of my episcopate I commended the
meeting of Ruridecanal Chapters throughout my diocese,
encouraged the calling in of laymen as assessors to the
clergy, and endeavoured by a simple machinery to gather up
the results of such meetings in a central assembly at Ely."
He then pointed out the practical difficulty of convoking a
Synod of some two thousand members to sit for a couple of
days in the Cathedral Church. " A Diocesan Congress "
would be very different from a Diocesan " Synod," and " I
should much deplore the assembling of such a large body
merely to hear speeches from a few popular orators, or
to excite one another to strong feelings on great party-
questions." He points out that the new Diocesan Synod
could neither be the consistory court of the Bishop nor the
right place for gravamina. For the consistory court is now
otherwise constituted, and the clergy can reach their Bishop
more easily (and apparently do not hesitate to do so)
through the penny post.
'¦'¦ There remains," he adds, " but one other use for which
the ancient Diocesan Synod appears to have met viz., to

I.] APPOINTMENT AND ADMINISTRATION. 277
discuss the practical wants of the diocese, to give account
of its practical working to the Bishop, to give counsel to
him, and to hear advice from him on these wants and
their working."
He then asks the opinion of the Deaneries as to whether
this last work can be better done by a Synod composed
of the whole clergy and of selected laymen. He also
says that he would like to see all schools of thought fairly
represented ; for he has confidence in that large body of
conservative-minded men who rank themselves on no side
and belong to no school. The party-folk, he says, with a
slight touch of scorn, " make plenty of noise, but are really
a very small minority.''
The upshot of the whole enquiry, which elicited much
interest, was the establishment of the Diocesan Conference,
composed of a manageable number of clergy and repre
sentative laymen. Churchmen, — not, as at first suggested,
necessarily churchwardens. In the first Conference all the
clergy and all the churchwardens had a seat
This important body met at last in October, 1868. It
was much larger than was desirable ; the number of
persons summoned averaged about seven hundred or eight
hundred in each division, and those actually present were
about four hundred.
The subjects of the 1868 Conference were: (i) The
maintenance of the National Church ; (2) Lay work ; (3)
Unity within the Church, and hopes for the comprehension
of Nonconformists ; and (4) The practical question of
Church rates. The Bishop in his addresses touched on
some important matters : he brings out the old figure of
the " educated Christian gentleman " in each parish ; yet
he feels that this personage is much too independent. He
also notices the shift of political power to the people, and
urges the Church to adapt herself to the new conditions, —

278 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
advice which she has shewn herself very reluctant to follow
during the past quarter of a century. He also points out
that the old parochial .system is not flexible enough to cope
with the difficulties which meet the Church in large cities,
and declares bravely that it must be supplemented by new
machinery and more distinct co-operation ; and he might
have added, with that nobler spirit of self-sacrifice of which
we have since seen splendid examples. As to the question
of Church and State, he speaks temperately and sensibly :
it need not so much scare us if we are ready ; should it
take the Church unawares and unorganised, the effect of
separation would be very serious. He recognises that the
laity are, not unnaturally, rather jealous of much organ
isation, and fear a kind of sacerdotal conspiracy. And to
this fear he replies by declaring it to be his wish that the
new organisations should be not sacerdotal but mixed and
general, lay and clerical, accepted by all.
" There is a feeling," he says, " that the High Church are
more in favour of organisation, and that the Evangelical
party (for which I cannot in many points but feel great
sympathy) prefer individual spiritual work ; but I am cer
tain that a sectional organisation will take place, unless all
parties, high, low, and broad, work together, and those
who hold back will be left behind. We want religious
organisation in a friendly spirit in spiritual work."
He holds that, with a view to union, there should
be no resolutions nor any voting ; only committees
nominated for special work, and conference and exchange
of opinions. He is also very earnest in deprecating ex
clusion ; for the Church of England is the true Catholic
Church in England, " containing in it every one baptised
into Christ, embracing all who acknowledge the Apostles'
Creed." And in it all should meet in a friendly spirit
under their Bishop, " who, I hold, is bound to be no party-

I.] APPOINTMENT AND ADMINISTRATION. 279
man ; " he feels sure that, if they met together, parties
would quarrel less than was generally expected.
These yearly conferences were -not truly representative ;
and, consequently, towards the end of Bishop Browne's
Ely episcopate some murmurs and complaints arose. The
clergy resented the preponderance of ex officio members,
the Bishop's nominees ; he, somewhat jealous of his
authority, defended the system, urging that it worked well.
The Conference of 1873 had a committee on the subject,
which reported that there was not a single elected or
representative clerical member, and advised that elections
should be held for one clerical and one lay representative
in each rural deanery. Before any action could be taken
the Bishop had left the diocese.
He always took deep interest in the proceedings of
the Church Congresses. They have afforded so good an
opportunity of testing the new life and vigour which has
by God's blessing been breathed into the Church, that he
regarded them as the germ of self-government and of a
new and wholesome revival of discipline. The meetings of
Congress soon shewed that Churchmen could meet without
flying at one another's throats, and that there was a broad
middle group of men willing to tolerate differences of
opinion. 5. In the matter of Parish Councils we find Bishop
Browne well in advance of his clergy. The subject has
since his day grown into very great importance ; and the
State has occupied the ground which was then open to the
Church. The Councils recommended by the Bishop were
cautiously guarded ; for he had no democratic leanings.
It should not be the old mediaeval Vestry, with its meeting
of ah ratepayers, nor a body elected by what the opponents
of the popular will style " mechanical voting " or " mechanical
majority," — by which seems to be meant the expression of

280 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
each person's free judgment, if it takes a direction opposed
to the opinion of his "betters." The Bishop's Council
should be carefully selected from the tried supporters of
Church and clergyman. Even so, his views were so far
in advance of those of the clergy that they fell dead both
at Ely and at Winchester. Hardly a dozen of his Councils
were attempted in either diocese. The clergy, as a rule, are
suspicious as to interference, and fear outspoken criticism ;
accustomed to act for themselves, they deem themselves
independent of their flocks, and have no wish for a Council
at their elbow. Parish Councils of a very different type
are coming now, and the clergy have unfortunately once
more lost the initiative. Post est occasio calva.
Bishop Harold Browne's desire to take his diocese into
counsel with him is further illustrated by the tone and
tenor of his Charges. His primary Charge, given after he
had been at Ely for nearly two years, was received with
great favour, though the earnest warnings against extremes
in the matter of ritual were distasteful to a certain minority.
The Spectator, in a very friendly article, says that it is
" a charge which should rank him by the side of the Bishop
of St. David's and the Bishop of London, as one of the
great champions of comprehension rather than of narrow
definition with relation to the doctrinal character of our
National Church. And, what is better still, because less
susceptible of doubtful interpretation, it shows him to be
one of the great advocates for the charity of our Burial
Service, and that on the highest ground — the ground not
of conjectural patronising charity on our part, but of the
universal scope and intention of God's love in Christ."
The reviewer also warmly applauds the Charge, as taking
a broad and liberal view of the "inteHectual boundaries
of Christ's truth, and of the spiritual boundaries of Christs
mercy." And he ends by saying : —
"If the Bishop's ecclesiastical influence in the Church is

I.] APPOINTMENT AND ADMINISTRATION. 28 1
to be judged by this Charge, we may look forward to having
in future in the Upper House of Convocation a great
accession to the strength of that small but noble party
which, resting chiefly on Dr. Thirlwall and Dr. Tait, has
recently done so much to redeem the Church from the
charge of petty bigotry and ecclesiastical craft."
While the Bishop's utterances — sensible, charitable, and
full of a high Christian spirit — seemed to mark him out as
a tolerant and liberal-minded prelate, his intense devotion
to the Church also appears in a paragraph in which he
defines and defends the middle position it loves to hold.
" It is common," he says, " with those organs of thought
whose very boast is that they are the voices of the spirit
of this world, to represent the Church of this land as a mere
negation, a compromise, by which all definite truth has
been silenced, all earnestness neutralised and forbidden ;
neither Catholic nor Evangelical, a mere tabula rasa, with
no clear characters anywhere impressed on it But in very
deed the Church is full, not empty — gathering from the
right hand and from the left — full of all deep Catholic
doctrine, all holy Evangelical truth — primitive, Apostolic,
Catholic, Scriptural, Reformed, Evangelical. It has elimi
nated nothing but error. Having ' proved all things ' it
'holds fast that which is good.' It is not a compromise
between truth and falsehood, but a comprehension of all
that is Christian and holy and true."
And in a letter, written soon after receiving a copy of
this primary Charge, Professor Lightfoot, whose words
must always command the respectful attention and ready
acceptance of English Churchmen, speaks warmly and
wisely. While he thanks him for his protest against
innovations in ritual, he regrets the need for such protest,
and urges the Bishop to do all in his power to retain good
and earnest men, " in spite of their follies," within the walls
of the English Church. He ends by saying that he fears
" nothing more than an anti-ritualistic panic."
The Charge deals also with the state of the diocese.

282 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch,
He describes it as a district of large acreage and small
population ; it has no large towns, no great manufactures ;
it is well supplied (and, indeed, by comparison with most
northern dioceses over-supplied) with clergy, having in all
seven hundred and thirteen, or one for every six hundred
and eighty of the population. Communications, in some
parts, are not easy ; the small parishes are more awkward
to work than the large ones ; there is too much non-
residence among the land-owners and clergy. The working-
folk have little love for the Church or for her ministers.
There is also the peculiar fen-life, unhealthy and isolated ;
the diocese also, on the moral side, suffers from the system
of working in gangs. On the other border of the diocese
were the difficulties, educational and moral, of the straw-
plaiting industry ; he makes excellent suggestions as to the
best way of overcoming the evils. He traces the growth
of the parochial system, and sees its weak points ; he
commends the employment of mission women or deacon
esses ; nor does he forget the importance of enlisting lay-
help, wherever possible, for the work of a parish. And
with much that is wise as to the folly of stifling enquiry,
and with remarks on the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist,
he closes a Charge which, for interest, importance of topics
discussed, piety and charity, and for practical advice and
suggestions, may be ranked very high among episcopal
utterances. It was in October that the thought of a yearly meeting
of the East Anglian Bishops, to help one another in
spiritual life and work, and to consult together on practical
questions bearing on the efficiency and right guidance of
the Church, took definite form. These Conferences sprang
out of a visit paid by the Bishop of Ely to the Bishop of
Norwich, when the value of sympathy and fellowship in all
good objects was much in the minds of the two prelates.

I.] APPOINTMENT AND ADMINISTRATION. 283
The Bishop of Lincoln (Wordsworth) entered warmly into
the scheme, and urged that, as he was the senior of the
Eastern Counties Bishops, the experiment should first be
tried at Riseholme, where accordingly the first meeting
took place in November 1865. The Bishops invited were
Lincoln, Ely, Norwich, Peterborough, and Rochester ; on
the establishment of the See of St Albans, which took
away the Essex part of the older See, Rochester ceased
to be East Anglian, and St. Albans was invited to take
the place.
These meetings have been kept up ever since that time,
with real success, spiritual and social. That all was not
solemnity is clear from the incident of the photograph of
the five Bishops, which was taken in 1872. Mr. Titterton,
the photographer at Ely, was astonished one morning by
the invasion of five Bishops, headed by the Bishop of the
diocese, who came in laughing, and called out, " Mr.
Titterton, here are five Bishops out on a spree ; " " and,"
said that good man, " these distinguished gentlemen were
all as merry as boys." Bishop Magee naturally led the
way ; and when the photographer remarked that " he
wanted to get them all on an equal plane," cried out,
" What ? all equally plain, did you say ? That would be
very hard on the others ! " and it was some time before
sufficient gravity could be restored.
Matters of ritual and ornament also in these days occu
pied much of the Bishop's thoughts. A letter written by
him from Ely at the end of 1865 to his friend and colleague.
Lord Arthur Hervey, shews us what way his mind was
moving at that time : —
" My dear Lord Arthur, — . . I should have
tried to consult you more privately about one or two points.
One is, whether there is any hope that any mutual con
cessions should reconcile the extreme ritualists and their

284 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
extreme opponents. I imagine that in Parliament and
Convocation we may have a struggle. I should be very
sorry that it should lead to schism. If the ritualists would
accept licence to go a certain way but no further (the
limit of course being to be discussed) we might obtain an
approximation to uniformity of ceremonial. Neither you
nor I wish it to be too bare ; but we do not like others to
be offended by its being too gorgeous."
And again, a fortnight later, he reverts to the subject : —
" Palace, Y.e\, January 1st, 1866.
" My dear Lord Artpiur, — . . . There is an able
argument on ' Ritualism and the Ecclesiastical Law ' in
the first Number (January 1866) of the Contemporary
Review. It is evidently by a lawyer. From that and
from other sources I gather that the law will probably
prove to be, that a cope and alb worn at Communion are
admissible ; but that lights on the altar, processions, incense,
turning the back to the people during the consecration,
are illegal ; and also that altars as distinguished from
communion-tables are illegal. I do not think much harm
would come if both parties would agree to this. A cope
worn at the Holy Communion (if processions, incense,
adoration of the elements, etc., were forbidden) would do
little harm. But even this compromise I fear will not be
accepted by either party. " Ever, my dear Lord,
" Yours most sincerely,
"E. H. Ely."
And again, in the following May : —
" You will be interested to hear that a carefully elaborated
case has been laid before Sir R. Phillimore, Sir Hugh
Cairns, and Mr. Melhuish, and they have pronounced a
decided opinion against the legality of altar-lights, incense,
mixing water with the wine, and vestments. I have not
yet seen the opinion."
Later judgments have modified this view of the subject.
Simply as shewing how littie the Bishop was inclined
to deal hardly with these innovations, when they came

I.] APPOINTMENT AND ADMINISTRATION. 285
before him in a practical form, we may quote another letter
to the same Archdeacon, in which he says : —
" Touching the stone slab in Mr. Luke's altar-table, Mr.
Lee thinks it could not legally have been put up without
a faculty ; but, if it excites no strong feeling, it might be
as well quieta non movere I I should feel it difficult to order
the removal of a like slab in Wisbech church, where the
Vicar is rather Low than High, and where I suppose the
history of the slab to be much the same."
When a Memorial on these subjects was presented to
him, his reply breathed a spirit of caution and tolerance,
with an instinctive shrinking from extremes : —

't.

" I view," he says, " with the deepest sorrow the present
divisions in the Church, and the rashness with which some
of the clergy are reviving forms and customs unknown
among us for many centuries, some of which are intended
to symbolise doctrines deliberately rejected by our branch
of the Church Catholic of Christ" [He instances Hymns
to the Virgin Mary.] " The Church ought to be com
prehensive and tolerant, giving fair scope to that diversity
of feeling and opinion which always has, and in this world
probably always will prevail among those who worship
the same God and trust in the same Saviour ; and I will
never be a party to narrowing the bounds of the Church
so as to reduce it to the proportions of a sect." " I can
sympathise," he adds, " with a man who says, ' I and those
who think with me hold that the great doctrine of the
Cross of Christ and faith in His atoning blood is the vital
essence of Christianity, and unless I can see other people
sound upon that, I can have no hope that the true faith of
the Church of Christ will prevail.' I can understand, on
the other hand, that another person may say : ' Those who
think with me give great and deep value to the incarnation
of Christ and to the union of every Christian soul with the
incarnate Saviour, and the dwelling of the Spirit of God
in every Christian's breast ; and on that principle I exalt
and value the Sacraments ; and I cannot think that those
who differ from me in this are doing all that the Church
teaches.' I, for one, thank God that I most heartily agree
with both. I can quite understand how people who take

286 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch
either view may be disposed to bring every one into con
formity with themselves, and reject all who do not join
them. But surely, if we take an example, we shall see how
all may be comprehended in one. I will not name living
men, as they are mixed up in questions on which there
may be differences of opinion. I will go some way back ;
and, as examples of the High Church school, take Arch
bishop Laud, or my great predecessor in this diocese.
Bishop Andrewes ; I will take such men as Archbishop
Leighton and John Wesley as representing the Low Church
party ; and Bishop Whately and Dr. Arnold as represent
ing the Broad Church ; and I would ask. Is there any
single person who would like to see the limits of the
Church drawn so closely as to exclude any of these ? I am
sure that a Church which would exclude any of them would
not be a Church but a sect Let us try and remember
that mutual forbearance is one of the great principles of
unity ; and that we may preserve all essentials and still
have unity. The unity, in fact to which the questions I
have proposed for consideration point is, not compelling
anyone to come into our own narrow school, but the
principle of uniting in great and God-like aims in common
action, to the neglect of minor differences."
It will be seen how free the Bishop was from taint of
party spirit ; the result was that both sides were inclined
to taunt him with blowing an uncertain trumpet, when he
was not leading on a party to the fight, but trying, in a
true Christian spirit, to find out how to reconcile the com
batants, or at least to draw them to a truce. He himself
liked a dignified and rather elaborate ritual ; yet now, as
Bishop, he refused to countenance the further advance.
His stem-principle was peace in Christ, a gospel large
enough for all ; he deprecated all warfare between Church
men, whether in the courts or in pulpits, in conference or
in newspaper. His efforts were blessed with no littie
success ; though the controversies of this period were hot
and wrapped him again and again in a steaming atmo
sphere of quarrel, he never lost his coolness and clearness

I.] APPOINTMENT AND ADMINISTRATION. 287
of vision, or forfeited the universal respect and affection
of his flock.
The same spirit appears also in his remarks on those
outside the Church. He had been personally friendly with
the Wesleyans at Kenwyn ; and now he wrote : —
" The Church of England is the only denomination that
neglected to use the energies of the middle and lower
classes. The Wesleyans have a vast number of persons
who exert themselves for the glory of God, and if we
do not employ such persons in the Church of England,
they will go elsewhere."
The solution seemed to him to lie in the direction of a
permanent diaconate. If Disestablishment were to come,
he adds, " it would be a deplorable evil ; but it would
not touch or alter the catholicity of the English Church,"
— a wholesome saying, and at the same time a grave
rebuke to those who by speaking of the temporalities of
the Church as if they were her essence, give plentiful hold
to our antagonists. The Roman Church smiles when it
hears Bishops talk as if all the loose charges about the
State-created Church of the sixteenth century were per
fectly true ; as if were the connection between Church and
State snapped, the English Church would cease at once
to exist.
Two years later at the Conference of 1870 the Bishop's
note was not so high or hopeful ; it was no longer the
brave and fearless call of a resolute leader, but a slightly
plaintive appeal to his followers to bestir themselves and
" save the Church." The Irish Church had just been dis
established, though not by any means disendowed, by
Pariiament, and at Rome the Vatican Council had pushed
antagonism a stage farther on its irreconcilable course.
In that year, referring to the deaths which had taken
place, he says, " There are dark shades in the losses we

288 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
have sustained ; there are brighter shadows " (a strange
but not unnatural phrase, one which a painter would have
approved) " in those we have secured : we have recruited
our strength as well as we could possibly have hoped."
He is referring to the help he had just obtained from
Bishop McDougall.
The Conferences of 1868 attracted their full share of
attention in the Church and Press. The Record news
paper, never completely reconciled with the Bishop, though
in its terror lest liberal bishops should be appointed it had
accepted, four years before, the nomination with certain
satisfaction, now made a fierce attack on him for his
utterances, declaring that their tendency was all in the
direction of sacerdotalism, and that such Diocesan Con
ferences only gave high churchmen a stage whereon to
advertise themselves. The attack seems to have touched
the Bishop in a sensitive part. There is a letter to him
from Dean Stanley, characteristic of the way in which he
regarded such newspaper attacks : —
"Deanery, 'Westminster, December 11th, 1868.
" My dear Lord, — I am much obliged for your letter.
I had perceived that the Record had been attacking you,
but had been too much accustomed to its fictions in my
own case to pay any attention to them in the case of any
one else. However, it is, I believe, always worth while to
give a direct contradiction to falsifications oi fact. I once
did when, after having delivered a eulogy on Calvin in a
public lecture, I was accused by the Record of having said
that ' he was an incarnation of the devil.'
" Yours sincerely,
" A. P. Stanley."
And the late Archbishop of Canterbury also wrote to
comfort him : —
" I have read your printed letter It is atrocious that
you should be exposed to the misrepresentations which

I.] APPOINTMENT AND ADMINISTRATION. 289
have been circulated. Every one who knows you takes
them at their true value, but of course there are people
who believe whatever they read in a newspaper, especially
if it has the effect of compromising a Bishop.
" Ever yours,
" A. C. London."
The truth is that the Bishop's sensitive nature made
him feel far too acutely the sting even of such criticisms
as might from time to time appear in the " religious "
journals. It was this delicacy of feeling, in a man whose
whole nature yearned for sympathy, and who in all his
dealings was scrupulously and sometimes magnanimously
just and charitable, which made Bishop Browne's position
in the theological troubles of the time one of singular
interest. He did what he saw to be right, though he knew
that he must thereby come under the censure and criti
cism of those with whom he mostly thought and acted.
In and through all we feel that we are dealing with a man
strengthened even to heroism by the power of the gospel
of Jesus Christ.

19

CHAPTER II.
bishop colenso, and the consecration of
bishop temple.
WHILE Harold Browne was still Norrisian Professor
he had taken an active part in the controversy over
Bishop Colenso's writings. In knowledge, moderation of
tone, and acceptance with Church people, he had by far
the best of it ; even those who were inclined to sympathise
with Bishop Colenso's views still regretted his manner of
setting them forth, and the haste with which he drew his
conclusions. This was the first period of the debate, which then
circulated round the Divinity of Christ and of the Inspira
tion of Holy Scripture. It was, at the outset, a theological
controversy ; as, however, the innovating party was headed
by a Bishop, it was clear that ere long other matters would
come under discussion, and the relation of the Bishop of
Natal to his own diocese, to the Bishop of Cape Town,
to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, to the
Houses of Convocation, and lastly to the Archbishop of
Canterbury, as head of the Anglican community, would
have to be carefully considered. The Church of England,
little accustomed to real self-government, was at a loss to
see how the difficulty should be met. The expansion of
the Empire, and the vigorous efforts made by the Church
to occupy the ground, had created some difficult problems,
2go

Ch.II,] BISHOP COLENSO. 29 1
which called for solution ; and lastly, the ill-defined relations
between colonial Bishops and the mother-Church, and the
uncertainty as to the relations between the chief Bishop
in a colony and other Bishops around him, provided ample
scope for discord, were any critical case to arise. And
then, where did appeals lie? Convocation was but lately
restored to life, and could show no precedents ; the authority
of the Primate had never been tested by a difficult case ;
the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council could deal
with questions solely from the legal side ; and, finally, every
Bishop had claims of jurisdiction and of independence
within his own diocese. Can we wonder that the affair
of the Bishop of Natal soon took a complex and difficult
character? Orthodox persons of repute hesitated long
before they committed themselves to any line of action ;
some in the end even felt bound to resist the efforts
being made to exclude Bishop Colenso from his See. The
high view taken of the episcopal office by Bishop Harold
Browne made him very cautious when it was a question
of the deposition or excommunication of a Bishop. And
there was real need for care ; Bishop Browne knew how
easily earnest men, ignorant of or indifferent about,
the constitutional aspect of theological questions, might
commit serious injustice ; nothing so certainly called for his
protest as the sight of men moving on unconstitutional
lines even towards the goal he himself was aiming at. In
the early part of 1863 Professor Browne had seen just
such a case of zeal outrunning discretion. The Archdeacon
of Taunton had moved in Convocation for a Committee to
consider the Bishop of Natal's writings, and in the course
of his speech had expressed himself in strong language,
proclaiming that he desired this Committee, not to
enquire into the case, but simply to condemn the writer.
Hereupon Professor Browne, feeling it most important that

292 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
the man and the book should be treated fairly, and not
be "condemned first and tried afterwards," wrote to the
Archdeacon to suggest that as he had expressed himself
so strongly he would do well not to be chairman of his
Committee, but should allow some more neutral person to
take the chair, and so avoid all suspicion of unfairness.
The Archdeacon was not likely to take this view of the
case. He replied that there were three parties in Convoca
tion ; the first, to which he himself belonged, was the
majority, who held it to be the duty of Convocation to
take formal notice of heretical books ; the second, the
party which, witliout questioning the right of Convocation
to do this, made difficulties about exercising it ; and
thirdly, the party which thought that under no circum
stances ought Convocation to revive the old usage of
dealing with heretical books. The committee of nineteen,
he said, had ten members of the second and third class,
and only nine of the first ; and therefore it was necessary
for him to be chairman ; otherwise the accused person
would escape. In other words, condemnation, not trial,
w^as his aim. How a dispassionate observer regarded the
results of this committee's sittings may be learnt from a
letter, dated May 25th, 1863, from the late Bishop of
Carlisle, then Dean of Ely, to his Bishop on the subject.
He writes : —

" On thinking of our Convocation Report I am con
vinced that we made a mistake in initio — we ought not to
have allowed Denison, or anyone, to present a report cut
and dried, prepared before any communication with the
committee. I think we should have met as in a Cambridge
Syndicate, and talked the matter over, and then com
missioned one of our body to draw up a rough sketch of
a Report in conformity with the views agreed upon. As
it was, we were hampered throughout by the necessity of
purging the report from Denison's extravagances, and were

II.] BISHOP COLENSO. 293
prevented from giving our attention to the construction of
a really good report. It is curious on looking over the
document to observe how little of Denison's original work
remains, and that part about the worst of the report.
" Yours sincerely,
" H. Goodwin."
When Bishop Gray first went out to the Cape in 1847
he took with him letters patent granting him coercive
jurisdiction in his diocese ; he also claimed and used the
somewhat uncertain title of " Metropolitan of South
Africa," so asserting a spiritual and general jurisdiction,
which he had no legal power of enforcing. The letters
patent came before the Judicial Committee of the Privy
Council in 1863 (in the case of Long v. Bishop of Cape
Town), and the Committee gave the following decision : —
"That the Bishop's letters patent being issued after
constitutional government had been established in the
Cape of Good Hope, were ineffectual to create any
jurisdiction, ecclesiastical or civil, within the Colony, even if
it were the intention of the letters patent to create such a
jurisdiction, which they think doubtful,"
And this decision was afterwards confirmed by the same
body, when the case of the Bishop of Natal was brought
before it in 1864 and 1865.
" After establishment of an independent legislature in
the Cape of Good Hope and Natal," they say, " there was
no power in the Crown by virtue of its prerogative to
establish a Metropolitan see or province, or to create an
ecclesiastical corporation, whose status, rights, and authority
the colony would be required to recognise."
When the question as to the right of Bishop Colenso to
his stipend from the Colonial Bishoprics' Council came
before Lord Romilly, Master of the Rolls, he decided that
the Bishop was entitled to it ; though he proceeded to
explain the judgment of the Judicial Committee in terms

294 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, DD. [Ch.
which practically reversed it. Thereupon the Colonial
Office consulted the law officers of the Crown, and acting
on their advice, ignored Lord Romilly's dictum ; holding
that the decision of the Judicial Committee was the last
word in the controversy, and that no Judge could invalidate
it by a later dictum.
The outcome of the discussion before the Judicial Com
mittee was this : that no Bishop (unless he be a Patriarch
or an Archbishop) has a right to summon another Bishop
to his court or to hold a court on him ; that each Bishop
in a province is the equal of every other Bishop in it ; and
that the chief Bishop in the province (whether chief through
his own standing or through position of his See) is only
" primus inter pares," and can be no more. Whence it
follows that iu the opinion of the English law, a colonial
Bishop, in a colony enjoying a constitution of its own,
holds a very independent position in relation to all other
Bishops in that colony, and cannot be removed by any
one of them, or by all of them in Synod assembled, from
the legal possession of his See.
This, it will be understood, was a very grave and difficult
position. What was to happen were a Bishop convicted
of some serious moral offence, or if he neglected his
duties, or if he preached or published heresies ? The truth
is that in these newly-established Churches these matters
had never been brought to test ; it had been thought
enough to bring the missionary work at the Cape under
some episcopal supervision, without attempting to define
these questions or to decide wherein lay the ultimate
authority over the Bishops. The matter was much com
plicated also by the semi-established position of the Church
of England in the dependencies and colonies of the Crown.
The abolition of Established Churches in the colonies was
very much advanced by the Colenso troubles. Bishop

II.] BISHOP COLENSO. 295

Colenso was accused of having published erroneous views
on the sufficiency and inspiration of Holy Scripture,
and on our Lord's divinity. Here was ground enough for
alarm. No wonder that the question was asked, " Who
can bring this to trial? to whom is a colonial Bishop
responsible ? Is it possible that a man can impugn vital
doctrines and endanger the English Church in his diocese,
and yet that there should be no tribunal before which
he can be brought ? "
The posture of affairs seemed alarming and even absurd.
The colonial Churches had hardly created any ecclesiastical
constitutions for themselves ; and even if they did, for the
emergency, meet in Synod, it would be very hard to say
what were their powers, and whether they had any
authority over one of the Bishops of the province. On the
other hand, an appeal to the Crown, which had iappointed
the accused Bishop, was not regarded with favour. The
Judicial Committee of the Privy Council has a dreadful
habit of regarding matters from the point of view of strict
legality, and it also, being the final court of appeal, is very
careful as to the accused, giving him the benefit of every
doubt, and in spiritual questions interpreting all documents,
rubrics, statements of dogma, rules of Church government,
as widely as possible. It is therefore naturally unpopular
among those who hold that theological questions ought to
be decided by theological persons, and especially distasteful
to those who think that heretics should first be con
demned by the spirituality, and after that handed over
to the secular arm for punishment. The accused therefore
like the Crown, and fly for refuge to it ; the attacking party
think that the Crown, in its legal aspect, can have no
knowledge of or right to judge respecting matters of faith,
and refuse to submit their causes to it In the case of
Bishop Colenso this was made remarkably clear. He had

296 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. Ch.
been appointed by the Crown, and the Crown in this year
1 863 had denied to the Bishop of Cape Town any rights
:is Metropolitan ; he therefore appealed to the authority
which had granted him his letters patent Bishop Gray,
however, refused absolutely to submit the case to the
lawyers at home, and sought to create his own tribunal
as Metropolitan, and by it to force Bishop Colenso into
subjection. Besides the Crown and the colonial Church there were
two other authorities, the Archbishop of Canterbury as
liead of the English Church, and the Houses of Convo
cation ; both of which were appealed to in the course of
this long controversy.
Bishop Gray had one distinct advantage throughout.
He knew his own mind. No one could doubt his complete
sincerity ; he was strong, determined, resolute, and some
what narrow ; such a man will boldly venture on vigorous
action, and defend it fearlessly. The same qualities which
go to make a successful general are, however, not the best
for bringing a Church out of a difficult and complicated
situation. " Athanasius contra mundum " (in which "mun-
dum " is the State) has an awkward part to play, and finds
himself caught in the strong meshes of legal obligation,
\\hich he abhors, yet cannot escape from, in spite of all his
resolution and vigour.
Bishop Gray began by taking steps which at once made
a collision inevitable. He shut his eyes to the legal
decision of the Privy Council, which had cancelled his
letters patent, and, standing on his supposed Metropolitan
powers, summoned Bishop Colenso to appear before him
and submit to trial. The Bishop of Natal naturally de
murred to this step, refused to appear, protested against
the validity of the whole proceeding, and appealed to the
Archbishop of Canterbury. The decision of the Privy

II.] BISHOP COLENSO. 297
Council on the cdse Long v. Bishop of Cape Town was
by this time known in Africa, so that Bishop Gray could
claim only a general metropolitical authority which he hoped
to enforce over the Bishop of Natal ; accordingly, when that
prelate refused to appear, the Bishop of Cape Town pro
nounced against him a formal sentence of deprivation on
December i6th, 1863 ; giving him till April i6th, 1864, in
which to retract his appeal to the Archbishop of Canter
bury. To this Bishop Colenso replied by addressing a
letter direct to the Crown, praying Her Majesty to grant
him protection against this invasion of his rights " till the
letters patent granted to him should be cancelled by due
process of law for some sufficient cause of forfeiture, and
praying for a declaration of the nullity of the Bishop of
Cape Town's powers and proceedings." The two Bishops
came over to England in the course of 1 864, and brought
the strife to a more definite issue. Her Majesty in Council,
through the Judicial Committee, took the matter into
consideration on June 27th, 1864; it came on again ia the
following December. Bishop Gray and Bishop Colenso
were both represented by counsel ; the former under pro
test, denying that Her Majesty in Council had any juris
diction in the matter, or that any appeal lay from his act
of deposition either to the Queen or to the Privy Council.
Judgment was given by Lord Westbury on March 20th,
1865 ; and, though exception may be taken to the way in
which he handled the matter, there can be no doubt that
the decision was legally correct. It again declared the
Bishop of Cape Town's letters patent to be null and void,
and laid it down that the law of England recognised no
such authority as he claimed ; that his metropolitical
rights could not be acknowledged by the law ; and that
the deposition of one Bishop by another was legally null
and void also. It became clear that in all matters of

298 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
discipline Churches in self-ruling colonies would have to
create their own laws and regulations. It was also clear
that the relations between Church and State were beginning
to enter on an entirely new phase, now that the Queen in
Council declared that she did not recognise these spiritual
persons, or regard them as being under those limitations
and restrictions which have been placed by the State round
the action of the Church at home.
The Natal clergy now on the whole declared warmly
against Bishop Colenso, and expressed their sympathy
with Bishop Gray. In England also the Houses of
Convocation were much moved. They thanked Bishop
Gray, and dissevered themselves from the Bishop of
Natal's writings. While however they rejoiced in the
stand made against false doctrine, they carefully avoided
affirming the legality of the proceedings taken by the
Bishop of Cape Town, The Upper House was naturally
very sensitive as to the rights and position of a Bishop
within his See, and would not say that the somewhat
shadowy " Metropolitical " authority of the Bishop of Cape
Town enabled him to depose a neighbouring Bishop.
While Convocation strongly condemned Bishop Colenso's
books, it hesitated to advise that proceedings should be
taken at law against the author. All the Bishop of Cape
Town's urgency could not elicit from Convocation more
than a general statement of disapproval of Bishop Colenso's
opinions, and of warm sympathy with his opponent : it
never committed itself then or later, to an actual approval
of the steps Bishop Gray had so boldly taken.
Matters could not rest here : towards the end of 1865,
the Bishop of Natal returned to his diocese, determined
to defy his neighbour, and to ofificiate, as usual, in his
Cathedral Church. Hereon Bishop Gray threatened him
with excommunication ; and, as he refused to give way.

II] BISHOP COLENSO. 299
on January 5th, 1866, the Dean of Maritzburg read,
from the Cathedral altar, the sentence of the greater
excommunication against John William Colenso.
As Bishop Colenso refused to submit to either depriva
tion or excommunication, a schism in the Church of South
Africa appeared imminent, for a certain minority clung to
him, and the natives ever remembered the manly way
in which he had been their friend and champion. The
Bishop of Cape Town now, in combination with the
Dean of Maritzburg, submitted to the Convocation of
the Province of Canterbury three questions : —
I. " Whether the Church of England holds communion
with Dr. Colenso and the heretical Church he is seeking
to establish in Natal, or whether it is in communion with
the orthodox Bishops who in synod declared him to be
ipso facto excommunicated ? " 2, " Whether the acceptance
of a new Bishop on the part of the Church in Natal, whilst
Dr. Colenso still retains the letters patent of the Crown,
would in any way sever us from the mother Church of
England ? " And 3. " Supposing that the reply to the
last question was that they would not so be severed, what
are the proper steps which the diocese should take to
obtain a new Bishop ? "
It is at this point that the influence of the Bishop of
Ely begins to be felt. He certainly was not prejudiced
in favour of the Bishop of Natal, Now, however, when
it appeared to him and the more cool-headed of the
English prelates, that Bishop Gray's course of action was
fraught with danger to the independence of the epis
copate, he intervened, and urged moderate counsels on
the somewhat heated Upper House, Bishop Wilberforce
brought forward a motion, warmly urging the Bishops
to support Bishop Gray. The majority in both Houses
of Convocation were eager to follow his lead. Four
Bishops, however, intervened and checked the movement.

300 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. Ch.
These were the Bishop of London, Dr. Tait ; Thirlwall,
Bishop of St. Davids ; Jackson, Bishop of Lincoln, and
the Bishop of Ely. They all emphatically condemned
Colenso's utterances ; in principle they sympathised with
the Bishop of Cape Town, but they urged with great
force that he was wrong in his method of action. Bishop
Tait, speaking with that weight and statesmanlike spirit
which distinguished him, said that there was this fault
in Bishop Gray's character, that he was not content with
merely holding his opinions, but that he must try to make
every other person hold them too. ' And therefore I do
not wish to endow him with absolute authority over the
Church in the colony over which he presides." He then
goes on to enquire what the Bishop ought to have done ;
and replies that —
" his proceedings being declared null and void in law,
it would be the right course for him to reconsider the
matter and to endeavour to institute such proceedings as
may be sustained by law ; and I do not believe that any
difficulty stands in the way of his pursuing such a course."
Bishop Harold Browne also strongly urged Convocation
not to accept the Bishop of Oxford's motion. As the
speech he made on this occasion is a somewhat memorable
expression of his constitutional way of looking at Church
questions, it is here partly reproduced from the Chronicle
of Convocation for 1866, p. 512.
After some introductory remarks he points out that
the House must consider the effect of its decision on the
constitution of the Colonial Church and its future.
"We are asked to endorse Bishop Gray's judgment in
Synod on Bishop Colenso. This involves the question
whether the Bishop of Cape Town is legally or eccle
siastically Metropolitan of South Africa, and, if so, how
far his powers go. It does appear to me to be of great

II.] BISHOP COLENSO. 3OI
consequence for the future prosperity of the Church in the
colonies, that all questions connected with the establish
ment of provinces and Metropolitans in the colonies should
be carefully weighed before anything is done which should
fix them for the future."
He then digresses into the earlier history of Metropolitans,
and shews how large were the powers of the Archbishop
of Canterbury as such. He next points out that the
patent to the Bishop of Natal gave the Bishop of Cape
Town, as Metropolitan, the same powers as the Archbishop
has. Under the belief that he had these powers. Bishop
Gray had acted. But then these powers had been legally
declared null and void ; so that the Bishop of Cape Town
really had not the legal authority of the Archbishop of
Canterbury. Bishop Gray argues that virtually, though
not legally, he still had these powers. But then, he has
performed acts which are shown to be neither legally valid
nor constitutional.
Bishop Gray also claims that there is no appeal from
him, either to the Archbishop or to the Crown ; and, in
fact, he claims more for Cape Town than is actually claimed
and exercised by Canterbury. The Bishop of Ely then
declares that the Bishops who advised the Crown to
make Bishop Gray Metropolitan could never have meant
to give him powers so far-reaching and autocratic, and that
therefore he has no legal or moral right to claim them.
" Then comes the whole question. If he is not Metropolitan,
he could not by right as Metropolitan summon the Synod,
and the judgment he gives would not be legally or
ecclesiastically a valid judgment." And, though the Bishop
holds that Bishop Colenso was heretical, he still cannot
go so far as Bishop Gray wishes in his motions. If the
Synod of Canterbury is to endorse all the acts of the
Synod of Cape Town, that Bishop wiU have greater powers

302 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
than Canterbury enjoys, and that without appeal. This
would be most injurious to the Colonies. The Colonial
Churches in their independent state ought to go back to
the precedents of the Church before Constantino. These
precedents would not carry out the claims of the Bishop
of Cape Town. It would be most dangerous to endorse
those claims to great powers, to be exercised without
appeal. The Bishop also shows that it would be doubtful
to say that the Church refuses to " hold communion with
Dr. Colenso '' and the heretical church ; it is also wrong
to call him Dr. Colenso : he is still Bishop Colenso,
whether he is Bishop of Natal or not. And he concludes
by saying : — ¦
(i) " That I do not like to speak of one who is still a
Bishop as though he were deprived not only of his diocese
but of his episcopate ; (2) That I do not like to denounce
as excommunicate all who, it may be knowingly or it
may be ignorantly, have communicated with him ; but
(3) Chiefly, I do not like by this resolution to anticipate
the future of the Colonial Church, and so possibly involve
it in greater difficulties."
Bishop Gray and his friends could not let the matter
rest here. Convocation, instead of applauding his vigorous
measures, had passed them by without committing itself to
either approval or censure ; the tension increased. Bishop
Colenso invited his accuser to submit the whole matter to
a proper ecclesiastical tribunal in England ; and to this
the Bishop of Cape Town replied by refusing to recognise
the validity of the English Courts or their jurisdiction
over him in spiritualibus. His view was, apparently, that
he and his Synod at Cape Town had rightiy passed
judgment on the heresies of a Bishop under him as
Metropolitan ; that this judgment also excluded the
condemned Bishop from his temporalities; and that the

II.] BISHOP COLENSO. 3O3
letters patent of the Crown might be set altogether aside.
This hopelessly wrong position he held throughout, though
the law protected Bishop Colenso from some of the effects
of it In order to secure for the Church people of Natal
an orthodox bishop. Bishop Gray prepared for two things ;
first, for an appeal from Convocation to the Lambeth
Conference (about to be held for the first time in 1867),
so as to obtain, if he could, the formal approval of the
whole Anglican Episcopate ; and secondly, for the
appointment of an independent Bishop for Natal, by
which act he hoped to assert to the world that his
deprivation of Bishop Colenso had actually vacated the
See. The Bishop of London, Tait, whose statesmanlike
temper was very galling to the hotter spirits in the violent
controversies of the time, stood out bravely against this
narrowing of liberty of opinion within the Church. He
seems too to have understood, as few did, the critical
nature of the time, in which these young Churches in the
colonies were feeling their way towards an independent
life. There was great risk lest, under the influence of
some strong leader of a provincial Church, the just limits
within which opinion might oscillate safely should be un
wisely narrowed, and orthodoxy guaranteed at the cost
of thought. It was unfortunate that Bishop Colenso's
language had endangered these essential liberties. It was
felt that he had strained the endurance of the Church,
and yet that the measures taken against him were full
of danger. And so Bishop Tait did a wise thing, which
nevertheless brought on him violent remonstrance and
even abuse from those who refused to allow that there
were two sides to the Colenso question. He endeavoured
to arrive at an impression as to the state of opinion
respecting the Colenso difficulty in the colonies. After

304 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
Stating that he considered the moment one of great risk
to the whole colonial Church, and pointing out that in
Natal there was one Bishop who was a heretic, and another
about to be consecrated who, in "the eye of the law, would
be schismatic, he threw out the view that the clergy of
that uneasy diocese ought to be the nominees of the
Church Missionary Society, placed immediately under the
Archbishop of Canterbury ; a view which in the actual
state of colonial liberties, civil and ecclesiastical, was not
likely to meet with much acceptance. He then issued a
circular of enquiry, which elicited a mass of evidence as
to colonial opinion ; shewing that with the exception of '
the Bishop of Cape Town's own diocese, there was much
dissatisfaction at the action of that resolute prelate.
Bishop Tait was thus confirmed in his view that the bulk
of colonial opinion was unfavourable to Bishop Gray's
pretensions and acts. Men were not anxious to see the
colonial Churches shake themselves free from their con
nection with the august traditions and vigorous life of
the Primacy of Canterbury.
Soon after this, in September 1867, the first " Pan-
Anghcan" Conference took place at Lambeth. Some of
the English Bishops, eager above all things for peace,
desired that the Colenso affair might be excluded from
discussion. Archbishop Sumner gave them an assurance
that it should be so, and it was omitted from the pro
gramme. But when men are much in earnest it is im
possible to keep down matters on which their thoughts
are fixed. And, consequently, it was not long before a
determined effort was made to obtain an expression of
opinion on the subject The Bishop of St. David's resisted
the introduction of this debatable matter, and urged that,
after the Archbishop had consented to its exclusion, it
was a breach of faith. The Bishop of New Zealand, Dr

II.] BISHOP COLENSO. 305
Selwyn, thereupon attacked Bishop ThirlwaH, because in
a recently published Charge he had reflected somewhat
severely on Bishop Gray's proceedings ; the Bishop of
London came to the defence of the Bishop of St David's ;
and Bishop Harold Browne followed on the same side
with a warm eulogy of Bishop Thirlwall, in which he
declared him to be " not only the most learned prelate in
Europe, but probably the most learned Prelate who has
ever presided over any See."
The effort to keep out the Colenso question failed, and
a discussion followed. The three or four Bishops who set
themselves to stem the tide were as temperate as brave.
The Bishop of Oxford circulated for signature a paper
against Colenso. This neither Bishop Tait nor the Bishop
of Ely would sign, " on the ground that a Metropolitan
had no power to depose a Bishop, as Gray had done, even
under pure ecclesiastical law."
To the Bishop of Tennessee Bishop Harold Browne
addressed a letter in which he lays down the principles
on which he, and the other Bishops in opposition, regarded
the whole matter. The letter was not written for some
time after the Congress. "Ely House, April 2Stk, 1868.
'' My dear Friend and Brother,— You asked me
once to put on paper what I said to you about the Natal
question. I believe it was nearly as follows :
" Supposing the Church of South Africa to be now no
more a part or dependency of the Church of England than
the Episcopal Church of Scotland or the Protestant
Episcopal Church of America ; then, if the Bishop of
Cape Town, as Metropolitan or presiding Bishop, informs
me that one of the South African Bishops has been ex
communicated and deposed, and that another Bishop has
been elected and consecrated in his room, I should have
no more hesitation in accepting and acting on such in
formation than I should have if the like information were
20

3o6 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
given me by the presiding Bishop of the Church in the
United States. I should consider the deposed Bishop as
not to be admitted into my diocese, and I should acknow
ledge the Bishop consecrated in his room.
" The present difficulty, however, is of a different kind.
The Bishop of Cape Town has appealed to the English
Bishops and the English Convocations to pronounce
upon the spiritual validity of the deposition of Bishop
Colenso. " Now, there lies no appeal from the Bishops of South
Africa and the Synod of South Africa to the Bishops or
Synods of the Primacies of Canterbury and York. At the
same time, I do not deny that, when there is a grievous
heresy in an infant Church, the Bishops of that Church
may reasonably ask for sympathy and countenance from
Churches in communion with them. I am therefore willing
to express all possible sympathy with the suffering Church
of South Africa, and to state my own opinion that Bishop
Colenso is bound in all good faith to withdraw from a
position which he cannot hold consistently with his ordi
nation vows.
" But then, the Bishops of South Africa ask that the
English Bishops and the English Convocations should
pronounce authoritatively on the validity of the deposition.
This, I believe, involves questions of the gravest difficulty.
I am quite willing to accept the deposition as stated to
me by the authorities by whom it was pronounced. But
if I am asked to declare, in my own person and in my
place as a Bishop, that the deposition was legal and valid,
I feel that all the knotty questions concerning Metro-
political power, and the right of a Metropolitan to depose
his comprovincial Bishops, and the exact nature of the
proceedings at Cape Town, must be entered into. The
distinction between ' legal ' and ' spiritual ' deposition is
surely a distinction without a difference. If a Bishop be
deposed according to the laws and canons of the Church,
legally binding on that Church, he is truly, legally, canoni-
cally, spiritually deposed. If he be not legally and
canonically deposed, then he cannot be spiritually deposed.
That which is bound on earth, by the lawful authority of
those empowered to bind, is also bound in Heaven. Hence,
I am unable to see that it is a simple and easy thing to
say whether a person has been spiritually deposed, leaving
further questions of legal deposition to ecclesiastical courts.

II.] BISHOP COLENSO. 307
If a person be deposed by a tribunal having authority to
depose, there being no appeal, or no appeal being instituted,
then he is spiritually deposed, and not otherwise. This
is universally true in Churches not established, as much
as in those which have more or less union with a State.
I believe it is agreed by all canonists that the deposition
of a Bishop is very far from being a simple thing, fure
divino, a Bishop has no spiritual superior on earth ; jure
ecclesiastico, he may have an ecclesiastical superior ; but
that ecclesiastical superior certainly had no deposing power
till there arose that very tangled relation between the civil
and ecclesiastical authorities which was inaugurated by the
accession of the Roman Emperor to the Christian faith,
and which the Church materially modified by encouraging
appeals to the Roman See. There is good reason to think
that in the mediaeval Church no deposition of a Bishop
was valid without the authority of the Pope. In the
Reformed Church of England there exists the very compli
cated case of the deposition of Watson, Bishop of St.
David's. There are many reasons why this cannot be a
perfect precedent in the present instance. It seems neces
sary, if possible, to determine what would have been the
process where neither imperial nor papal authority could
have come in to supplement metropolitical power, i.e., before
the Council of Sardica, and perhaps even before the Council
of Nice.
" I may of course be wrong in seeing all these difficulties.
You know me well enough not to doubt that I hold all
heresy in dread. Yet I would rather leave it to the Judge
of all men to vindicate His own truth, than attempt to
decide on a question laden with such important conse
quences, and to pronounce a decision with imperfect means
of forming a judgment.
" I have never doubted the high Christian motives of the
Bishop of Cape Town and of his comprovincial Bishops.
I could earnestly have wished that some of those who
have thrown themselves into the controversy had not
been actuated by a desire to destroy that which I believe
has been to England her greatest blessing, and which can
only be lost to her with the loss of all that has made her
religious and great and free. If Anglicanism fails as
Gallicanism has failed, the choice left to us here and in
Europe will be between Romanism and Rationalism.
There are not a few who desire this ; and they have made

3o8 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
free use of this Colenso scandal to advance their designs.
May the God of truth and peace pardon, preserve, and
purify us. " Believe me ever, my dear Bishop,
" Your affectionate Brother,
" E. H. Ely.
" The Right Rev. The Bishop of Tennessee."
At this point, as we have now reached the closing scenes
of this tangled controversy, we may insert (though it was
written a year and a half before the above letter) a letter
from Bishop Browne to the Bishop of Cape Town, because
it contains, in full detail, the principles on which he guided
his action throughout this troubled time. It is a luminous
account of his own position, and shows how tenaciously he
clung to the established rules of Church order.
"Ely, September 1866.
" My dear Lord, — I am very sorry I could not answer
your letter by the last post. I quite see how those amongst
us who expressed ourselves as wishing for time to con
sider the questions you submitted to us, may appear to you
lukewarm and unfaithful. As regards the charge of igno
rance which our brother of Oxford somewhat hastily made
against us, I am satisfied to be in the same boat with the
Bishop of St David's, whom I believe to be without any
comparison the most learned prelate in Christendom, both
in sacred and profane learning. As to other matters, I
can most solemnly protest that I am neither indifferent
to the troubles and trials of the Church in South Africa,
nor heedless of the terrible advances of heresy and infidelity
which threaten us both at home and abroad. But I believe
that never were graver or more difficult questions submitted
to the Synod of Canterbury than those which you submitted
to us, and I was very unwilling that they should be
answered hastily.
" We are entering on an entirely new era, at least as
regards the colonial Church and its whole future ; perhaps
the whole future of Christendom may be affected by what
is doing now. The colonial Church is, as I think, placed
in a position in which no Church has been since Constantino

II.] BISHOP COLENSO. 309
made Christianity the religion of the Empire. This very
materially influences the question, which concerns the
power of Metropolitans and of Provincial Synods.
" The history of Metropolitans I take to be this. There
is very little evidence of the existence of Metropolitans for
the first three centuries. Without doubt we find certain
Bishops, those of Rome especially, of Antioch, Alexandria,
Carthage, etc., taking a lead or primacy among their
brother Bishops. The thirty-fourth Canon of the Canons of
the Apostles (Canons of doubtful authority and of uncertain
date, though reverenced from their traditional name)
speaks of one Bishop as a Primus in his nature, and bids
other Bishops esteem him as their head, do nothing of great
moment, prceter illius sententiam, but only do those things
which concern their own dioceses and their subject Pagi,
enjoining at the same time the Primus to do nothing absque
omnium sententia. This is the first synodical (if it be
synodical) confirmation of anything like metropolitical
authority. In the Council of Nice, A.D. 325, provinces,
the constitution of Bishops of the provinces, and confirm
ation by the Metropolitan, are recognised by Canon IV.
Excommunication to be by all the Bishops of a province is
enjoined by Canon IV. The four great Metropohtans of
Alexandria, Rome, Antioch, and .(Elia are recognised in
Canons VI., VII. In the Council of Chalcedon, A.D. 451,
Constantinople is given the same honour as Rome (Canon
XXVIII.), whilst Canon IX. has this remarkable provision :
' If a cleric has a controversy with a Bishop, he shall be
judged by the Provincial Synod. If a Bishop or cleric
has a controversy with a Metropolitan, he shall appeal to the
Patriarch or to the throne of the Imperial City {i.e., either
Rome or Constantinople).' These were the decrees of
general councils concerning Metropolitans. The Council
of Antioch (a great council, not CEcumenical, not generally
acknowledged, held A.D. 341, seventeen years after Nice)
says (Canon IX.) : ' Oportet Episcopos nihH momenti
aggredi absque sententia Metropolitani, nee ipse sine sen
tentia religiosorum Episcoporum, vide Can. XXXIV. ' ;
which is supposed to be a reference to the Canon of the
Apostles, " These Canons appear to me to constitute the charter
of Metropolitans in the first five centuries ; all of them,
however, except Canon XXXIV. of the Apostles, are' sub
sequent to the adoption of Christianity by the Empire.

3IO EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
You will observe, too, that all of them enjoin Metropolitans
to do nothing without their brother Bishops, as much as
they enjoin Bishops to do nothing without their Metro
politans; and the Fourth General Council of Chalcedon
expressly provides for an appeal to the Patriarch.
" After ages gave, no doubt, far greater power to Metro
politans. There arose a more regular system of successive
steps in the ministry, — minor orders, then deacons, priests,
bishops, metropolitans, patriarchs, pope. The latter in
Europe absorbed all ultimate power. The Archbishop of
Canterbury, however, was of patriarchal authority, caHed
by the Pope alterius orbis Papa, and said by great lawyers
to have had a jurisdiction equal to that of the patriarch of
Constantinople (Chief Justice Holt in Lacy v. Bishop of
St, David's), Accordingly, in the case of the Bishop
of St David's, Watson, it was held that he had power to
depose after trial his suffragans, though not without appeal.
All this access of power to Patriarchs and Metropolitans
grew up after, and generally owing to, the connection with
the Empire and the State,
Now the Crown, advised by the Bishops, attempted to
confer on the Bishop of Cape Town metropolitical power
equal to that of Canterbury (neither Crown nor Bishop
knew what was meant by this). They tried, but according
to the judgment of the Privy Council they failed ; for it was
ultra vires. The Crown could not give coercive jurisdic
tion in South Africa, either to a Bishop or to a Metropolitan.
The patent, therefore, so far as coercive jurisdiction goes,
is nuH and void. It is argued that, though the Canon did
not give it, the Church, as represented by the English
Bishops, meant to give it. But intention is not act. It
was never legally or ecclesiastically conferred by Crown or
Bishop. " It is said, again, that Canon XXXIV. of the Apostles
and Canon IX. of Antioch establish the principle that there
shall be a Metropolitan in every nation, who shall do nothing
without the other Bishops, and without whom the other
Bishops shall do nothing of moment On this ground it is
said the Bishop of Cape Town without any appointment
became Metropolitan. I have no wish to dispute this,
though it may be open to dispute. But what I wish to
point out is, that this necessarily throws us back to
primitive times. Papal power, the power of the Regale, and
all such powers, are repudiated as regards our colonial

II.] BISHOP COLENSO. 3II
Churches. That great fabric of bishops, metropolitans,
patriarchs, with a doubtful and disputed authority of sove
reigns and popes or oecumenical patriarchs above them all,
has crumbled away. It can never be right to pick up
fragments of it and call them a whole temple. Where can
we go but to the example of the Church before Con
stantino, at all events before Papal usurpation ? I should
say before either, when neither the Crown nor the Pope
claimed to be the ultimate resort in all cases ecclesiastical.
In the English Church at home there may be no danger
from the immense authority of the Archbishop as shown in
the above cited case (of Lacy v. Bishop of St David's),
because there is an appeal from the regularly constituted
court of the Archbishop to a Final Court of Appeal, if not,
in the case of a Bishop, to the House of Lords also. But
at present South Africa has no appeal from its Metropolitan
to the Patriarch, to a great Council, or to a Final Court.
If the MetropoHtan has an authority equal to the Arch
bishop of Canterbury, it is an absolute authority without
appeal. And this is some excuse for Bishop Colenso in
refusing to submit to the Bishop of Cape Town, after he had
admitted him to be Metropolitan. He took the oath on
a false representation. He swore obedience to the Bishop
of Cape Town, believing that an appeal lay from him to
Canterbury, and thence to the Final Court. All which has
been quashed by the late decision. I conclude, therefore,
that primitive examples and primitive principles may be
resorted to, if the colonial Church is not to go altogether
wrong. Now primitive principles are partly exhibited in
the Canons I have quoted above, but there is another Canon
which greatly illustrates them, and which specially bears
on the African Church. In the great Council of Carthage,
held A.D. 348, attended by Bishops from every province of
Africa, it was decreed by universal consent (Canon XI.) that
a Bishop should not be judged by fewer than twelve Bishops.
" Now, my dear Lord, all this has led me to think, not
that your sentence was unjust, but that it is very doubtful
whether, on principles of law civil or ecclesiastical, a
Metropolitan, in a Church neither Papal nor established
by law, with only one Bishop of his own province and one
Bishop out of the province as assessors, has power to depose
or excommunicate an heretical Bishop. It may be said
and is said, that great emergencies require prompt measures.
But they must be constitutional and legal measures or you

312 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE D.D. [Ch.
defend the faith in a single instance and condemn a single
heretic at the risk of introducing a system of misrule and
subverting all great principles of right We read history
to no purpose if we do not see that great and good men
in their zeal to extirpate heresy in the fourth, fifth, and
sixth centuries raised up a power intended to crush error,
but which for many centuries after stifled truth. There
is as thick a shadow now passing over the Church as ever
arose before the darkness of the Papacy settled on it. I hold
that it is not cowardice, but farseeing caution, that would
try to disperse it by falling back on the light of primitive
truth. It is very painful to me to differ in any way from
you when I so highly esteem your zeal for the faith of
Christ ; but I dare not act against my own strong
convictions of right " I am, my dearest Lord,
" Yours very truly,
" E. H. Ely.
" To the Lord Bishop of Cape Town."

To this long and 'weighty statement of his views the
Bishop of Cape Town replied by reasserting his position in
strong terms, though he does not endeavour to traverse
Bishop Browne's arguments. It will be seen at once how
wide a gulf yawned between the two prelates ; Harold
Browne, champion of order, appealing to law and precedent
and the structure of the Church ; Bishop Gray claiming to
go behind all such matters, as savouring of the " Erastian "
character of Anglicanism, and endeavouring to build
himself up on Canon Law. It was the natural difference
between an " established Bishop " at home and a colonial
Bishop eager to be entirely emancipated from State con
trol. No wonder that Dean Stanley, seeing these things
and whither they led, was one of the most determined
supporters of a Church " as by law established." It seemed
to him that a disestablished Church of England might be
the death of all intellectual life and freedom of treatment
of theological questions by religious persons.

II.] BISHOP COLENSO. 313
In his reply the Bishop of Cape Town claims to rule
over his Church (not only over his diocese, but, as
Metropolitan, over the whole South African Church) by
the rules of Canon Law, as it was " received in England
in the seventh and eighth centuries by the ecclesiastical
and temporal powers." By that law, he says, the
Metropolitan sitting in his Provincial Synod had power
to deprive a Suffragan ; and " after Canon Law," Bishop
Colenso, as he did not appeal, was actually deprived. It
must be remembered that this was the true point at issue ;
for Colenso altogether challenged the jurisdiction, first
declaring that he refused to be ruled by Canon Law, and,
secondly, denying that he was a Suffragan of the Cape
Town Metropolitan. Throughout Bishop Gray's reply his
scorn for the legal aspects of the case appears. " I have
no faith in lawryers," he cries. " A few days among the
Canonists will do more for us than all their legal knowledge."
The constitutional aspects of the case were in his eyes of
no importance : he felt that he was constructing a new
edifice ; that the old rules and methods applied no longer ;
that such opinions as Dr. Colenso's would be fatal ; that
the new Church in the Colonies must shake itself free from
the patronage and trammels of the State, from the taint
of " the lawyers." His language is strong, his mind made
up, his aim a noble if a narrow one ; but argument there
is none, and his denunciations of Bishop Colenso as a man
whose teaching is anti-Christian, and as one who does
not believe in the Godhead of our Lord, shew the spirit
in which he was prepared to break through all bonds —
cobwebs he would have called them — by which the legal
and constitutional mind in England was endeavouring to
control his movements, and to see that justice should
be done.
Bishop Harold Browne's constitutional and somewhat

314 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
technical way of defending the rights of Bishops was sure
to give much offence to partisans. A gentleman of some
learning and great zeal for orthodoxy. Dr. Littledale, wrote
to him to assure him that his opinions were unsound on
the subject of the Eucharist, and ends with the following
piece of intolerance : —
" I conclude by saying that under ordinary circumstances
I should think myself bound to publish this correspondence ;
but I fear in the present crisis that such a persistent
determination to close an open question and to refuse to
repair an injustice as your Lordship has displayed, would
unsettle some weak minds, already disturbed by that
gross misprision of heresy displayed by several members
of the Episcopate in the Colenso scandal. I therefore
take a middle course, and will put these letters into the
hands of a member of the Upper House of Convocation,
to deal with as he shall think best.
"February 2gth, 1868."
With which awful and indefinite sentence of judgment
we may leave Dr. Littledale in possession of the field.
The Bishop, so far as we know, made no reply.
It is interesting, in considering the progress of opinion
in England, to find that we have also a very different view
of the case taken by Dean Stanley, whose letters to our
Bishop, as those of a friend of Bishop Colenso, may
well appear in this place. He writes from the Deanery,
Westminster, February i8th, 1868 : —
" My dear Lord, — I venture to address you, as being
the only Bishop with whom I have held any direct com
munication on the subject in question, under an apprehen
sion which, if it be mistaken, you will pardon.
" I gather from the correspondence lately published by
the Bishop of Cape Town that it is not impossible that
there may be a private discussion amongst the Bishops
on the question whether any proceedings should be set
on foot by them with a view to removing the Bishop of

II.] BISHOP COLENSO. 315
Natal from his post on the ground of theological opinions,
for which he was condemned by the Bishop of Cape
Town. " It would be presumption in me to make any remarks
on the propriety of such a course in itself But I think
it only due to myself, and to the interests involved, to
point out to your Lordship, and to ask your Lordship to
point out to the other prelates who may be concerned,
that in the speech on the South African Controversy
delivered by me in Convocation on June 29th, 1866 (a
copy of which was transmitted to all the Bishops assembled
at Lambeth in September last), I have stated that I, in
common with many other clergymen of the Church of
England, hold, in principle, the opinions for which the
Bishop of Natal was condemned in South Africa by the
Bishop of Cape Town, and which the Bishop of Cape
Town has again recapitulated in his recent letters as the
grounds of that condemnation.
"I refer particularly to pp. 41-59 of my speech, and
pp. 65-67 of my postscript
" Your Lordship will understand that I do not call your
attention to this fact as furnishing any reason why pro
ceedings against the Bishop of Natal, if so be, should not
take effect; but only to show that in common fairness,
they must if instituted at all, take a much wider sweep ;
and that if the object be to ascertain the legal position
of those who hold such views, common sense and Christian
justice require that this should be ascertained in the case
not of one who is the subject of much odium and obloquy,
but of those on whom the same question can be tried
without the influence of extrinsic and distracting forces,
such as those to which I have adverted. The kindriess
with which your Lordship received the former communica
tions which I had with you on this subject encourages me
to believe that you wiH understand the spirit in which I
now address you, and will at any rate be my apology for
taking this mode of discharging what I feel to be a duty
to the Church. I remain, my dear Lord,
" Yours faithfully and respectfully,
"A. P. Stanley."
To this the Bishop replied in a very courteous and
friendly spirit ; and Dean Stanley resumes the subject in

3l6 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. 'Ch.
a second letter from the Deanery, dated February 13th,
1868:— " My dear Lord, — Your letter was even kinder than
I expected ; but it confirms me stHl more strongly in the
desire that you should consider my letter to your Lordship
as matter to be brought forward in any discussion that
takes place amongst the Bishops on the theological merits
of the Natal question.
" You are good enough to suggest that I do myself and
the Bishop of Natal injustice by representing myself as
entirely coinciding with his views. I should agree with
you on this point. But I have taken particular pains in
my speech and postscript to guard against this (in pp.
35-40, 50, 54, 64, 70), and in so doing have used terms
of disparagement towards the Bishop, of which I for one
hesitate as to their propriety, considering that they are
used of a Bishop by a presbyter. What I insist on is quite
a different proposition, — viz., that however much I may
differ from the Bishop of Natal on other points, I have
both in previous writings, and especially in my speech
(pp. 41-60, 65-67), expressed my concurrence (in which I
have no doubt that hundreds would concur also) with the
Bishop exactly on those points on which he has been con
demned and deposed by the Bishop of Cape Town, and
which the Bishop of Cape Town has recapitulated clearly
enough in his recent Letters (pp. 31, 32), though with his
own hard constructions. I need not do more than refer
your Lordship to the passages, and I cannot but think
that you will see the justice of my plea. I have little
doubt that the Bishop of Cape Town himself (except, it
may be, from mere motives of policy) would fuUy admit
that this was the case ; or would, if possible, depose me
(indeed, for all that I know he may have 'spirituaHy'
deposed me already) on the same grounds as those on
which he has deposed the Bishop of Natal. I therefore
think that my very difference from the Bishop of Natal
on other points makes it the more incumbent for any
discussions on this question to take into consideration the
fact that I, with many other persons, some of whom I have
cited by name, coincide with the Bishop of Natal on the
very points on which he has been deposed, and whatever
consequences flow from such a fact

II.] BISHOP COLENSO. 317
" I have one other point to which I would call your
Lordship's attention. I cannot but think that, if you look
at Bishop Colenso's work on the Pentateuch, Part III.,
pp. 25-28, your Lordship will see that his position with
regard to the questions in the Ordination Service is
entirely different from that which you suppose, and that
he takes up what I confess appears to me the only tenable
position which can be maintained by any one who believes
that the Bible contains any poetical or parabolical books,
even without raising any questions as to interpolation or
accuracy in the prose books.
"You will, therefore, I hope, see that, whilst I quite
claim the character of an independent witness who differs
from the Bishop of Natal on many important points, I
feel bound to indicate that, on almost all the points (I
believe all except that of the endless duration of future
punishment) [for which] the Bishop of Natal has been
deposed by the Bishop of Cape Town, I have expressed
concurrence with him, on principle.
" With many thanks, believe me to be,
" Yours sincerely,
"A. P. Stanley."

After the Canterbury Convocation had recognised the
validity of the deposition of the Bishop of Natal, it only
remained for Bishop Gray to make arrangements for the
election and consecration of a Bishop for the See. It was
clear that, as the Bishop of Natal refused to resign, the
upshot of it must be a painful schism, at least for a time,
in the diocese. This had to be faced ; and Bishop Gray
felt no hesitation about it. The Natal clergy and laity
who adhered to him and the Dean of Maritzburg elected
the Rev. W. J. Butler, then Vicar of Wantage, afterwards
Dean of Lincoln : he, however, declined the nomination.
They then chose the Rev. W. R. Macrorie, Vicar of
Accrington, who accepted. The position taken up by the
four protesting Bishops so far influenced their brethren
on the Bench, that the Archbishops declined to consecrate
the prelate-elect ; and the Scottish Bishops, when appealed

3l8 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
to, after some uncertainty also determined not to commit
themselves. Consequently (and probably with considerable
satisfaction at the result) Bishop Gray sailed for the Cape
in the autumn of 1868, carrying with him his Bishop-
designate. On January 25th, 1869, in the Cathedral
Church of Cape Town, Dr. Macrorie was consecrated
" Bishop of the Church in Natal and Zululand, in com
munion with the Bishops of the province of South Africa,
and with the Church of England." The new Bishop took
his title, rightly, from Maritzburg, the town in which his
Cathedral Church stood, and not from the name of the
colony. The rift in the Church continued long, though
after the Bishop of Natal's death the main cause of it
was removed. It was not till the year 1893, when a new
Bishop for Natal, the Rev. Hamilton Baynes, was con
secrated, that the wound seemed likely to heal up. It
is pleasing to be able to add, as a kind of epitaph on
the subject, that when in 1883 tidings came of Bishop
Colenso's death, our Bishop took notice of it thus in a
letter to Bishop McDougall : — " I am afraid poor Colenso's
death will be a great sorrow to Mrs. McDougall and to
you all. It caused me some pangs of sorrow, for I had
always a regard for him, though I deplored the course he
took." The active controversy lasted about seven years : it had
marked effects on the relation between colonial Churches
and the mother-Church of England. What Dr. Gray
thought of this appears very clearly from the explosion
of feeling with which he greeted the proposal that Bishop
Tozer should take the oath of canonical obedience to the
Archbishop of Canterbury and not to the Metropolitan of
South Africa. He resisted the same claim in the case
of Bishop Mackenzie, declaring that he could not be
received as a Bishop of the province of South Africa if

II.] BISHOP COLENSO. 319
he took that oath to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Bishop Wilkinson in 1870 did, as a matter of fact, take
the oath to the Archbishop of York, and the Archbishop
explained that it was to be transferred to the Metropolitan
of South Africa by a new oath of obedience to be taken
to him. Though Bishop Gray objected to this rather
singular arrangement of oath- transfer, the thing was done
so, and nothing happened.
It had long been seen that the attempt to organise the
missionary and colonial Sees straight from Canterbury,
and as established Churches, could not last. The clergy-
reserves in Canada had been left a wilderness, while all
around them was taken up and cultivated ; it was not
till the State's hand was removed that the vigour of the
colonial Churches began to bear fruit. State endowments
grew unpopular and precarious early in the reign of our
Queen. The Church in India, hampered and well-nigh
strangled by the fears and restrictions of the Company,
slowly and surely won independence ; the lessons of the
Lambeth Conferences, at which there were far more
Bishops of unestablished Anglican Churches than those of
the Established Church, taught the slow-thinking English
mind that, however excellent at home, an • Established
Church had no charms for either the United States or for
the self-ruling colonies of the Crown.
And it was abundantly clear that each provincial Church
must be allowed, sooner or later, to fashion its own life.
Statesmen naturally desired to see the colonial Churches
as closely attached as possible to England, and regretted
the vehemence with which at times the young communities
seemed likely to snap the bonds that bound them to the
little Island in the Western Sea. Still it was seen that
the conditions of ecclesiastical life in England could not
be reproduced in the more independent colonies ; and.

320 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
however much we may regret the violence with which the
Bishop of Cape Town fought his battle, we must allow
that the effects of the struggle were wholesome, and that
colonial liberties, conceded so willingly in things temporal,
could not be denied to Churchmen. The Anglican Church,
if only it be wise and temperate, will play no mean part
in the federation of the English-speaking world. But
ecclesiastically as well as constitutionally, that federation
must always be held together more by convictions,
interests, and affection, than by exact and formal
bonds. The federated States will control their own de
velopment ; the united Churches will show variations
suited to the very varied conditions of their work. Yet
in both Churches and States, essentials will be in unity,
and the harmony the more genuine by reason of the
differences in growth and development In the Churches
there will be one spirit, though the forms be modified ;
one main principle of loyalty to the gospel of Jesus
Christ ; a general unity of form of Church Government ;
and a communion in worship and faith, which will, let us
hope and pray, bind us all together in bonds unbreakable
of Christian charity, effort, and holiness.
No sooner was this painful controversy at an end than
the Bishop of Ely found himself involved in another
difficulty. Dr. Temple, Headmaster of Rugby School,
author of the first paper in " Essays and Reviews,"
in 1869 accepted the bishopric of Exeter. The bishopric
of Bath and Wells being vacant at the same time, the
Crown had appointed Lord Arthur Hervey to it ; and
the two new Bishops were to be consecrated together.
Lord Arthur begged that Harold Browne might be
one of the consecrating prelates, and he consented. No
sooner was this made known than protests came in. Some
begged Bishop Browne to take no part in "consecrating

II.] THE CONSECRATION OF BISHOP TEMPLE. 32 1
a Mitre in Essays and Reviews ; " others cried to him to
beware of the " Septem contra Christum," that malignant
and unjust parody ; not a few of the clergy of his diocese
remonstrated — one Rural Dean sent him the terrible threat
that he would resign his ruridecanal office, and refuse to
serve any longer under him. There was every symptom
of a revival of the white heat of passion, and of the white
pallor of fear, which works even more evil than anger.
Though he met these outcries with reasonable and charit
able replies, the clamour went on to the end. It is not
reassuring to look back at the rage and terror with which
the appointment of a single broad-shouldered Churchman
as Bishop was greeted.
Bishop Harold Browne, deeply as the turmoil distressed
him — he says in one letter that the position in which he
found himself would destroy the effect of all his work at
Cambridge and Ely, if it did not also shorten his life — ¦
never for a moment flinched from what he felt to be his
duty. He endeavoured, naturally enough, to lessen the
force of the opposition to Dr. Temple's appointment by
urging him to sever himself definitely from the other
writers in " Essays and Reviews." His letter on this point
makes a good prelude to the correspondence : —
"Ely, October iZth, 1869.
"My dear Dr. TEMPLE,^Will you let me say this
much to you ? You have pardoned me already for saying
that we have probably differences of opinion. I left my
boys under your care, and my late revered friend Bishop
Phflpotts told me that he consented that his grandson
should become a master under you, because your character
stood so high in aH that was honourable and disinterested,
and you had infused such a very high moral tone into your
school. " I, in common with many who so respected you, regretted
deeply that you wrote in a well-known volume, though
21

322 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
each writer in that volume claimed limited liability. Still,
I always hoped you would have told the ^\-orld what your
own views were on some of the most burning questions in
that book. Your own Essay appeared to me not to con
tain anything very pronounced, though some say it had
the germ of all the rest.
" There is now a great agitation about your nomination
by the Crown to the See of Exeter. I have no business
with the question. But I am deeply interested in Exeter.
I have valued friends in the Chapter. I have a great
personal regard for yourself Is there anything unreason
able in a Bishop Designate being asked to profess his faith
for the satisfaction of those who are to elect him, and who
will be sworn to elect according to their conscience ?
Bishops in old times entering on their dioceses often made
some profession of faith.
" You will not like to do so in answer to clamour That
I quite appreciate. But I am no clamourer, and I am a
common friend of yourself and the Chapter Would there
be anything out of place in your telling me, so that I
might tell others, that you not only hold all the Articles of
the Catholic Creeds, but that you believe and trust in the
Atoning Sacrifice offered on the Cross, and that you do
not doubt the special and supernatural inspiration of the
Prophets and Apostles, not placing that inspiration on the
level of genius, and so considering St. Paul as only so
inspired as was Cicero or Shakespeare ? I do not wish to
put words into your mouth. I may be very presumptuous.
But this presumption arises from an anxious desire to
save the Church from another disastrous struggle, and
to preserve, if it be possible, both its purity and its
peace. " This letter, if you do not yield to its suggestion, shaH
be private between us. I am not laying a trap for you,
that you may be obliged to say one thing or the other, and
so commit yourself I am sure you will not think so.
But if my suggestion might help to calm this still increas
ing tempest, I should be thankful.
" Praying you to pardon me if I have overstepped the
bounds which you will permit to our comparatively slight
intimacy, I am, my dear Dr. Temple, " Yours very sincerely,
" E. H. Ely."

II.] THE CONSECRATION OF BISHOP TEMPLE. 323
Dr. Temple's reply was a very manly and straightfor
ward refusal to take any such step : —
"Rugby, October 21st, 1869.
" My dear Lord, — I know no one whose advice I
would more gladly follow than yours, and I have thought
about your letter a good deal. But I cannot satisfy my
conscience that it would be right to make, either directly
or indirectly, any such statement as you suggest. To do
so would surely be a most dangerous precedent, sure to
be followed, and sure to have mischievous consequences.
It would be by no means desirable that every Bishop
Designate should be called upon to issue a public manifesto
before taking office. It would be by no means desirable
that Church parties should be encouraged to clamour by
the hope of extorting some such declaration.
" Further, what is gained by a public statement now
which will not be gained by personal intercourse two
months hence ? I shall as well be able, I shall better be
able, to allay all this anxiety then than now. And to do
it then by quiet personal intercourse will admit of no
misconstruction. To do it now will wear the appearance
of doing it not for the sake of the Church, but to smooth
my own course.
" Nor can 1 keep myself from a very strong feeling that
there would be something irreverent in proclaiming my
belief in such fundamental doctrines as you quote, in order
to quiet a disturbance.
" Finally, there is a very real danger in formal statements
of this kind, the danger of unintentionally deceiving.
People understand the same words in very different senses.
And the occasion is too grave to allow us to run such a
risk. '' I have no doubt at all that I shall, if God spare me,
find means to satisfy the great body of the clergy in the
West that I am earnestly desiring to serve our Lord, and
care for His service beyond everything else on earth. And
then all this anxiety will pass away. Meanwhile I must
hold my tongue. " Yours very gratefully,
" F. Temple.'
The Bishop Designate in fact was not going to shelter

324 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
himself from the storm by deserting his colleagues. Nor
did he feel himself bound to criticise and condemn their
contributions. So the matter had to go on without being
lightened by a disclaimer. Bishop Harold Browne pre
sently thought it well to explain his position in the affair
by means of a letter addressed to his Archdeacons, to
which he appended his reasons for holding to his promise
to be one of the consecrating prelates.
"Palace, Ely, December i6th, 1869,
" My dear Mr. Archdeacon, — Having with my
brethren in general the greatest possible aversion to the
book called ' Essays and Reviews,' and feeling also that
Dr, Temple is greatly mistaken, and I must add much
to be blamed, for throwing so heavy a responsibility on
others, and not relieving it by a few words spoken in
public, I yet learn both from public and private sources
that he is personally free from the errors in some portions
of that book ; and I have great hopes that when he is
once Bishop of Exeter he will no longer shrink from
clearing himself from complicity with it,
" I have been named among the Consecrators in the
Archbishop's Commission, no doubt, from my connection
with Lord Arthur Hervey, one of the three Bishops to
be consecrated on the 21st. It has thus become necessary
for me to decide whether I will join in that consecration,
or will decline to do so in consequence of Dr Temple's
connection with ' Essays and Reviews.' I think my
diocese has a right to know the reasons which guided
me in this case, and 1 desire to make those reasons known,
through you. Earnestly praying that the God of truth
and peace may guide us all at this and other times of
trial into all truth in all peace and love, '' I am, etc.
" E. Harold Ely."
" Reasons.
" I. Dr. Temple's Essay itself does not contain heresy.
" 2. Each writer actually guards his own limited re
sponsibility in it, and Dr, Temple was wholly ignorant
of the drift and character of the other Essays.

II,] THE CONSECRATION OF BISHOP TEMPLE. 325
" 3. Though Dr. Temple ought to have taken from it
the influence of his name, which, in connection with the
comparatively harmless character of his Essay, gave special
weight to the volume, yet those who know him best
attribute his silence to a chivalrous spirit
" 4. Though I hold that the Church should have fullest
assurance of the soundness of every one admitted to the
ministry, yet I cannot understand, and do not share
the scruples of those who think that no declarations ought
to be made except such as are required by the express
law of the Church. Dr. Temple is a man of so high a
moral tone, and of such a manly and truthful character,
that I cannot believe he would sign formularies, etc., with
out heartily assenting to them in their natural and literal
meaning. " 5. In Dr Temple's sermons published we find the
doctrines which he is thought unaccountably to have
omitted in his Essay.
"6. The Convocation of Canterbury has distinguished
between censure of a book and condemnation of a man
or men.
" 7. I believe him to be a man of singular probity, a
sincere Christian and believer in all the Articles of the
Christian faith.
" 8. I accept the status quo of the manner of appoint
ment of Bishops.
" 9. Prcemunire was intended against the Pope, not
against Chapters, etc.
" 10. Chapters would do right, were Government to
nominate a person of vicious life or of heretical or un
believing opinion, ruat ccelum.
"II. The Exeter Chapter Election is a reality.
" Therefore I accept the nomination, and propose to take
part in the Consecration of Bishop Temple."
A couple of days after this paper was sent to the
Archdeacons, Bishop Browne once more addressed himself
to the Bishop Designate, still hoping to persuade him to
shake himself clear from " Essays and Reviews."
" Ely, December \%th, 1869.
" My dear Lord, — I answered your last letter, but did
not send the answer from fear to trouble you with longer

326 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
correspondence. The extreme anxiety of my position
induces me to write to you once more.
" I enclose the copy of a letter which is but one specimen
of letters which reach me daily. You have said that
you would not scruple to answer any questions to me
privately. I really think that, if you knew how I shall
sacrifice private friendship, public reputation, and perhaps
all the influence which I now have in my diocese and
elsewhere by joining in your Consecration, you would feel
that I have some claim on you for such confidence.
" I have read your Essay frequently, and I have read
your sermons, and though I find ambiguous language in
them, I do not see anything which looks like heresy.
" The real mischief is this. Your name is a justly
honoured name. Its appearance in the van of the ' Essays
and Reviews ' has commended the other Essays to the
acceptance of many. I am assured by my own clergy and
others that they have witnessed death-beds of hopeless
infidelity entirely brought on by that volume. I have
never heard of any doubter being conciliated to Christianity
or strengthened in his belief by these Essays. Now I
foresee that that weight which your name has given to
this book will be greatly increased by your consecration
to the bishopric of Exeter, if your name, already honoured,
has the honourable addition to it of a Bishop in Christ's
Church, and if it still stands at the head of these Essays
in all future editions without any sign of dissent from
you. " The question with me is. Can 1 rightly contribute to
giving that additional authority to your name, if I know
that it will be so used?
" You know that I gladly welcomed your nomination to
the bishopric : you know my very high esteem for you,
and how I shall rejoice to work with you, if all goes well.
The recent correspondence between yourself and the
Bishop of Lincoln [Wordsworth] and your private letters
to me have greatly increased my anxiety. I am quite
ready to bear what I shall bear far more than anyone else,
— the blame which will rest on your consecrators, though
I expect that it wiH undo all the work of six years in my
diocese, and perhaps destroy life as well [as] influence :
but I shrink from participating in what I now see to be
so full of danger, the giving, not to you, but to ' Essays
and Reviews,' additional weight and authority. Can you

II.] THE CONSECRATION OF BISHOP TEMPLE. 327
not give me privately some assurance that the fearful
destruction which that book has wrought shall not be
aided in future by your name ?
" Believe me ever,
" Yours most truly,
"E. H. Ely."
Dr. Temple certainly regretted that one whom he so
much respected should be buffeted about by the excited
partisans of frightened orthodoxy : still, he preferred to
let the matter take its course. And time shewed that he
was right : the career of the characteristic Bishop of
Exeter and London is the best reply to those who may
have been impressed by the shrill loudness of the outcry.
On the same day on which Bishop Harold Browne
wrote this letter to his friend, one of his Archdeacons,
H. J. Rose, addressed him an anxious remonstrance, hoping
to get from him an assurance that he was going to be one
of the consecrators only because of his friendship for Lord
Arthur Hervey. He writes with the old note about the
"pain" which High Church people say anything they
dislike causes them. Pain is a wholesome discipline ; and
the party has grown and flourished none the less for being
sometimes subjected to it
" Houghton Conquest, Ampthill,
"December \%th 1869.
" My dear Lord, — I am sure your Lordship wiH pardon
the freedom with which I write on a subject which now
o-ives great pain to Churchmen — I mean the consecration
of Dr. Temple.
" It was only last night that I learned from the news
papers that the Bishop of Ely was named on the Com
mission. I had been assured, on what 1 believed to be
good authority, that his honoured name was not in the
Commission. It is, of course, a matter of individual
conscience, with which no one can presume to interfere, to
decide on the propriety of taking part in the service. But
1 regret to think of the pain which our best Churchmen

328 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Qh.
in this archdeaconry will feel on learning that their loved
Diocesan is to be one of the consecrating prelates. They
would be thankful to know that it is as the friend of Lord
Arthur Hervey that your Lordship attends at the Con
secration, if as some suppose, such is the case.
" Believe me, my dear Lord,
" Your faithful, affectionate friend,
"H. J. Rose."
The Bishop has happily preserved the draft of his
reply, so that we obtain a full view of the way in which
he regarded the matter. It is wonderful to see with what
gentleness he treats the excited and unreasonable crowd
of objectors, and with what firmness, having made up his
mind as to his right course, he holds to it through good
report and evil report. His reply was dated the day
before the Consecration, "Ely, December 20th 1869.
" My dear Archdeacon,— I could not answer your
very kind letter yesterday in the midst of a large Ordi
nation. Be assured I am only too thankful for plain
outspoken Christian remonstrance. I will tell you all I
have to tell. First, let me say that the placing of my
name among the Bishops to consecrate Lord Arthur Hervey
and Dr. Temple was simply the act of the Primate without
my knowledge. I supposed at the time that I was named
because Lord Arthur had been my Archdeacon as well as
mj' very valued friend. However that may have been, the
first that I heard of it was a letter from the Archbishop's
Secretary at one of the earliest stages of the Archbishop's
most alarming iHness, in which I was told that a com
mission had been signed by his Grace to me and to three
other bishops, and that he earnestly hoped that I .should
be willing to act under it.
" Now for my own part
" When first I heard of Dr Temple's nomination by
the Prime Minister and acceptance by the Crown, my
thoughts were of this kind : — There has long been an
acknowledged place in the English Church for what we
now call a Broad School. The ' latitude divines,' Witchcote,

II.] THE CONSECRATION OF BISHOP TEMPLE. 329
Henry More, etc., were its antetypes, and you know better
than I can tell you that some of them did good service.
In our own times we have had men like Dr. Arnold,
Archbishop Whately, Bishop Hinds, and others whom I
need not recount I remember, when Dr. Hinds was made
Bishop of Norwich, a very orthodox friend of mine saying
that we probably need not be dissatisfied, as he was the
best of a bad school. I do not think the Church Catholic
(nor the English Church as being a sound portion of that
Church) could eject such men, and I should be sorry to
see her eject an Edward Irving or a Macleod Campbell,
as the Scotch Kirk has done.
" This being so, it is pretty certain that men of that
School will not be wholly overlooked in preferment to high
places in the Church. Indeed, if they were by belonging
to that School excluded from any one office in the ministry,
I see not how they should not be excluded from any one,
even the lowest. When therefore I heard it said that Mr.
Gladstone was determined to recommend for bishoprics
members of all the different Church parties, it certainly
seemed to me a very happy thing that he should have chosen
one of such high character, real piety, and great energy as
Dr. Temple. I could not help welcoming the appointment
as the best that could be made from the School in question.
I had a very high esteem for Dr. Temple personally, and
I never believed that any of his writings were heretical.
I have always maintained that if his Essay had stood
alone, no one would have called its writer a heretic. I
said so repeatedly in Committee of Convocation, and
Convocation made it clear that that which is condemned
was not any particular writer or any body of writers, but
a book which was, taken as a whole, mischievous and
destructive, "When I found myself placed in the Commission to
•consecrate, I certainly felt a fresh responsibility and new
anxieties. The frantic protests of some persons affected
me very little. Their tendency is always to prejudice me
against them, because I see that passion rules and not
wisdom. But I had to ask myself seriously : After
Election and Confirmation, ought the Bishops of the
Province of Canterbury to consecrate Dr. Temple or ought
they not ? This seems to me the true measure of my own
responsibility. If Dr. Temple ought, under the circum
stances of the case, to be consecrated, then I, having

330 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
received the Archbishop's Commission, have no right to
shrink from consecrating him through any regard to my
own ease or comfort or good fame. I have no right to
cast on others the responsibility which providentially has
fallen on me, how much soever I may shrink from the
obloquy and misrepresentation which I know must be
my lot.
" If I in my conscience believe that, at the present stage
of the proceedings, the next step ought to be the consecra
tion, then I am a coward if I allow others to consecrate
him when I have been called on to do so. Of course, I
may add the less weighty consideration that if I absent
myself from Westminster Abbey to-morrow, I shall be
unable to present and consecrate my own friend and
Archdeacon, Lord Arthur Hervey.
" Looking then at Dr. Temple only by himself I should
say at once, under all the circumstances he ought to be
consecrated. He, and those who think with him, have a
recognised standing-ground in the Church. It is hardly
possible that no one of his School should rise to the
Episcopate. It would be hard to find any better repre
sentative of his School. He will probably be an active,
efficient, impartial Bishop, as he has been one of the best
Headmasters of a public school that ever lived.
" But on the other hand there is what seems to me the
terrible fact that his Essay, standing at the head of ' Essays
and Reviews,' being far more innocuous in itself than any
of the others, and bearing his honoured name upon it has
shed a lustre on the whole book, has induced many to
read the book and to trust it, who would otherwise either
not have read it at all, or would have read it with caution
and suspicion, and so have been safer from its poison.
That he should have suffered the Essay to stand where it
does through successive editions is, 1 confess, a difficulty
which I am unable to solve. To my own mind this is the
one difficulty, and it has puzzled my will.
" I am not at liberty to say anything that has passed in
private correspondence between Dr. Temple and myself
I will only say for myself that I have tried long and
anxiously, and almost at times despairingly, to see my
way out of the maze of doubt I need not tell you that
it has been the subject of hourly prayer. Consequences
seem likely to be serious in any case. If the Bishops were
to refuse to consecrate there would be instant collision

II.] THE CONSECRATION OF BISHOP TEMPLE. 33 1
between the temporality and the spirituality, and that
disestablishment which you fear would come in the worst
possible form, viz., not as a disunion of Church and State,
but as a separation of the great bulk of the clergy from
the great bulk of the laity. The laity are at least nineteen
to one in favour of Dr. Temple. And what a loss of
blessing would that be, if the Church was found to be a
body of shepherds with no sheep to feed ! On the other
side I see all the dangers of tender consciences wounded,
zealous Churchmen alienated, distrust as to the soundness
of a body where there is thought to be no resistance to
error, and an agitation by some unchastened spirits for
change of a destructive character. The balance of con
sequences is like the balance of duties ; but 1 am quite
sure you will feel with me, that consequences may safely
be disregarded if duties can be clearly ascertained.
" On the whole, I have come to the conclusion that I am
convinced in my own mind that Dr. Temple is not a
heretic nor an immoral liver ; that there is no canonical
impediment to his consecration ; that all legal steps have
been gone through ; that, if a formal trial had at any point
of the proceedings been obtained, it would in any actual
or conceivable court, civil or ecclesiastical, have issued
in his acquittal on every charge of heresy, without the
smallest doubt or shadow of a doubt ; that, therefore, there
is really no ground which can be legitimately taken for
the Bishops of the province of Canterbury, in the present
state of the proceedings, to refuse consecration ; and, if
there be not then I, whatever it may cost me, am bound
to consecrate. That is to say, holding that consecration
ought not to be withheld, I am bound not to shrink from
my own responsibility, and to throw it upon others. I
wiH only add that, though I know well how I shaH be
judged here, I appeal to a higher judgment and as in the
presence of that I can say that I know no motive in my
own heart but the desire in this to do as I would do if
to-morrow were to be my last day in this world.
" Ever, my dear Archdeacon,
" Your affectionate friend,
" E. H. Ely."
One letter of remonstrance more, in the shrill oriental
fashion of the remarkable man who wrote it, shall find a

332 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
place here. The Bishop knew Dean Burgon well, and
fully appreciated — who did not ? — his quaintness bordering
on originality, his kindness of heart, his love for children,
and childlike way of looking at the problems of life. Mr
Burgon does not date his letter ; it must have been
written not long before the day of Temple's consecration
(December 21st, 1869). " Oriel.
" My dear Lord, — It would be unbecoming in me to
say more. Your transparent sincerity I never for an
instant, of course, doubted.
" I am persuaded, however, that you still do not see the
danger of the thing I deprecate, because you raise a
mistaken issue. I have explained this at length in the
enclosed paper.
" At least I have the comfort of knowing that I gave
you all the warning I could. And still if the perusal of
this protest makes you alter your mind, I am as sure as
I am of my life that you will not hesitate a moment to
draw back — even at this late hour.
" I do not measure myself with you, nor dare to think
how we shall compare at the last day, in God's sight,
without being overwhelmed with confusion.
" Respectfully and affectionately yours,
"J. W. B.
" May the good Lord guide you !
'' P.S. — Of course Dr. T. was not condemned by
the House of Bishops. No one was. They have no
power to condemn anybody. Books — not men — are con
demned. " But you cannot consecrate a book. And if you
condemn a book, you mean that you will not consecrate
the man.
" Had you wished to excuse Temple, you (of the Upper
House) should have said so. But not a word was
dropped !
" Excuse this P,S. It is the result of re-perusing your
letter before I burn it."

II.] THE CONSECRATION OF BISHOP TEMPLE.

333

The Bishop's reply to his eager friend is so full of
sweetness and goodness that it cannot be omitted : —
"Ely, December yd, 1869.
" My dear Mr. Burgon,— I must answer your letter,
if it were only to thank you for its affectionate kindness.
I need hardly tell you that the subject of it has long
occupied my thoughts and prayers.
" As it happens, the Archbishop of Canterbury has, I
am told, placed my name in the Commission for con
secrating the Bishops of Exeter, Bath and Wells, and the
Falkland Islands. Moreover, the Bishop-elect of Bath and
Wells, being my own highly valued Archdeacon, has asked
me to present him at the consecration, and it would be
hard for me to stay away. Then comes the question.
Having to be present can I refuse to join in the con
secration of the Bishop of Exeter ?
" I joined in condemning the book in which his Essay
appears, and I still think it is one of the most destructive
books which the present century has produced ; but I have
read again the Preface and Dr. Temple's Essay. The
Preface claims entire independence for each author and
irresponsibility for what others have written. Dr. Temple's
Essay has many things with which I do not agree, but I
find in it distinctly the creation of the world by God, its
government natural and spiritual, by His providence, the
spiritual nature and accountability of man, the final
judgment, the Divinity of Christ, the Divine revelation of
religious truth to the Jews and Christians in contradis
tinction to the light of nature among the heathens, the
infallible inspiration of Scripture in matters of faith, and
other religious truths. These things come out incidentally,
but there they are. There are, no doubt other truths
which I do not find there ; but I cannot expect every
Christian truth to come out in every essay on a religious
question. There is certainly the supposition that the
writers of Holy Scripture may not have been infalHble
in matters of science or of history. This even is not
asserted, but only supposed possible ; and whatever I
myself may hold on this point, I can find no Creed or
Article or decree of Council which defines the exact nature
and extent of inspired infallibility.
" I entirely agree with the Archbishop of Canterbury in

334 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
regretting that Dr Temple has not disclaimed all sympathy
with some of the sayings in the other Essays. I under
stand the feelings of honour which have weighed with
him ; but I think the Church and the interest of souls
have as much hold on us as feelings of delicacy toward
friends and colleagues. Still, as he falls back on re
sponsibility for his own Essay alone, as I have never heard
that he has given utterance to heresy in any other way,
as he professes himself ready to make all required
declarations and subscriptions, as I believe him to be a
man of singularly high moral tone and incapable of signing
in a non-natural sense, as the Archbishop of Canterbury,
my own Metropolitan, vouches for his orthodoxy, the
following seems plain to me. Dr. Temple has been chosen
by the Crown, elected by the Chapter (according to the
present form of the Concordia sacerdotii et imperii) ; if he
is further confirmed by the Metropolitan (according to
Canon IV. and VI. of the Council of Nice), and if he is
presented by two Bishops as a godly and well-learned man,
there is no reason for me to withhold my hand when
others are laid on him.
" I am fully prepared for a storm of indignation,
' sacerdotum ardor prava jubentium ' ! I fear incomparably
more the giving pain to many dear friends, with whom 1
have almost every feeling in common, but who see this
question in a different light from myself Nay ! I fear
that I shall entirely lose the friendship and confidence of
some. But, if I allowed these motives to weigh with me,
I should feel that 1 was not acting a manly and Christian
part, and so I should fear to lose the favour of God ; and
1 look forward to a time when the misunderstandings of
the disciples of Jesus Christ will be cleared up in the light
of His eternal presence,
" Believe me, my dear Mr. Burgon,
" Yours affectionately and gratefully,
"E. H. Ely."
Mr, Burgon returned to the attack with one of those
" frenzied " efforts of which the Bishop makes mention.
One would have thought that the end of the Christian
faith was come, so violent and despairing was the tone
of it, so hopeless the figure of the kind good Fellow of

II.] THE CONSECRATION OF BISHOP TEMPLE. 335

Oriel, as he looked out of that window near the College
gate from which he was wont to observe the doings of a
degenerate world.
Some of the Bishop's correspondents wrote in a very
different strain. Thus, the Bishop of Carlisle recognised
the difficulty of his position, and the manly way in which
he had faced it ; the laity generally were favourable to
the course he had followed. The clergyman, Mr. Morton
Shaw, to whom he offered the office of Rural Dean, thrown
back to him by one outraged Rector, spoke out vigorously
in his letter accepting the post : —
"RouGHAM Rectory, Bury St. Edmunds.
"February 21st, 1870.
"My dear Lord Bishop, — Since I wrote last night
I have learnt the reason of Mr.  •'s resignation, which
I presume he stated to your Lordship at the time ; so
that I hope I am not trespassing upon improper ground
in alluding to it But it has decided me at once to accept
the appointment. I do so, indeed, for the very reason
that led him to resign it. I should have asked permission
to wait until I see how I come out of my iHness before
deciding, under other circumstances. But I wish every
one of my neighbours to know what I feel on that subject ;
and if I should come very badly out of my illness and
find myself unequal to the duties of the office, I must ask
you kindly to relieve me of it.
" From the very first I have expressed the opinion that
if I had been in your Lordship's place I should have done
as you did ; for that you had clearly two responsibilities
placed before you, — one that of consecrating, and the
other that of refusing to do so ; and that I didn't see
how, having both clearly before your conscience, you could
do otherwise than accept what, after all, painful as it
might be, seemed to me the less serious responsibility —
that of consecrating.
" I have often longed to write and tell you how much
1 sympathised with you in all that I knew you must be
suffering in regard to this matter. But I felt that it would
be a liberty to go out of the way to do so, and also that

336 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.II.

there was almost a kind of indignity in seeming to imply
that you needed any vindication from any of your clergy
for doing what you conscientiously, and as I think truly,
felt it your duty to do.
" Believe me, my dear Lord Bishop,
" Your Lordship's most obliged and obedient servant,
"Morton Shaw.
" The Lord Bishop of Ely."
The violence and excitement soon wore themselves out,
and calmer judgments prevailed. People found out that the
formidable schoolmaster became a Bishop who could not
be played with safely ; his earnestness and real piety, his
vigorous utterances and plain common sense, his freedom
from extravagances, his championship of religious educa
tion, soon allayed alarm. " Essays and Reviews " were put
on the shelf and forgotten ; and the Bishop of Ely found
that after aH, his work went on much as before, and that
he had by no means forfeited the esteem and affection
of his diocese.

CHAPTER III.
organisation of the diocese.
A MAN who was bold enough to say, as Bishop Harold
Browne did in 1871, that " the best method of Church
defence is Church work," would certainly take care that in
his own sphere " Church work " should be a reality. The
thirty years that have passed since he was first called to
the Episcopate have seen a vast change, of which the
Bishop was one of the pioneers. The road is now, thanks
largely to his energy and practical gifts, open in the
direction of still farther advances.
All the Bishop's innovations were in one direction.
They aimed at more organisation, which should employ
and interest Churchmen in Church matters ; they tried to
teach men to differ charitably or to agree heartily. Apart
from the spiritual aspect of the question, there can be no
doubt that the shifting of the political balance, and the
uprising of new social powers, have given a fresh insistence
to the vital question. Is the Church of England the Church
of the people? So long ago as his Ely days. Bishop
Harold Browne saw that this question could not be set
aside, and longed to quicken the zeal of his clergy in
dealing with the people. If the Church is to retain her
position in the future, it can only be by realising this
necessity, as many single-hearted men who work in our
large towns are aware. The stability of "Church and
337 22

338 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

State" may be as much strengthened by this new reading
of the Church's duty in the towns as it is weakened by
the continuance of the older system in country villages.
There the Church strives to perpetuate or restore the old
idyllic life, at the moment when the villagers are attaining
to a sense of new rights and privileges, and a wholesome,
if as yet uneasy, independence ; in the more complex life
of towns she is learning, thanks chiefly to the more modern
school of High Churchmanship, to adapt herself to the
conditions of life around her and to prove herself the guide
and friend of the wage-earner.
The Bishop's handling of this vital subject was rather
in the older spirit : —
"A Church," he says in the Charge of 1869, " which has
lost its poor, and lost them to indifference and sin, has
indeed lost its truest riches. . . . The evil grows, and all
the Church must work against it. . . . The Church is
called on to throw itself with all its soul into the con
flict. . . . No lazy perfunctory work will reach them.
There is need of throwing ourselves into their wants and
homes, living familiarly among them, giving ourselves
wholly to them. . . . We all of us want, but the poor want
most especially, strong, earnest, fervent heart-utterances
in their prayers."
We must be grateful for such wise words, yet we feel
that there is always a certain condescension ; the Bishop
will treat them with the warmest sympathy and win them
by kindness, yet they are in a different sphere ; the notion
of the brotherhood and ultimate equality of all in Christ is
hardly realised. The subject came up not infrequently in
the Diocesan (Conferences ; and the Bishop always treated
it so as to shew that he saw the importance of the problem.
In one address he admits that the clergyman is usually a
member of the employer class, yet he is " the natural
defender of the poor," a noble office which he must try

in.] ORGANISATION OF THE DIOCESE. 339

to fulfil with ever-growing zeal and power. In another
address he points out the terrible fact that —
" Only two per cent, of the working-classes in large towns
attend public worship ; infidelity is making way among the
masses ; five millions are living in neglect of all means of
grace ; there is, I fear, but little active preaching of the
gospel, of the simple proclaiming of the glad tidings of
salvation." The Bishop tells them that he yearns to lead a crusade,
a true crusade, against the modern spirit of indifference.
He takes heart in thinking that " one great sign of hope
to the Church at present is that amidst the crowd of
operatives in our great manufacturing towns the religion
of the Church is the most popular ; the Church has gained
most ground in populous centres."
In another Conference address (1871), he calls attention
to the evils of intemperance ; and his words may carry the
more weight with some from the fact that the Bishop,
though most temperate and even abstemious, was not a
total abstainer. He speaks of drunkenness as " a vice of
civilisation, not of barbarism. One in every thirty-four
houses in England is a licensed house. ... In some
villages one in twenty, even one in ten ! . . . A por
tentous thing."
In this same address, in the just indignation of his heart
he went on to enlarge on the bad surroundings of the
working-man's life, speaking of his wretched and crowded
dweHings, his unwholesome sanitary state and general
discomfort and he added that we must endeavour to
improve the dwelHngs of the poor. Presently, however,
he became aware that some magnate on the platform was
pulling a long face ; and he weakened the effect of his
weighty words by explaining that " this is in towns, not in
' sweet country villages.' " But people with opened eyes —

340 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

most of US are as blind as puppies — know well enough that
neither vice nor misery can be said to belong to either
town or country to the exclusion of the other ; and though
the model village may smile outside the park gates, there
is many a wretched hovel within reach which deserves to
the fuH the Bishop's vigorous words of condemnation.
Nor does his practical mind forget to suggest some sen
sible ways of lessening the evH. He discusses in one of his
Visitation Charges the best way of alluring the working-
men to church. He recommends a most admirable code of
village church usage. Let us have, he says, churches open
on a week day, and on every week day evening a short
service, as a kind of Family Prayers : " the prayers taking
fifteen minutes ; then a hymn, then a short practical
address for ten minutes more." " Let us have brighter
singing in service : choral service where it can be managed."
He also advises a Litany on Sunday afternoons, with
homely and interesting catechising on the life of our
Lord, or short colloquial sermons addressed specially ' ad
populum.' That catechising in church should have so
much dropped out of use in country places is a most
astonishing and lamentable fact Then he suggests that
all class distinctions should disappear within the waHs of
God's house ; and lastly^ and here is the key of the whole
position — he cries aloud for a zealous and faithful clergy
capable of rightly dividing the word of truth. There is
a pretty touch, in the same visitation, which gives us a
glimpse of the Bishop's own parochial life. Archdeacon
Emery, his trusted friend and colleague, in enforcing his
chief's advice about the best way of gaining admittance
to the hearts of the people, said that —
" The clergyman, however much ' the gentleman,' would
be heartily received by the poor, if like their Bishop in
his former parishes he visited his poor folk, and did not

III.] ORGANISATION OF THE DIOCESE. 341

disdain to sit down with them and take a meal or a cup
of tea ; or even to help them to boil the kettle."
Just before the close of his Ely episcopate the Bishop
had approved of a very practical discussion in the Diocesan
Conference on " The duty of the Church, clergy and laity,
in relation to the disputes between Labour and Capital,
with special reference to the danger of alienating the
working classes from religion and religious ordinances."
And on this large and most vital topic he spoke with
much gravity and a real insight into many of the difficulties
of the problem. He treated the subject from a somewhat
wide point of view, calling his address a discourse on
" Vital Christianity and Modern Civilisation," and dealing
with the relations of the Church to the world in general
rather than to the working folk specially. Still, all he
said bears directly on the essential question — Why it is
that the religion of Jesus Christ has been so far from
realising the most important of all its duties : " To the
poor the gospel is preached."
" I believe," he says, and so saying strikes the note of
a liberal policy for the Church, " that Communism and
Socialism are really the earnest strugglings of the human
heart for a state of society which the Christian Church
ought to supply. They are a kind of travesty on the
condition of the Church as her Founder intended it to be.
It was intended to be one great society, one great body,
knit together in unity of heart and soul, in which if one
member suffer all the members suffer with it and one
member rejoice, all the members rejoice with it ; in which
every effort is made to raise the poor ; to keep the rich
from being proud and overbearing ; to promote perfect
sympathy between all classes ; to make every one feel
that whether a man is higher than himself or lower he
is his brother in Christ, with the same hopes and ends
and aims. Therefore Communism and Socialism are the
uneasy throes of the human mind, and if the Church knew
how to deal with them, all these desires would be satisfied."

342 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
A little later, he addresses himself again to the problem
of the poor.
" In former times," he says, " it was a glory of the
Church that it could be called emphatically the Church
of the poor . . . but it may be feared that religion of all
kinds is losing its hold on the labouring man. There are
many causes for this. The rapid growth of population,
far outstripping the growth of the means of grace, is one
chief cause. But we must look farther and deeper still.
It may be said without fear of contradiction that the
only Church in Christendom, at all events in Western
Christendom, which commands the confidence of the
wealthy and the well-educated is the English Church.
This is true, not only where establishment is supposed to
give a high social position to its clergy, but in the colonies,
in some of which it is at singular disadvantage. On the
Continent the Roman Church revolts the intelligence,
while the Reformed Churches do not satisfy the wants, of
the educated classes. We have then great privileges. It
is a great point gained when faith is conciliated, yet reason
not offended. But the gain of the rich is ill purchased if
it be by the loss of the poor ; and I am afraid it must be
said that in aH Protestant countries not the Church only
but religion altogether is losing its hold upon the poor
But it ought not so to be. There is no sufficient reason
why the English Church at all events should lose the poor
Of the two it had far better lose the rich. ' Hath not God
chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith and heirs of
the promises?' and evil will betide the Church which
disregards those whom God has chosen.
"In the present struggle it is not altogether unnatural
that the labouring man should look on the clergyman
as likely to be his enemy. The clergyman belongs to the
employer — not to the labourer — class. He is often himself
possessed of land, and so likely to sympathise with owners
and holders of land or property. Besides, he is by duty
as well as by interest a defender of the law. On these
accounts the labourer or operative is likely to esteem him
a prejudiced person, prejudiced against his cause and his
rights. The greatest discretion is therefore needed by the
clergy, on the one hand not to encourage the labouring
man in any undue assertion of his rights, but on the other

III.] ORGANISATION OF THE DIOCESE. 343

hand not to be led away by any personal or class interest
to take a part or to say an unwise word against him The
minister of God is the natural defender of the poor and
he had better err by defending him too much than by
deserting him when he needs defence.
"It is pretty generally admitted that the agricultural
labourer in many parts of England has had wrongs ; and
I think It will not be denied that no one has so tried to
do him right as the parochial clergy. They have tried
to raise his social condition, have defended him against
oppression, have ministered to him in poverty, sickness,
and sorrow, have provided almost the only education
hitherto provided for him at all. They have especially
defended him against himself In all these ways we are
called on to defend him still. I am sure that the best
friend of the working man is he who educates him best
not as an animal, but as a being who is heir of both
worlds, and who has wants for both."
Nor did the Bishop fail, when occasion offered, to talk
in a very friendly and sympathetic strain to labouring
people. His advice was wholesome and sensible, and
answered fairly enough to the conditions of the labour
problem as it then presented itself
" I wish you," he said, " to plead for your own rights ;
I wish you to have your rights. I earnestly wish that
every poor man and woman may have his or her rights
as regards labour, wages, everything else ; but I want
you to try and obtain them in a reasonable spirit, in such
a spirit as is likely to be prospered by God and accepted
by man. One thing I certainly wish — I wish you all could
have better houses : it would be a great blessing ; and I
wish you could all have a little portion of land. But there
is one thing I specially wish you to do, and that is, when
you prosper, when wages rise, and your houses are more
comfortable, and homes more comfortable, that you should
know how to take care of your houses, your homes, your
property, and, most of all, of yourselves. What does most
harm to the working man in this country is what he does
of himself If he gets good wages, he often does not bring
them home to wife and children, but takes the money
elsewhere. In some manufacturing districts many men

344 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

spend three days of the week working and four drinking ;
and then are poorer than they were when wages were less,
and are less comfortable, and their wives and children
worse off". Nothing wiH give you such command of the
market view of life as command of yourselves. I would
say to both parties, masters and men, that the best way to
get grievances righted is to do no wrong ; to do what you
think well to do, kindly, as firmly as you like, still kindly,
gently, sensibly. Argue fairly, act properly, in a straight
forward way, not by way of agitation. I do not wonder at
agitations sometimes, for working men have had causes
for complaint ; there are reasons why working men should
combine to save their rights. Do all you do prudently ;
you have sympathy on your side. But if it comes to a
conflict, take care : there is such power in wealth that the
labourer is likely to be worsted. So be prudent in calling
for a rise of wages, and careful not to defeat yourselves."
It would be easy to criticise some of these utterances ;
still the fact remains that he was aware of the growing
labour-problem ; that he faced it sympathetically and in
a good spirit, and sincerely desired to stand, as friend to
both sides, between the two ; and wished his clergy to
occupy the same position. That greatest question of the
future, the destiny of the worker, and the use he will
make of his power when he comes to understand it rose
into the Bishop's sight in days in which it was entirely
below the horizon for the most of us. He hoped that the
Church would have wisdom and grace to help towards
the wholesome solution of this grave question. It is
worthy of notice that one of those who were brought up
at our Bishop's feet in the old Cambridge days, the present
Bishop of Durham, has been called on to face the problem
in all its difficulty, and did excellent work in the great
Durham strike in 1892.
The ten years of the Bishop's work at Ely were full of
well-aimed endeavours to secure the harmonious activity
of the Church. No man had ever before him a higher

III.] ORGANISATION OF THE DIOCESE. 345
ideal of the episcopal calling. His aim was to be guide
and father to his diocese ; and in this he never spared
himself It was the moment at which Bishops, finding that
their work multiplied till they were unable to keep pace
with it, looked out for help. Those who could obtain
Suffragan Bishops began to make arrangements for this
relief It was obvious that a Bishop and a helping Bishop,
working heartily together, would catch up arrears of organi
sation, and infinitely enlarge the usefulness of episcopal
supervision. And our Bishop, having within his reach one
of the most characteristic and vigorous of men, made haste
to catch and secure him.
Francis McDougall, who had resigned the bishopric of
Labuan in consequence of the failure of his strength, the
ill-health of his wife, and the death of more than one of his
children, had returned to England, and having taken the
living of Godmanchester, in the suburbs of Huntingdon,
was already in the diocese. From the very first a warm
friendship sprang up between the two Bishops. The
originahty of Bishop McDougall's character, appearance,
and mind, the story of his heroic and venturesome life,
the society of his refined and delightful wife, his charming
and fascinating children, attracted our Bishop powerfully.
No two men could have been more unlike, whether in
appearance or in qualities ; yet they were quite devoted to
each other, and the letters which passed between them
during the long period — over twenty years — in which they
worked together, would fill many volumes. Their points
in common were first a deep sense of religion and a true
loyalty to the Church of England ; then, a wholesome and
refreshing sense of humour and appreciation of character ;
then, an almost passionate love of animals, and interest in
the world around us. Each of them recognised in the
other a perfectly honest man.

346 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
" The extreme intimacy and brotherly affection between
the Bishop and McDougaH," says an old friend, " was
very remarkable, as well as very creditable to both. Of
course the two Bishops had some things in common. Both
were full of geniality, and both had a keen sense of
humour. But in many aspects what very different men
they were. One was the very perfection of refinement,
the other had an almost Falstaffian jollity in manner as in
appearance." They both had an equal dislike of extravagances : Bishop
McDougall by reason of his knowledge of the world, his
early training, and his honest temper of mind, which
shrank from anything which might savour of mere appear
ance and hypocrisy ; and the Bishop of Ely, because his
sensitive, well-trained nature instinctively fought against
what was theatrical in religion. They were both High
Churchmen of the older type, of the earlier Anglican
school ; both suspicious of a tendency towards Rome
visible in the manners and acts of some of the clergy.
Nothing ever distressed Bishop Harold Browne or him so
much as to see young men, in their youthful enthusiasm,
attracted by and endeavouring to copy the ways of Rome.
The one, thanks to his great learning, the other through
his practical knowledge of the working of the system, were
far more fully aware of the real character of the Roman
advance than were those who, in the enthusiasm of a
generous youth, fell under the fascinations of a magnificent
system and a splendid symbolic ritual.
And so it came about that these two men, so very
different in look, ways, habits, education, yet so closely
agreed in the weightier matters of the gospel of salva
tion, were affectionate friends and colleagues both at Ely
and at Winchester. In 1870 the Bishop made Bishop
McDougaH Archdeacon of Huntingdon ; throughout he
employed his help, consulted him on every occasion, and

III.] ORGANISATION OF THE DIOCESE. 347
helped him with his purse with a never-failing liberality
and affectionate eagerness. And there are many letters
which show that the two prelates gladly offered and took
this practical help. It was always done in so beautiful
a spirit as to leave the impression that the favour was
being conferred not on the recipient but on the giver.
It was in connexion with this helping hand that the
Bishop of Ely next year, 1871, communicated with
Mr. Gladstone, then Prime Minister, on the subject
of Suffragan Bishops. It is curious to notice how
the parts seem to have been exchanged. The Bishop
was at the time much occupied with the Revision of the
Authorised Version of the Old Testament, which often
took him away to London, and this, as he naturally
felt, left the diocese too much to itself He was the
chairman of the Old Testament company, and by his
erudition, his mastery of the Hebrew tongue, his fair
ness and courtesy, had rendered himself essential to the
work, and could never, save for absolute necessity, absent
himself from the meetings of the body. He therefore
desired, if possible, to give to Bishop McDougall the
more definite and recognised position of Suffragan Bishop,
Huntingdon being one of the places named in the Act
of Henry VIII. (26 Henry VIII., c. 14). Mr. Gladstone's
reply was caution itself — as became one of the most
conservative of statesmen. He is not prepared to
recommend the Crown to appoint Suffragans whenever
asked to do so; he thinks there is an intermediate
course ; the Bishop of the diocese might appoint an
Assistant-Bishop. He adds that the Lord Chancellor,
whom he had consulted, also thought it undesirable to
create Suffragans. The Bishop had mentioned the names
of two of his Archdeacons, Bishop McDougall and Lord
Arthur Hervey, as those whom he would wish to submit to

348 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
the Crown. The Prime Minister replies that the appoint
ment of either of them " would strain the working and credit
of the Act." And so the proposal feH to the ground. When
the Bishop was translated to Winchester, and (in January
1874) applied to the Prime Minister for a Suffragan, he
found Mr. Gladstone perfectly willing to carry out his wishes,
and to allow the appointment of a Bishop of Guildford.
Another little matter, bearing on the dignity of his
episcopal office, came before the Bishop of Ely at this
time. In July 1870 many of his friends in the diocese
were anxious to present their Bishop with a handsome
Pastoral Staff, as an emblem of his authority. It will be
seen that the Bishop was pleased at the kindness which
had suggested the presentation, while he was most anxious
not to hurt the feelings of any of his people, or to lend
himself to what might be regarded as a party demonstra
tion. He thus writes from Ely, on July 27th, 1870, to
Bishop McDougall : —
"My dear Brother,— With reference to what you
kindly said to me yesterday, I would just say this.
" I have thought a good deal of what you told me about
Archdeacons Emery and Chapman, thinking that the last
might be offended by the presentation of a Pastoral Staff
to me. Personally, I like the emblem or symbolism
involved in the said Staff, and of course cannot but be
deeply gratified at the kind thoughts which have dictated
the proposal to give me one. As, however, the thoughts
seem to have arisen in connection with our Conferences,
it certainly would be very sad if a torch of discord were
thrown into these Conferences, or if distrust were excited
by the said Staff.
"Does it not seem that it would be well if my kind
friends among the clergy were to sound the leading law
members of the Conference before quite deciding ?
" I throw this out as you so kindly spoke to me about it
" Ever yours affectionately,
" E. H. Ely."

in.] ORGANISATION OF THE DIOCESE. 349
Bishop McDougall's reply is lost ; it was followed soon
after by a second letter, which is given here : —
" Rose Castle, Carlisle.
" August 6th, 1870.
" My dear Bishop, — I am much obliged to you for
your kind letter. I enclose part of one on the same
subject from my chaplain, G. Phear, Tutor of Emmanuel
College, who was the other person that told me of the
design of the ' Staff.' I have also talked privately to
the Bishop of Carlisle. He is fearful that the tise of a
Pastoral Staff just now would be thought a badge of
party. The Bishops to whom staves have been given are
Winchester, Rochester, and the late Bishops of Salisbury
and Chichester, who would probably be thought the four
most decidedly High Churchmen Bishops. You mentioned
Peterborough : I did not know he was one.
" It very little matters whether people abuse one as a
Ritualist or anything else ; but if any section of the clergy
of the diocese, or still more if the laity in general, become
thereby suspicious, there might be a breach of that harmony
which I am so thankful to think exists in the diocese of
Ely ; and that without compromise of principle.
" I do not hesitate to say that I think a Pastoral Staff
a very proper piece of symbolism, and I should much like
to use one ; but not if thereby a weak brother be offended.
" This is a lovely place, and the Goodwins seem very
happy here. " Ever yours affectionately,
" E. H. Ely."
In the end the Bishop received the Staff from Mr. C.
Longuet Higgins, a weU-known layman of the diocese,
and one of his dearest friends ; and made a charming
reply as to the plain meaning and symbolic quality of the
Staff. Now that such emblems have lost a party-character,
if ever they had it, we are inclined to wonder at the
Bishop's anxiety to avoid the risk of wounding the weak
brethren. It is clear that this Staff was an evidence of
much and very widespread affection in the diocese; the

350 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
subscribers to it were of all classes of society, and repre-.
sented many very different shades of opinion. In one
small village, where the Bishop had lately been visiting, and
" where he had often spent a day in ministering among the
people," the schoolchildren asked leave to contribute to
the fund, and in pence, halfpence, and farthings coHected
together quite a good sum towards it ; it is to be hoped
that at some later confirmation or other grave occasion
they had the felicity of again seeing their Bishop with his
Pastoral Staff, towards which out of their " deep poverty ''
they had so affectionately contributed.
Bishop Harold Browne now advanced a step farther,
The centre-point of the diocese is the Cathedral : what
part should the officials of the Mother Church be called
on to take in the practical work around them ? It seemed
to him far from enough that there should be a semi-
independent leisurely body of men, set, with ample means
at their disposal, to keep up a splendid fabric, to encourage
good choral services, to dispense elegant hospitalities,
to form a close College with little or no influence on
the diocese around. The Cathedral dignitary, in theory
an elderly man enjoying leisure, was in practice some
thing entirely different : he was usually the Rector of a
living at a distance, sometimes not in the diocese, who
spent three months a year in the Cathedral city as a kind
of holiday, and found little or no spiritual work to do.
The literary records of the English Church do not confirm
the notion that the Cathedral Close is the home of research
or the mother of many books. Above all, the position
of the Dean was a real difficulty. Deans are a puzzling
race. A Dean ought to be so useful, and is sometimes
not even ornamental : he represents neither the Bishop
nor the clergy of the diocese ; is appointed by the Prime
Minister of the day, without regard for the needs of the

Ill,] ORGANISATION OF THE DIOCESE. 351
place to which he is to go ; his authority over the Cathedral
Church, instead of helping to make him the ready lieutenant
of the Bishop, gives him an almost independent position
of rivalry ; he comes into the diocese, a stranger with
no ties to the place of his sojourn. His necessary
duties are small enough : he must reside his eight
months, preach his four statutable sermons, be hospitable
and courteous, and on good terms with the Mayor,
and, if possible, be a man of business, able to preside
at Chapter meetings and the like. He has supervision
over the staff of persons employed in his Cathedral
Church and precinct ; in theory he is supreme over the
Services and the music, though he finds in practice that
these matters are regarded as too high for him. If a
Cathedral is in some populous place, the Dean may, if
he has the gifts for it, become as it were the incumbent
of the chief city Church, and fill a really important position
as such. Even so, his attitude is not always sympathetic
towards his Bishop, who has no real control over him,
and cannot work him into his diocesan system.
In spite of these unpromising elements, Bishop Harold
Browne, though he said little about the work to be got
out of his Deans, was not afraid of attacking the important
problem of Cathedral usefulness. Here was a reserve of
power, which might be made valuable in many ways, if
only the Canons with their Head would become leaders
in diocesan work. It is obvious that a Dean who has no
sympathy with what is going on in the diocese around him
is far from making the most of his position. It is equally
clear that a body of Canons who hold themselves aloof
from the parochial clergy, till, instead of unity of aim,
jealousies and illwill spring up, are very far from doing
justice to their opportunities. And so the Bishop, in his
usual conservative spirit, began to consider how he might,

352 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch,
with the least disturbance of existing arrangements, mould
his Chapter into the form best suited for his purpose.
We have, in his letter to Dean Goulburn on " Bishops
and Cathedrals," published in 1872, an account of the way
in which the Canonries should be filled up, a plan which
he always followed in making his own nominations. He
expresses a decided preference for the system in use in
certain Cathedrals, as at Exeter, under which he himself
had become a Canon.
" In the Old Foundation Cathedrals, according to their
ancient rights and customs, the Bishop appointed and
coHated to the non-residentiary prebends, the value of
which was very small, and not such as to tempt to much
nepotism ; the residentiary Canons were then elected by
the Dean and Chapter out of the body of the non-
residentiary Prebendaries. There was thus a double
election. It was the interest of the Bishop to appoint
able men to the prebends. It was the interest of the
Chapter to elect the ablest Prebendaries into the resi
dentiary stalls."
This, however, was not the system which he, as Bishop
of two Cathedrals of the New Foundation, had to deal
with. He found himself charged with the duty of selecting
both the Honorary Canons and the Canons Residentiary,
a system which, with an able and good Bishop, is perhaps
superior to that of the Old Foundation Chapters. Both
at Ely and at Winchester he exercised his patronage with
the most scrupulous and dehcate care. He elicited the
opinions and wishes of the members of the Cathedral
body, shewing the greatest anxiety lest he should appoint
any one distasteful to the body pohtic, or even to single
members of it ; and he thus describes the process : —
" I have always exercised my Cathedral patronage on
the following principle : I have consulted the Archdeacons
as to the best and ablest men in their respective arch-

III.] ORGANISATION OF THE DIOCESE. 353

deaconries. When an honorary stall was to be filled up,
I have set down a number of names commended to me
by my Archdeacons and by my own knowledge of the
diocese. I have then laid them before the Dean and
Chapter, with the request that they would choose one or
two (according to the number of the vacancies) ; and I
have always appointed those chosen by them. Two
residentiary stalls have fallen to my patronage. Every
interest has been made with me for persons of high birth
or personal relation to myself I hope I need not tell you
that I disregarded this. I gave the first to an Archdeacon
who had no preferment but his archdeaconry [Archdeacon
Emery], but who was the most indefatigable of workers
in all diocesan work. I gave it on the understanding that
such diocesan work should stiH be carried on by him ;
and every one will confess that it is carried on with the
most untiring energy. The other stall I gave to a man
[Bishop McDougall] who for twenty years had lived as a
missionary and a missionary Bishop, sacrificing his health
and his wife's health, and the health and life of his
children, to his Master's service."
Nothing could exceed the kindness and consideration
with which the Bishop thus exercised his Cathedral
patronage, seeking only to appoint the best and most
acceptable men, men who would not disturb the peace
and brotherliness which ought always to reign within a
Cathedral's precincts. It may be that he sometimes
missed by this process the strongest men. They are not
always easy to drive.
The aim he had set before him is made quite clear in his
Address of 187 1. In it he says that : —
" The Bishop with his Chapter around him was especially
the missionary agency of the Church. I hope the time
may be coming when from the Cathedral, as from the
centre of the dioce-se, may emanate some great spiritual
machinery for penetrating the darkness around. The desire
for reform has extended even to our Cathedrals."
He goes on to say that he thought the Chapters of old
23

354 EDIVARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
did this (an opinion which has no very strong historical
position, it is to be feared).
" Why should they not now ? Cathedrals are very
valuable in many ways, and the influence one of the learned
clergy carries with him into the diocese is of the utmost
value ; stiH, we want something more aggressive, and, if
possible, something starting from the Chapter I should
like to see connected with the Cathedral two or three
clergymen as special diocesan missionaries."
Again, about the same time, he writes : —
" February 22nd, 1872.
" I certainly do not desire to see Deans and Chapters
cut down. What I should like would be to see them
diocesan and not monastic, working with the Bishop ; not
interposing the Dean between him and themselves, so that
the Dean should claim to be an independent and often anta
gonistic potentate. I have no doubt that in the palmy days
of Episcopacy it was very necessary to remind the Bishop
that he was mortal. Now, there is no curate in the diocese
that does not consider opposition to his Bishop an import
ant part of the whole duty of man, and a continual seton
in the shape of a Dean is no longer necessary. I do not
say this with reference to Dean M[erivale], for he is most
good-natured and pleasant I am sure Chapters will be
more influential and more happy if they work with the
Bishop and look on him as their own and not something
quite strange to them. " Ever very affectionately yours,
" E. H. Ely."
In the letter on "Bishops and Cathedrals" quoted
above, he lays down very clearly what was his real desire
in the matter of Cathedral Reform. Dean Goulburn had
resented the notion that the Bishops wished "to merge
the Cathedral clergy in their dioceses " ; and the Bishop
replies that " much wiH depend on the sense attached by
you to the word ' merge.' "
" If it means to sink them into parish priests, and turn

Ill,] ORGANISATION OF THE DIOCESE. 355
the Cathedrals into mere parish churches, I do not think
any Bishop has ever dreamed so wild a dream. Many of
us do wish, and many who are not Bishops wish most
earnestly, even more for the sake of the Cathedrals than
for the sake of the dioceses, that the capitular bodies
should be restored to their ancient diocesan position and
their ancient diocesan functions, as the Bishop's Council,
as the leaders, with the Bishop, of all good works, not only
in the Cathedral town, but in every portion of the diocese ;
and that in place of the jealousy, which has hitherto been
chronic and incurable, between Bishops and Deans on one
hand, and between Cathedral and parochial clergy on the
other, there could be established a good understanding and
a harmonious co-operation between Bishop, Chapter, and
parochial clergy, everywhere and in every way."
And at the end of the same letter he adds : —
" I am sure that the Dean and Chapter may have every
reasonable independence, with yet all due respect to the
constitutional position of the Bishop, not as head of the
Chapter, but as Ordinary and chief pastor of the Cathedral.
I believe, moreover, that the only hope of saving the
Cathedral bodies is to make them once more part and
the highest and chief part, of the great machinery of
the Church in each diocese."
And he sums aH up by speaking of the " true diocesan
system, as a spiritual commonwealth under a paternal
government " ; a phrase which happily expresses the
anxious care with which, while he aimed at the constitu
tional development of all diocesan life, he also jealously
guarded his own position as the ecclesiastical head. He
should be the " benevolent despot " and the diocese should
be guided into the paths of active and harmonious work.
He was not unaware that such a theory of the episcopal
power and authority clashed here and there with the legal
status of those under his rule. It is one of the anomalies
of the Church as by law established that men were often
almost independent under him. We have seen it in his

356 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch,
brushes with the Deans of his Cathedrals ; it appears also
in the impatience with which he regarded the tendency of
parochial clergy to retreat behind their freeholds, and to
turn the ancient parish system of England into a kind of
Congregationalism. In his efforts to carry out this reform and to secure the
real help of his Chapters he followed two different lines
in his two dioceses. In 1872 he expressed himself as
distinctly opposed to that very principle of concentration
on the Cathedral city which he afterwards carried out at
Winchester. He then thought it would be best that the
four Canons should have their own spheres of light and
influence, one in each of the four divisions of his diocese,
and only be at Ely for their Residences ; in other words, he
wished to keep them in direct touch with parish work and
the practical organisation of the diocese. On the other
band, at Winchester he had the appointment of all the
five canonries in his hands, and (except in the case of the
Archdeacon of Surrey, whose position is somewhat different
from that of the others) stipulated at each successive
vacancy that the new Canon should give up his parish and
dedicate himself entirely to diocesan work. He appointed
his three Archdeacons to three of the stalls, and then,
in the two remaining stalls, gave to one Canon charge
of the religious education of the diocese, and to the other
supervision of Mission work. Four of the five Winchester
Canons thus had given up all other duties, and were settled
in permanent homes in the Cathedral Close.
This was his reply to the question so often asked
in these practical days. What is the use of a Cathedral
establishment ? He did not care to shelter it behind the
time-honoured plea of dignity, or treat it as a place of
honourable retirement for worn-out clerics, or defend it as
the home of cultured literary ease ; nor did he say much

III.] ORGANISATION OF THE DIOCESE. 357
about a Cathedral as a pattern of daily worship for a diocese,
or build on the magnificence of the fabric. His one
desire was to make the Cathedral the true centre of his
diocesan system ; to -place there the best men he could
select to lead in the different branches of the work, and to
use them as his council and advisers in all diocesan
matters. It is not always easy or simple to carry out such a
scheme ; Deans maybe restive. Canons unwiHing ; but some
such application of the Cathedral body to practical work
is necessary if the institution is to survive. The Chapters
wiH not last, unless they prove themselves useful to the
Church. In cities which have great populations the
Cathedral staff may find plentiful opportunities at home ;
where the Cathedral stands in a little country town or
village, the staff" will have in the end to be employed
throughout the diocese as the Bishop's lieutenants, the
leaders of every good work, the skilled teachers and
preachers of the Gospel.
In speaking of the Conferences established by the Bishop
we noticed his strong desire to enlist in all kinds, of Church
work the help of the laity as well as the more formal and
official services of the clergy. He greatly desired to see
a system of authorised lay readers or lay evangelists, which
might secure to the Church the enthusiasm and energy of
many who are often drawn away from us by finding work
ready to their hand elsewhere. He hoped to see mission-
work in various forms much developed and expanded ;
" the Wesleyans," he says, " have created the very mission
agencies we lack and must get Oh that they would but
come in to us ! " The difficulties in the way of organising
lay-work among men proved too great for him, so that,
though he admitted a few lay-readers, beginning in 1869,
but little result followed from it On the other hand, he

358 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

was one of the first to see the importance of obtaining the
great benefit of women's work in the Church, and guided
with much skill and moderation the system of deaconesses,
which he carried over with such success to Winchester
that his successor did not hesitate to speak of it as " one
of the best bits of work that my venerated predecessor
ever took in hand." The Bishop's aim was to steer clear
of the more formal dedications and vows imposed on
women in sisterhoods, and to make his deaconess-system
take up a position half-way between women bound by
solemn vows and the simpler machinery of parish and
district visitors.
One would think that no doubt could possibly be thrown
on the wisdom of a plan by which the energies of devoted
women might be secured for social and religious work.
There are great reserves of strength and work in the
women of England for aH good and noble objects ; and
the system of deaconesses, on which many have looked
coldly and with a most undeserved suspiciousness, was
so framed as to elicit the power of work, while it also
discouraged mere excitable feeling. It was also a most
praiseworthy attempt to revive in the English Church the
ancient and distinct Order of women dedicated to the
humaner side of religious work, the friends of the sufferer
and the heart-broken, the advisers of struggling workers
in their homes. In no more effectual way does our
Church hold out a friendly hand to the wage-earner
These pious and earnest women can find open hearts
where the clergyman would meet only with respect, if
even with that ; they can pass safely, as messengers of
gentle sympathy and compassion, ministers of the love
of Christ, through the darkest byways of the worid.
Attention had been called to the office of Deaconess
early in the present century, when Robert Southey advo-

III.] ORGANISATION OF THE DIOCESE. 359
cated the revival of it about 1820: it was actively taken
up in Germany at Kaiserwerth, where a Deaconess' Home
was opened in 1833. In England the thought long found
no acceptance ; the first note of interest in the subject is to
be found in a paper on Church Deaconesses written by
the Rev. R. J. Hayne, Vicar of Buckland Monachorum,
and pubhshed in 1859. Soon after this, in 1862, Dean
Howson, then Head of the Liverpool College, read a
paper on the subject at the Church Congress in Oxford.
Bishop Harold Browne had begun to deal with the sub
ject in a very simple way. On February 5th, 1869, in the
Palace at Ely, he admitted Miss Fanny Elizabeth Eagles
as a deaconess for St. Peter's, Bedford, and thus set in
motion a matter he had much at heart. There had been
a committee of the last Diocesan Conference, which re
ported this year on the subject, and said that " it had
discussed the two systems under which women are now
working, the one with, the other without vows, and had
decided unanimously in favour of the latter."
In his Address at the admission and dedication of this
lady the Bishop distinctly avoids any words which might
seem to point to a lifelong vow expressed or understood ;
he speaks to the Deaconess admitted as being called to
work in this manner " as long as God shall call you to
this office"; and only stipulates that she shall continue
steadfast in it for "two years at least, unless by com
petent authority you shaU be released from the same."
He also points out to her definitely the limits and extent
of her work. She should "seek out the sick, poor, and
impotent folk," and " intimate their names to the curate ;
should instruct the young, in school or otherwise, minister
to those in hospitals, prisons, or asylums ; and, setting aside
all unwomanly usurpation of authority in the Church, should
seek to edify the souls of Christ's people in the faith."

360 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

These instructions and exhortations are re-echoed in a
sermon on " Phoebe the Deaconess of the Church which is
at Cenchrea," preached by the Bishop in St Michael's,
Paddington, on May 7th, 1871, on behalf of the Deaconess'
Institution. The Bishop summoned a meeting, in December 1870,
at Ely, at which the Dean of Chester and other friends
were present in order to settie the bases of the movement
The results were embodied in a series of regulations, after
wards worked into actual rules, which defined the position
and indicated the duties of the office.
The meeting also arranged the manner in which the
subject should be brought directiy before the Church. It
was agreed that first the Bishops of London and Chester, and
then the Bishop of Salisbury, should be asked to accept the
rules ; and that when a few signatures had been obtained
the statement should be printed and sent round to all the
Bishops. This paper was in the end signed before circula
tion by the Bishops of London, Ely, Chester, Salisbury,
Peterborough, and Bath and Wells. The appeal received
considerable attention ; and, two years later. Bishop Harold
Browne thought the time come for a still more definite
attempt to organise the Institution. He accordingly drew
up a statement on the subject, and called a meeting, at Ely
House on May 14th, 1872, at which he presided. There
were present also the Bishops of Chichester, Peterborough,
Salisbury, Oxford, and Llandaff, Bishop McDougaH, and
many others. Seventeen of the English Bishops had signed
the paper of Principles and Rules for Deaconesses ; and
several ladies already at work in different dioceses were
present at the meeting.
The Bishop of Ely described the movement as being
both parochial and diocesan ; he was specially anxious to
make it clear that there was no intention of organising

III.] ORGANISATION OF THE DIOCESE. 36 1
the Deaconess' Institution in antagonism to existing or
future Sisterhoods in the Church ; that there was room
enough and work enough for both, though the life of a
Sister might be more fascinating, and might carry with it
attractions to the gentler sex peculiar to itself while the
deaconess plan had no such glamour about it Yet he
preferred it to the Sisterhoods, because it was an organisa
tion based on Scripture, and sanctioned by apostolic and
primitive practice, and because it was to be an integral
part of the English parochial system, worked with con
currence of the parish clergyman and under definite and
direct episcopal sanction.
The Bishop also drew up a long paper on the
subject in which he sums up his views in the following
passages : —
" It seems, then, that in the Primitive Church there were
three orders of the ministry of men, viz.. Bishops, Presbyters,
and Deacons (not, as the Roman Church would have it,
' Priests, Deacons, and Sub-deacons '), and one order of
women, viz.. Deaconesses. All these were admitted by the
imposition of episcopal hands. To me it appears that
Bishop Lightfoot was right when he said that the ministry
of the Church lacks full apostolical character whilst it lacks
the order of Deaconesses. I cannot admit that any local
councils had the power to abolish an ordinance of the
Apostles and a practice of the Primitive Church. Could
even a true General Council do so? I cannot find that
there were any substantial charges brought against dea
conesses. The growing practice of separating the sexes,
and confining them to separate buildings and occupa
tions, though the exigency of the times may have excused
this, cannot excuse the abolition of a primitive Order. I
cannot admit that deaconesses were only used for the sake
of decency in adult baptisms and the like. They evidently
visited the sick and poor, and did other women's work
which we now need so much. I deny emphatically that
there is any special danger of arrogance. The danger, as
far as I have seen in twenty-eight years' experience, is that
deaconesses are humbled and depressed by finding them-

362 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch. IH.
selves looked down upon, as in a lower spiritual condition
than professed ' Sisters.'
" The Anglican Church stands or falls as she is true or
untrue to primitive principles. If a great primitive principle
or practice has been given up, she is bound, if possible, to
revive it I greatly acknowledge the blessed work which
convents of men and women did in rude ages, when violence
stalked abroad and when faith and purity could only be
guarded within well-defended walls. But, I submit, that
these are much more of an anachronism than deaconesses,
who are specially suited to the wants of the present age.
I hope the conflict between regulars and seculars, which
rent the mediaeval Church asunder, will not now drive out
of our own communion the persons who of all others seem
most suited to organise that woman's work so needed for
reaching those whom men can, at the best, reach very
imperfectly." This new organisation, thus ably started, has on the
whole had but a feeble existence. No part of the Church's
work brings us nearer to the practical needs and the daily
life of the people ; and where the system has been fairly
worked the results have been excellent It is very much
to be hoped that the impulse given to it by the Bishop,
and, almost as much, by Mrs. Harold Browne, at Ely and
Winchester, may still lead to a large and wholesome
development of deaconess-work in every part of the country,
and especially among large manufacturing populations.
The Bishop watched over the Institution, when he came
to Farnham, with singular good will ; it has found a per
manent home at Portsmouth, where it has been under the
guidance and management of its devoted Head, Sister
Emma, with a sympathetic and hearty adviser and friend
in Canon Durst, who was appointed by the Bishop to be
Warden of that modest and valuable littie community,
which makes its Christian influence so well felt in Ports
mouth and Eastleigh and Aldershot

CHAPTER IV.
later years in the diocese of ELY.
BISHOP HAROLD BROWNE not only organised his
diocese ; he illustrated the working of that organisa
tion by his example. He was at every man's call, sparing
not himself in spite of his weak health, spending himself
and being spent for Christ. His friends often regretted
his kind inability to disappoint those who appealed to
him. His purse, his strength, his voice, were plundered
by all who were in need. He undertook many sermons
which must have been a serious strain on him. Thus he
preached (July 4th, 1868) in St. Paul's at the Charity
Children's Festival ; an occasion which interested and
gladdened his child-loving fatherly heart. On another
occasion (in September 1869) he preached at the opening
of the newly-restored Parish Church of Aylesbury. There
he had been christened many years before. After the
service there came the inevitable luncheon, and after
luncheon the terrible speeches. One of these, however, is
interesting to us, as it elicited a little touch of reminiscence.
The Bishop's health was proposed by Mr. Acton Tindal
a very old friend and playfellow of his, and he told the
company that in their childhood the Bishop and he used
to sit " in a place which was nicknamed the ' Birdcage,'
into which the voice of the preacher could hardly enter
and whence the sounds of the sleeper could scarcely
emerge." One can imagine the look of amusement with
363

364 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
which the Bishop gravely assured the party, when he rose
to reply, that whatever Mr. Tindal might have done, he
himself never went to sleep there, even under those
most favourable circumstances.
In this same year, in the month of May alone, he
consecrated no less than five new churches, and in speaking
on the subject ventured to doubt whether at any time
since the beginning of the Christian era any Bishop had
ever consecrated so many churches in a single month.
He also sometimes took the lead, as once at Bedford, in
those exhausting forms of evangelistic effort, parochial
missions ; and by this encouragement, and by the earnest
ness he threw into the work, greatly forwarded a movement
which has done much to deepen and strengthen the
spiritual life of the Church, and may yet become her most
potent engine, when she sets herself seriously to face the
tremendous problem of the working man's life and religion.
The Bishop's Charge of 1869 brings to the front the
vast question of the relations of Christian Churches to
one another, and the complex difficulties which beset
every attempt to forward the cause of Christian unity.
For this was the time at which the Papacy summoned
what it styled " an CEcumenical Council," in which those
who guided the counsels of the Roman Church desired
to advance into matters of faith certain doctrines and
views respecting the nature and worship of the Blessed
Virgin Mary, and respecting the position of the Bishop
of Rome as the infallible oracle of the Church. The
Bishop was much moved. It seemed to him that the
pretensions of Rome took a specially offensive form at
the outset, in the manner in which the invitations to
the Council were graduated. He writes thus : —
"All Roman Catholic Bishops have received a direct
invitation. The Eastern Churches have been invited also.

IV.] LATER YEARS IN THE DIOCESE OF ELY. 365
but the invitation implies that they are in a state of schism.
The Bishops of the Anglican Communion and those of
the Scandinavian Churches are either summoned under
the general head of all Bishops, or under the general head
of Protestants and other non-Catholics ; or, lastly, they
are not summoned at all." He adds the significant warning
that, if invited at all, " the invitation is not only to be
present but to submit"
The Eastern Patriarchs, he goes on to say, had definitely
refused to appear, alleging as their reasons — not specially
strong ones — that, first, the Patriarch of Rome had not
consulted them before calling the Council ; and, secondly,
because the day selected for the opening was a day
not recognised in the Eastern Churches, that of the
Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Our
Bishop then gives his own reasons for refusing to appear
at the Vatican. These are, first, the grounds formulated
by the Eastern Patriarchs ; and, secondly, the doubt as
to whether the Anglican Bishops are really invited at all.
It is clear that the Roman Bishops in England are
definitely summoned : " If we are English Bishops, they
are not ; and, on the other hand, if they are the Catholic
Bishops of England, we are not Bishops at all." One can
imagine the smile with which the Vatican people would
rejoin, " Why, precisely so." He adds also that from the
beginning Britain was never truly within the Patriarchate
of Rome.
There can be no doubt that the startling claims made
at this time by Rome turned our Bishop's mind in a
direction in which it was prepared to travel. His yearning
for Christian Unity was shocked by seeing that Rome
applied to the problem the simplest of aH formulas — a
formula which we are all only too much inclined to use,
" Submit yourselves to me, and Unity is won.'' This bold
claim, with the surrender of all private judgment or

366 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
ecclesiastical liberties, was too much for him, as it was for
all free-minded men. The Bishop's efforts for the Unity
of Christendom will be referred to later on.
These years were a difficult and troubled time for the
Church. As he had written in i860, so was it when he
went to Ely.
"I look forward," he writes, May 23rd, i860, "to a
very anxious time soon. The present condition is too
marked to last long. The strong tendency to Rome and
Rationalism must lead to some outbreak soon " ; and
again, addressing Mr. Walter James, he reverts to his
alarms in even stronger language. " I think much as
you do about politics. We are in a fearful crisis in Church
and State. I do not trust any of our rulers to carry us
well through it, excepting Him who ruleth in the heavens.
The Church as an establishment is very likely to go ; but
then, if we can make peace within, she may be strong in
her spiritual strength. The danger is that when the State
scaffolding is taken down, all the stones and timbers will
be found loosened and disjointed. If it be so, Rome and
heathenism will divide the spoil ; but I trust it wiH not
be so."
There was irritation within and without the Church.
The aggressive High Church party, as it grew stronger,
aroused the vehement antagonism of those who fought under
the revered name of Lord Shaftesbury, not because of his
benevolence and good works, but for his theological narrow
ness ; with his aid they tried to crush their opponents, and,
if that could not be done, then to drive them out of the
English Church. Between the combatants stood a group of
moderate Anglicans, sympathising with neither party, liking
neither the innovations of the one side nor the narrow con
servatism of the other. The Bishop of Lincoln received
from the Bishop of Rochester, and forwarded on to Bishop
Harold Browne in 1865, a letter on "subjects for con
sideration," which shews how anxious the moderates were
to discourage extremes. The subjects were : —

IV.] LATER YEARS IN THE DIOCESE OF ELY. 367
" I. The Address of the Bishops in 185 1 to check ritual
and rubrical excesses.
" 2. How to act where the law as now interpreted is
insufficient to restrain ill-advised clergymen.
" 3. How to rebuke the public exhibition of vestments and
unauthorised services lately paraded before the Church at
Norwich. " 4. The choral system and its tendencies evidently alien
to the promotion of simple congregational psalmody.
" 5. Queen Emma's cause.
" 6. On the General Thanksgiving : on repeating it aloud
by the whole congregation like the General Confession."
Soon after these days the Ritual Commission came into
being, to inquire into the rubrics, etc., for public worship,
the ornaments used in churches, the vestments to be worn
by the clergy in their ministrations, and to suggest altera
tions, improvements, or amendments in such matters ; also
to revise the Proper Lessons for Sundays and Holy Days,
and the general Table of Lessons. The Commission sat in
the Jerusalem Chamber, and began its work in June 1867.
A little before this time, in 1866, having been appealed
to by a friend to give his opinion on the much agitated
questions of the character of the Holy Communion in the
Enghsh Church, Bishop Harold Browne wrote a pamphlet
in letter form, under the title of " Sacrifice — Altar — Priest :
in six letters to a Friend."
This weighty series of papers was elicited by the declara
tion of his " Friend," that the Bishop's words had " seemed
to deny the existence of a true altar and "of a literal
sacrifice in the Church." Thus challenged, he was not at
all unwilling to state, with wonted learning and moderation,
what seemed to him to be the position of the English
Church on these important and rather intricate matters.
He begins by begging to be allowed to lay down defi
nitions ; for most differences and disagreements are due
to the want of them. So he appeals at once to the

368 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
Hebrew for "sacrifice" and "altar"; it being obvious
that all the sacrificial language of the New Testament is
directly borrowed from the Old, and also that the Greek
language had to coin certain phrases or words to meet
this transference from the Hebrew. And he ends his
first letter by saying that, in theological language, though
in secondary and improper senses we may call other
things " sacrifices " or " altars," yet in strict use " sacri
fice " is always the slaying of a victim, and " altar " the
place whereon the victim dies.
To this letter the " Friend " replied that the Bishop had
invented a meaning for " altar " and " sacrifice," and had
inferred thence that in those senses the terms might be
used of the Holy Table and the Holy Eucharist.
This carries the Bishop, in his second letter, a stage
farther on his path. It must be granted that " sacrifice,"
" altar," and the related terms come to us from the Old
Testament. The early Christians knew the Jewish dis
tinction between the sacrifice with the blood-shedding and
the sacrifice without it ; and he shews that the " pure
offering," the phrase used by Malachi (i. ii), is frequently
applied by the writers of the Primitive Church to the Holy
Eucharist, and is the sacrifice without shedding of blood.
The same thing is true of the use of " altar," whereon
was a distinctly " commemorative sacrifice," — i.e., an action
performed which was not strictly sacrificial, but only
commemorative of the One Sacrifice on the Cross. And
he draws the conclusion that the Churches should have
communion tables, which, being the place of this solemn
" commemorative sacrifice," may also without impropriety
be styled " altars." This is very different from the usage
of the Roman Church, which makes the Communion sacri
fice a " verum et proprium sacrificium."
When the primitive Church was reproached by the

IV.] LATER YEARS IN THE DIOCESE OF ELY. 369
heathen that it had no sacrificial altars, the reply was,
" Non altaria fabricamus, non aras',' and down to the
third and fourth centuries they carefully used the beautiful
word evyapi<nia, or thank-offering, to express the " sacrifice "
of the Holy Communion. The Bishop ends by saying
that there is " but one sacrifice, that of Christ on the Cross,
of which the Passover was the type and the Eucharist the
memorial." In the fourth letter the Bishop returns to
the analogy between the Pa.ssover and the Eucharist In
the former there was ( i ) the slaying of the victim, and (2) the
feasting on the slain. So in the Eucharist the actual sacri
fice of Christ on the Cross is commemorated in the
breaking of bread and pouring forth of wine, while the
second part of the Passover, the feasting, is represented in
the actual partaking of the holy elements.
And in this way, says good Bishop Andrewes, " Good
Friday is His, Easter Day ours ; the Passover doth not con
clude in the sacrifice the taking away of sin only, that is,
in a pardon and there an end ; but in a feast, which is
a sign not of forgiveness only but of perfect amity, full
propitiation." And he ends the letter by pointing out that Andrewes
was '' very high on the Eucharist ; " that is, was thoroughly
and strictly Anglican, but not in the least Roman.
From Andrewes the Bishop (in his fifth letter) passes on
to Cosin, shewing that he too is distinctly opposed to the
Roman doctrine of the " real, proper, propitiatory sacrifice "
in the Eucharist, and to the actual transubstantiation of
the elements ; but that he held that there was an actual
Eucharistic sacrifice, and a sacramental spiritual presence
in the souls (not in the bodies) of those who faithfully
receive, that holy sacrament. He sums up the subject
by pointing out that in the Funeral Discourse on Bishop
Andreyves it is said that " Crux est altare Christi," and
24

370 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
that Christ cannot truly be offered or sacrificed again, and
that the representation of an action cannot be the action
itself The remaining letter treats of the word " priest " in the
same manner. The word itself is " Presbyter writ small " ;
yet it is a transference from the Hebrew " Cohen." But the
sacrifices which this Christian Priest offers up are sacrifices
of praise and thanksgiving, the true Eucharistic sacrifices.
This it was that led the Bishop to the very end of his
life to dislike the " Eastward Position," because he thought
it was distinctly associated with a tendency to confuse the
literal with the figurative sacrifice of the Christian altar ;
and for the same reason he was shy of using, without
limitation, the word Altar when speaking of the Holy
Communion. Before long the subject came before the lawyers. The
Bishop's utterances on the judgment in the Court of Arches
on the " Purchas case " were exceedingly prudent In one
of his addresses (in 1871) he gives a very reasonable and
moderate statement as to the authority and value of the
Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, saying that
" according to the present constitution in Church and
State there is no means whatever of arriving at a final
conclusion on the significance of some confessedly obscure
rubrics, except by an appeal to this Judicial Committee '' ;
and he charges distinctly in favour of obedience to the
Law when stated by that body.
" There have always," he adds, " been two great schools
of thought in the Church, and it would be an evil day for
us all if one of these schools should have the will and the
power to crush out the other."
And then counselling wise obedience he adds that —
" He confessed he was unable to understand how, for
instance, the meaning, the solemnity, or the efficiency of a

IV.] LATER YEARS IN THE DIOCESE OF ELY. 371
Sacrament ordained by Christ Himself for our soul's health,
and therefore sure to bless those who receive it aright,
could be materially affected by the posture or position of
him who ministered it, or the cut or colour of the vestments
in which he ministered. . . . The straining after uni
formity in minor matters has too often broken the unity
in faith and charity and brotherly love " ; and he ends by
hoping that the Church will arrive at a temperate middle
course, in which all may join in fighting against " the
leaguered hosts of unbelief"
For his alarm was great lest infidelity should get the
upper hand in Europe. "There is creeping up," he says,
" silently, and scarcely silently, an infidelity of an extent
never before known in Europe " ; and he does not shrink
from using the old and unjust argument, that the unbe
lievers stir up one another to infidelity (which ]is true
enough), " and consequently to immorality of life," which
is certainly not true in our day of many of the leaders of
opinion opposed to the Christian faith. They are only
too ready to retaliate by charging us with neglecting, for
the sake of our creeds, the rudiments of morality and the
just principles of social life.
Not long after the Purchas Judgment the very different
Bennett Judgment was given in 1872, in the Court of
Arches. In this Sir R. Phfllimore decided that a minister
of the Church of England might say that there is an actual
and real presence in the Holy Communion, external to the
worshipper, and in the consecrated elements ; but that it
would be unlawful to teach (i) that there is a visible
presence of Our Lord on the altar at the celebration of
Holy Communion, and (2) that adoration is due to the
elements. The Judicial Committee declared on appeal that
the Court of Arches was not a Synod, and had no authority
to enunciate any doctrine of the Church of England, but
only to decide whether a man's utterances were or were not

372 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

a contravention of the formularies of the Church, and
therefore, if so, hable to punishment They decided first,
that Mr. Bennett's utterances on the Real Presence did
not contradict the Church's formularies. Next, as to the
declaration by Mr. Bennett that the Holy Table is an
altar of sacrifice, they reply that they do not think it clear
that he uses the word '' sacrifice " in such a way as to con
tradict the language of the formularies. And, lastly, as to
the adoration ; they came to the conclusion (not without
doubts and division of opinions) that this third charge was
not so clearly made out as to justify penal proceedings ;
and that respondent was entitled to the benefit of the doubt.
And so in the end they only admonish Mr. Bennett that
his language is rash and ill-judged, and perilously near
a violation of the law. And so, here again, the decision of
the Judicial Committee was favourable to liberty.
This judgment was deeply interesting to our Bishop ;
his words on it, as usual, are judicious and sensible : —
" The Court," he says, " has indeed ruled that a clergyman
cannot be punished for maintaining ' a real, actual, objective
Presence in the Eucharist, so long as he does not teach
that it is the corporal presence of the natural body of
Christ in the elements. And as the Apostle tells us that
the body of Christ is no longer natural but spiritual, it is
not likely that any well-educated clergyman will assert a
natural presence now.
" On the other hand, the Court has stated, in a dictum
perhaps extra-judicial, that the Church has not by her
Articles and formularies affirmed any presence in the
Eucharist which is not a presence to the soul of the faithful
receiver . . I am not about to speak as a Theologian on this
deep subject. I could much have desired that it had been
left in the depth of its profound and blessed mystery. The
modern terms of ' objective ' and ' Receptionist ' seem well
nigh as much to be deprecated as the more ancient dis
tinction between ' substance ' and ' accident' a distinction
which modern philosophy refuses to accept and yet without
which the theories known as Transubstantiation and Con-

IV.] LATER YEARS IN THE DIOCESE OF ELY. 373
substantiation become simply impossible. Leaving these
questions for the present, I gladly express my satisfaction
that neither in the one direction nor in the other has
the judgment of the Court narrowed the terms of our
Communion. I hold as an axiom too plain to be questioned
tiiat the Church is not a Church but a sect, unless it can
embrace every faithful Christian " — and the Bishop goes
on to define the " good Christian " as one who acknowledges
" the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement, the Sacrifice,
the Judgment."
These struggles between the revived belief in the vital
powers of the Church, as distinct frpm the elementary need
of personal religion in the individual, fill up a large part
of the Bishop's years at Ely. At one time it is a contest
as to vestments, at another about postures, at another
about the nature of the Presence of our Lord, things best
when felt, worst when defined ; again, the Bishop has to
make reply to the sixty thousand of the laity who remon
strated against ritual ; or to the four hundred and eighty
of the clergy who, on the contrary, called for an advance
in the opposite direction. In replying to these, he tries to
allay fever, by pointing out a more serious danger, the
danger from independent thought, that true, if disowned,
child of Protestantism. He had found, he told them,
among the young men he had examined " little or no bias
towards Romanism ; oftener, I regret to say, some little
tendency towards Rationalism or extreme Liberalism." It
was rather a dangerous hint : more than once in the history
of religious parties we have seen an alarming attempt to
bring about a coalition between High Church and Low,
not for the purpose of seeing how far they could agree
together, or even whether they might agree to differ, but in
order that they might fall with the greater weight on the
liberal party in the Church, and either crush or expel it.
Happily this narrowing of our Church has never succeeded.

374

EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

"Church Education" seems always to be on the edge
of a crisis ; and certainly in 1870 there were some grounds
for saying so. We do not find that the Bishop of Ely was
seized with the customary panic ; he saw clearly enough
that the right course for the Church was to preserve
her schools, where she could reasonably do it ; and where
not instead of lavishing abuse on the State for her honour
able attempt to secure the education of every citizen, to
take steps to secure religious teaching as a reality. He
was alarmed, as he shews when speaking on the subject at
Ely (October i8th, 1870) :—
" I think meetings are desirable, as the clergy and laity
seem very apathetic, not, as I believe, at all alive to the
extreme difficulty of making a rate-paid school anything
but purely secular ; and the probability that under a suc
cessful secular system there will be no other education,
Sunday schools, night schools, etc., all pretty certainly
failing before it I am anxious that the clergy should not
shut their eyes to the danger of rate-paid schools. A little
exertion and self-denial now may save us from what I am
sure must result from the School Board system, viz., the
entire exclusion of the clergy from all share in the teaching
of the children of the poor."
It is not quite easy to realise the tone of mind of a man
who saw with his own eyes all manner of religious agencies
springing up into life and vigour, and who yet despaired,
as he often seemed to do, of the future of religion in this
country. There is a tone of despondency about his utter
ances ; he is not like Bishop Wilberforce, sanguine, hopeful,
on the crest of a swelling tide ; it seems to him that
politically and religiously England was plunging into the
darkness. We can see a little later, in 1872, how he pro
posed to face the problems arising from the Elementary
Education Act of 1870. He desired, as we aH do, to
" strengthen and encourage religious education in Church

IV.] LATER YEARS IN THE DIOCESE OF ELY. 375
schools, and especially in those which should hereafter be
carried on as public elementary schools under the new
Act" So that he does not speak in 1872 of Board Schools
as naturally and inevitably hostile to Christianity, or as
things to be passed by in horror. The practical upshot
was the organisation of a Diocesan Board of Education,
first, to supply inspection in religious teaching for Church
schools ; secondly, to draw up a scheme of religious
teaching ; and, thirdly, to provide for the examination of
pupil teachers.
One important matter remains, the agitation over the
disestablishment and partial disendowment of the English
Churcb in Ireland, which went on from 1868 to 1872.
That our Bishop regarded the subject with great anxiety
is clear from his visitations in 1869.
" This year," he says, " for the first time since the gospel
came into the world, has a Christian nation solemnly and
deliberately — I say not now whether wisely or not — cast off
its connection with the Christian Church in one integral
portion of its empire, has diverted to secular purposes all
that which had been set aside for more than a thousand
years by the piety of forefathers for the maintenance of
the worship and the faith of Christ."
The passage is scarcely one of historical exactness ; it
is given here to shew with what emotion the Bishop, himself
an Anglo- Irishman, regarded the stroke which had fallen
on the Anglican Church in Ireland. He first threw in the
weight of his influence on the side of what is styled " Con
current Endowment," as we learn from a letter of his
addressed to Bishop McDougall : —
" Ely House, July yd, 1869.
" I voted for concurrent endowment last night to the
extent of providing houses and glebes for clergy of the
Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches, and for thePres-

376 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
byterians. I think it would be far better than confiscating
gifts to God for lunatics and monthly nurses, and that it
would have been really the most healing measure ; but the
Liberation Society overawed the Whigs, and the Ultra-
Protestants frightened the Tories, and so neither party voted
as a large proportion of them thought would be best."
The thought underlying this plan is that the State
regards all religious opinions as on the same level, and,
considering religion as a help to Government, is willing to
join in keeping it alive in the world. It was Hume's view,
but certainly not the view of the Bishop of Ely.
There are several lines of argument against the dis
establishment and disendowment of a national Church.
The most untenable is perhaps the most common : how
often have we heard the impassioned orator, the fiery
pamphleteer, denounce it as if it were a proposal to destroy
the Church itself Listening to much of the eloquence
lavished on this topic, one has to ask whether it is true,
as some of our Roman critics love to tell us, that we are
nothing but a state-born creation, a " special department '' ;
that our creeds are of no importance, our orders a delusion,
our religious faith and principles a shadow ! Those who
use this argument are but poor friends to Christianity.
No human being ventures to say that an Established
Church of any kind existed before Constantino ; it is to
be hoped that no one thinks that the Christian religion
was first invented by that great Emperor. Anyhow, the
Bishop of Ely, though in some more rhetorical passages
he comes rather near it is careful to avoid such a fatal
line of argument. To him, as, let us hope, to us also,
the Church is the reality, the Establishment is but the
accident He says, and it sounds rather strange and
unlike what one would expect (July i8th, 1868) :—" I
do not care for disestablishment if it did not carry dis-

IV.] LATER YEARS IN THE DIOCESE OF ELY. T^yy
endowment, though I do not think a nation ought to
be without a national Church through which it may utter
its voice to God." And in another place he says, very
sensibly, that " if the clergy prefer their own ease to the
souls of their people, the Church as an Establishment, i.e. as
a Church acknowledged by the nation, must go, and ought
to go." And again, he does not lose sight of what is behind.
"We met at Lambeth yesterday (February 9th, 1869)
about the Irish Church and other matters ; but I do not
think we did much. Between ourselves, the two Primates
think too much of the Establishment and too little of the
Church. I would fight for the Establishment while there
was hope ; but, if we are beaten upon that, I am for
making the best terms for the Church that can be got."
It will be seen from this that the Bishop was very far
from being a fanatical defender of Established Churches, as
such ; and, in truth, his utterances seemed to many eager
partisans to be far too moderate. He was above all things
fair-minded ; and no warmth of feeling— and he did feel
warmly on the point — blinded his eyes to the truth. He
therefore both said things and made admissions which
shocked out-and-out " Church and State " people.
There are several lines of argument on which, at different
epochs, Church Establishments have been, and often still
are, defended. There is the argument from Historical
Antiquity, and the respect due to ancient institutions ;
there is the now unused argument that the Established
Church exclusively represents the truth, while no other
rehgious body does so ; or, put another way, that in some
unexplained manner the State chose out the true form
of religion and adopted it as its own ; so that to all ages
that chosen form alone would be worthy of State support
and would enjoy the privilege of being the mouthpiece
of the State or the Sovereign in all solemn ceremonies

378 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
and acts. There is the argument that a State ought to
recognise God, as the people of that State do ; and that
such recognition must have a convenient expression in a
State Church. There is the Hume argument, that the
State has in the Church a good police machinery, and
therefore subsidises it, just as it does the army or navy,
in order that it may help in keeping order. There is the
special argument, largely used in this controversy, that the
"Church of Ireland as by law established" was an element
of the Act of Union, and could not be disestablished
without great risk to that settlement ; there was also the
facile argument that the Roman Church is the " residuary
legatee " of all Established Churches, and that in Ireland,
where that Church is predominant, it must reap the chief
advantage from any change. There is also the social
argument, that of the " educated gentleman in every parish
of the land," — which influences the opinion of the working
classes as much against as for an Established Church.
There is the old view that the upper classes are bound to
provide the lower classes with such a religion as their own
sagacity and use teaches them may be good for their
dependents and labourers ; and, again, there is the view
that a national Church is established and endowed by the
will of the nation, expressed in such a way as the nation
can express itself and that the pre-eminence and the
profit the two elements of the position, can be taken away
by those who gave it. This last way of regarding the
matter brings us up into the important question of the
rights of property, and to the argument that tithes and
other Church property, being given by God, can be
resumed only by Him.
The unsatisfactory state of the Anglican Church in
Ireland had long been felt As far back as 1833, the Irish
Temporalities Act had endeavoured to diminish the evil

IV.] LATER YEARS IN THE DIOCESE OF ELY. 2i79
and get rid of some of the unpopularity of that Church.
Nothing could hide from Irish eyes the fact that it was an
alien body imposed on it from England ; nothing could
alter the great disproportion between the numbers of those
who belonged to that Church, and those Irish who were
either Roman Catholics or Presbyterians. And so in 1868
the whole subject came up again, after the General Election
had placed Mr. Gladstone at the head of affairs with an
overwhelming majority. His Bill was carried through the
Commons in 1869, by a majority of 114. The resistance
to it in the Upper House was not very strong ; many were
half-hearted. The Bishop of Oxford (Wilberforce) abstained
altogether. " I did not vote against the second reading,"
he says, " and if I had not missed an opportunity of ex
pressing my views, I should have supported it." And even
Lord Selborne, writing years after, could only say that he
did not in 1869 think that the confiscations and confusions
of the civil wars, which had given the Anglican Church in
Ireland her property, were " a good reason for taking it all
away." Bi.shop Harold Browne had meant to speak on the
second reading in the Lords ; but, finding a strong feeling
that too many episcopal speeches would be a mistake,
he refrained and pubhshed his thoughts in the form of a
Letter entitled " A Speech not Spoken," addressed to the
Lord Chancellor of England, Lord Hatherley.
This letter was temperate and courteous ; it treats matters
so frankly, and makes admissions so honestly, that the
more eager defenders were aghast He begins by con
ceding that the Irish Church is the Church of one-ninth of
the population only, and calls this an anomaly ; he also
gives Mr. Gladstone full honour and credit for excellent
motives. He allows that the Bill was brought in to remedy
a real grievance, to conciliate a nation, to do even-handed

380 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. ^Ch.
justice to all ; he admits that Ireland had for centuries
suffered grievous wrong at the hands of her English
masters ; and takes the ground from under his own feet
by conceding that the " Irish Church is a badge of con
quest," and by pointing out that in this respect it was but
on a level with the Castle Government and the rest of it.
Matters were not mended when he points out that the
conquest was not one of Irish by English, or of Catholics
by Protestants, but of the less Papal Irish Church by the
Norman Papal Catholics. The same power in Church and
State which had conquered England undertook also the
conquest of Ireland. The evils which vexed Ireland
had existed also in England ; England had modified and
softened them ; in Ireland they had been hardened and
made more and more repulsive by successive acts of conquest.
He speaks boldly of the faults of the ruling nation. He
points out that the English at the Reformation made the
fatal blunder of forbidding the Irish language, and of
treating the reformed Episcopal Church of Ireland as
English in all respects. Naturally, the Roman Church
stepped in as the champion of the people. Her clergy
encouraged the Irish language, fostered the Irish nation
ality, and swept off with it the bulk of the impulsive
Irish people. The English lords of the land learnt nothing
by this. They steadUy treated the Established Church as
a plunder-ground, regarding it as they long regarded India,
simply as a place in which money could be made. Bishop
Harold Browne says honestly that the richest preferments
were filled with " ecclesiastics who would not have been
tolerated in like positions in England."
Having granted these points, he then proceeds, very
ingeniously and moderately, to base his opposition to this
disestablishment and disendowment, first, on the Anglican
view, which he always supported warmly, that the Aposto-

IV.] LATER YEARS IN THE DIOCESE OF ELY. 381
lical Succession was never broken in Ireland or in
England, and that therefore the " Protestant " Episcopal
Church was the true Church of Ireland ; and, next, he
urges the somewhat ineffective argument that as the
nations of England and Ireland have become one, so the
Churches of the two countries have also become one
Church, and therefore that the large majority in England
may still, by a kind of continued conquest, be allowed to
supplement the small minority in Ireland. " It was obvious
that the minority must yield to the majority, though
unfortunately the great body of the dissentients were
separated from the great body of the conformists by
seventy miles of sea."
The best part of the " Speech not Spoken " is the close,
in which, having thus coupled the two Churches together,
he declares that the Church of England, like that of
Ireland, though it may cease to be national, will still
survive and will still be strong. And then he passes on
to sketch with the force of conviction the future of the
Anglican Communion across the world : —
" By good and steady organisation it may perhaps be
kept as one great patriarchate, united and independent.
It cannot be done if every private opinion and every
sectarian prejudice be pressed against the common good
and to the disunion of the whole. But if clergy and laity
will join together with mutual confidence, if men will fight
and pray against extreme practices, against personal
whims, against isolated and insubordinate courses, if they
will renounce bitter recriminations, and, above all, discredit
and discountenance violent religious periodicals (on the
one side or the other), there may be a hope that United
Anghcanism — at home, in America, and in the Colonies —
may hold fast to catholic, primitive, and evangelical truth,
though its nationalism may have been scattered to the
winds of heaven."
This letter was first sent to Lord Hatherley before

3-82 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
publication, and received from that zealous Churchman
the following kindly acknowledgment : — "June ifth, 1869.
" My dear Lord, — I cannot regard your honouring me
by the Address of your ' unspoken Speech ' otherwise
than as a mark of your kindness and your belief that I
am capable of appreciating all arguments — a habit indeed
that must necessarily be formed by judicial experience.
I can assure you I feel that it is a blessing to any State
to be enfolded within the Church, though it is not so easy
for the Church to profit by the State's aid without loss of
its own purity ; but a " National " Church forced on a
nation is to me something oltotvov. I can't literally find
a place for it in my conception ; and to have the English
branch of the Church supposed to be bound to maintain
that view would all but make me despair of our future.
I confess I can and do (dream of perhaps) conceive the
great Western branch of the Church Catholic as literally
spreading over the earth as the waters cover the sea — not
the corrupt but reformed Western Church, including, not
impossibly the Churches of Italy and Spain, but at least
those of America (North) and Australia.
" Believe me, with great respect,
" Yours very faithfully,
" Hatherley."
In reply to this note, the Bishop made the following
explanation, which seems to indicate that he did not feel
his position very strong. It also perhaps gives a reason
for his having just before advocated a policy of concurrent
endowment " Ely House, June c,th, 1869,
" My dear Lord,— I am much obliged to you for taking
so kindly my somewhat bold address to you and use of
your name. I entirely agree with you in thinking it
intolerable that a Church should be forced on an unwilling
nation— assuming, of course, that Ireland is a distinct
nation. But may I just say these few words of explanation ?
"The point of my argument is, that the Church was
(not forced upon but) willingly and joyfully accepted by

IV.] LATER YEARS IN THE DIOCESE OF ELY. 383
the Irish people. If anything was forced on it, it was not
the Church, but the Reformation of the Church. Much
then and deeply as I value the Reformation, I can under
stand that a reasonable claim may be urged for the repeal
of the Reformation ; but I can see no case for the tremendous
step of rejecting nationally the Church altogether.
" Pardon these few words of explanation, which need no
reply, and believe me,
" With the truest esteem and respect,
" Your Lordship's very faithfully,
"E. H. Ely.
"The Lord Chancellor."
It was right and natural that the Bishop should send
another early copy to the statesman in charge of the Bill ;
from whom there came a brief and vigorous reply, in very
friendly language : — " 11, Carlton House Terrace,
June Zth, 1869.
" My dear Lord Bishop of Ely, — I thank you very
sincerely for your Letter to the ChanceUor, which I have
read with a cordial admiration of its ability, charity, and
high-mindedness. " I need hardly say that it contains much which com
mands my assent : much more which compels me to differ,
" Our point of parting company is the view which your
Lordship takes of corporate property. The State which
refuses to allow a perpetuity even in the line of natural
descent can never in my opinion escape from the respon
sibility of a high and paramount stewardship over all
corporate property whatever, ecclesiastical or lay. That
passage from Bishop Butler * which has been quoted
* In a letter written December 22nd, 1747 (when he was Bishop
of Bristol), that most thoughtful of prelates, discussing the position of
Church property, fearlessly attacks the notion that Church goods are
God's special and indefeasible gift to any Church.
" Property in general," he writes, " is and must be regulated by the
laws of the community. . . . "We may with good conscience retain any
possession, Church lands or tithes, which the laws of the state we live
under give us a property in. . .
" Under the Mosaic dispensation, indeed, God Himself assigned to

384 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
repeatedly during this arduous controversy, expressed my
creed upon the subject.
" I remain, with much respect, my dear Lord Bishop,
" Faithfully yours,
" W. E. Gladstone."
The Bill in due course of time became law ; and the
Bishop referred to it more than once in his visitation
addresses in the autumn of 1869. At Cambridge he went
so far (in his kindly anxiety for the Irish clergy) as to
suggest that " the clergy of the English Church should
give one per cent, of their official incomes for so many
years in aid of the Church and clergy of Ireland." This
proposal came to nothing through the spirited reply of
an Irish clergyman present, who assured the assembled
Churchmen that it would be simply ruin to the Irish Church
if it were taught to lean on any but itself for support.
In another place he ventures, in speaking on the subject,
on an interesting forecast when he says that — ¦
" Very probably we may be passing as much into
another atmosphere and another worid as those who lived
in the time of Constantino or of Charlemagne, or of
Gregory VII. or of the Reformation."
the priests and Levites tithes and other possessions ; and in those
possessions they had a Divine right ; a property quite superior to all
human laws, ecclesiastical as well as civil. But every donation to the
Christian Church is a human donation and no more ; and therefore
cannot give a Divine right, but such a right only as must be subject in
common with all other property to the regulation of human laws. . . .
No one can have a right to perpetuity in any land, except it be given
him by God, as the land of Canaan was to Abraham. . . ,
" The persons then who gave these lands to the Church had them
selves no right of perpetuity in them, consequently could convey no
such right to the Church. . . I have considered tithes and Church
lands as the same, because I see no sort of proof that tithes under the
gospel are of Divine right ; and if they are not, they must come under
the same consideration with lands." — From Fitzgerald's Edition of
Butler's Analogy, Preface, p. xciii.

IV.] LATER YEARS IN THE DIOCESE OF ELY. 385
The future story of the widespread revival of religious
feeling and energy in this country alone can shew how
far this hopeful outlook will be justified. He was not
always so sanguine.
" From Constantine to the American Revolution Chris
tian nations have ever been in union with the Church ;
now in the nineteenth century we are trying the ex
periment of dissolving this union. ... It is true that the
real principle, idea, history, and name of a national Church
have degenerated into the notion of an Established
Church, and so people have thought and spoken as if the
nation, finding some twenty or thirty different forms of
faith, woke up one morning, and examining each form,
selected one for itself and established it. But this will not
stand the test of history.
"... To pass from principle to practice, can any one
doubt that the position of a Church acknowledged and
defended as the National Church is far more favourable
for action than that of a Church left to the precarious
charity of each separate congregation ? Perhaps the town
clergy of a disestablished Church would be richer than at
present — but how about the country parishes ?
"... The evil of the opposite system is that it can
only give the supply where there is the demand, and the
demand is always least where the need is greatest.
" . . If the Church ceases to be acknowledged univer
sally as the English Church, we may strengthen our
position, but must narrow it We do not now teach
youth Church principles, but religious principles ; if dis
established, we should have to teach them how to justify
our position. People press on us, and we foHow their
wishes, a liberal way of dealing with our people generally ;
this will become impossible if we cease to be the
acknowledged Church of the nation."
Other forecasts which he made have not yet been
fulfilled. " The confiscation of tithes," he said, " will infallibly
entail bloodshed and anarchy of the most fearful character,
the universal absenteeism of landlords, and the probable
25

386 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
extermination of all Protestants '' ; and, again, " The
English established endowed Church will not last five
years after the destruction of the Irish " ; and, again, "The
Scotch establishment will probably go still sooner" All
these things would be part of " the terrible triumph of
unbelief and of the world, rationalism, radicalism, with
probably an intensified and more utterly corrupted
Romanism, bearing sway, and trampling down all truth
and holiness."
These gloomy forebodings have not yet found their
fulfilment, but have gone the way of most prophecies
uttered in times of panic and excitement
While Bishop Harold Browne was at Ely, he published
many smaller pieces, some of them involving much
thought and care. Some of these charges, letters, sermons,
we have noticed in passing ; other publications demand a
word. Perhaps the most interesting of his publications in
this period is a volume of three sermons preached at
Cambridge, which give his views on the limits of Church
comprehension, and contain an appendix stating the
Bishop's views as to the Apostolical Succession, handled
carefully and temperately : it served as his manifesto on
the one hand against the Roman theory of the unity of the
Church, and on the other against the Congregationalists
with their independent Churches grouped together by a
central organisation. The Bishop's yearning for unity
within the Enghsh Church shews itself throughout these
sermons ; for the sake of it he would allow great latitude,
especially on the Holy Eucharist, as to which opinions
ranged from Zwinglianism to a physical theory very like
Transubstantiation. " Why can it not be that those who hold Christ present
in the hand, and those who acknowledge Him only in the
heart, should yet meet and worship, and kneel and feed
together, feed on Him, who is the only food of the soul ?

IV.] LATER YEARS IN THE DIOCESE OF ELY. 387
Can any difference as to the how, the when, the where,
in this presence and this sacrifice, and this feeding on the
sacrifice, be comparable to the deep unity of those
who believe in the Presence and the Sacrifice and the
Food ? "
He is willing to widen the Church's limits in this
direction, though he is silent as to the amount of toleration
to be conceded to independence of opinion and judgment
on such matters as the authority of Holy Writ, the
relations between the human and the Divine in the person
of Jesus Christ, the manner of the operation of the Holy
Spirit, and other points of theological nicety.
On the sudden death of Bishop Wilberforce in the autumn
of 1873, the See of Winchester was offered to and accepted
by the Bishop of Ely. At this moment he was intent
on the celebration of the twelve-hundredth anniversary of
St Etheldreda, patron saint of Ely Cathedral ; and this
commemoration became the scene on which the weH-loved
Bishop bade farewell to his flock. His sermon on the
occasion aroused the bitter hostility of the Romanists in
England. He enlarged, as might have been foreseen from
his well-known views, on the unity from earliest days of the
Church of England.
It now only remained for him to bid farewell to his
friends and the diocese over which he had ruled so well.
The clergy of the archdeaconry of Bedford expressed the
general feeling respecting him when they thanked him for
the good judgment moderation, and impartiahty with which
he had presided over them ; they refer gladly to his efforts
to interest the laity in Church matters, and recall his
"uniform courtesy and kindness to all," and "the large-
hearted and noble hospitality extended to clergy and
laity." The Bishop's utterances were very simple and very

388 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
genuine. To the working folk who were feasted on the
occasion of St Etheldreda's festival, he said : —
" I wish you could all have better houses, and each a
little bit of land. Learn, too, to take care of horses, homes,
land, yourselves. Do not go after ' three days' work and
four days' drink.' Nothing can give you such a command
of the market as a command of yourselves " ; and to the
wives he said, " Be wise ; don't drive the man to the public
house." To his clergy he took a wider range. " The Church
of England has had a great past and has before it a great
future; this depends largely on the faithfulness of the
clergy." He lays down the principles on which they should
work. These must be, faith in God, love to Jesus Christ,
denial of self a spirit of union within the Church, zeal for
the education of our young ones ; the isolation of the
parochial clergy must be broken down ; women's work
must be more encouraged. He tells them emphatically how
he has tried to bring clergy and laity together. " I have
tried to open the way ; I entreat you, brethren, both of
clergy and laity, with almost my last words to you as your
Bishop I charge you, in God's name, that you never let it
be closed." He takes comfort from the thought that his
saintly predecessor, Bishop Lancelot Andrewes, who, when
Bishop of Ely, was one of King James' company of
translators of the Holy Scriptures, even as he himself had
been head of the Old Testament company of revisers,
was also translated to Winchester. Touching is his sad
phrase, " I am going from a land of peace to a land of
turmoil and difficulty." At a meeting in St James's Hall,
at which he was present, he referred in earnest, almost
despondent language to his impressions of Portsmouth,
whence he had just returned. He spoke of the consterna
tion he had felt at sight of that great town, and declared

IV.] LATER YEARS IN THE DIOCESE OF ELY. 389
that " he would never have left quiet Ely had he realised
the huge mass of work and difficulties which confronted
him there."
The affection and gratitude of the diocese could not be
hid. All hastened to take part, in one way or another, in
the various gifts which testified to their regret. His por
trait was painted by Watts, and presented to Mrs. Harold
Browne ; two rings, the one an episcopal sapphire, with
St. Etheldreda and St Swithun engraved on it, the other
a green jasper (or bloodstone), with the arms of the See
of Winchester impaled with those of the Bishop ; a fine
epergne, with much other plate, was also given to him ;
and lastly, above £1 100 were subscribed for the establish
ment of " Harold Browne Prizes for Pupil Teachers."
The Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, Dr. Cookson, speaking
of the loss the University and diocese had sustained by the
removal of the Bishop, says : —
" Perhaps, when the history of the English Church in
this period comes to be written, of all the prelates who
have contributed to the infusion of new life and animation
into its work, and who have done service by their writings,
example, and episcopal labours, no worthier name will
appear than that of Bishop Edward Harold Browne."
No truer utterance as to the effect of the Bishop's years
of hard work in the diocese of Ely could have been made
than that in which his close friend and helper Archdeacon
Emery, comparing the state of the diocese in 1873 with its
state a few years earlier, summed up the matter : —
" The energy and zeal displayed by the Bishop, and the
result of these various organisations set on foot by him,
had made the diocese of - Ely,^ a positive picture of the
progress of the Church of England during the last ten
years."

390 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch. IV.
It had been a time of peaceful advance, undisturbed by
crying questions, free from scandals, full of devoted labours
for the faith of Christ ; and when the Bishop at last bade
a most reluctant farewell to his sorrowing flock, it would
be hard to say which felt the parting most. He carried
with him from Ely to Winchester the warm God-speed of
aU his friends, and the whole diocese was his friend.

BOOK IV.
1874 — 1891.
WINCHESTER.

391

CHAPTER I.
appointment.
IT was with no little anxiety that the Bishop of Ely
decided to move to Winchester. His heart was at
Ely ; he was among his friends, and near his loved Univer
sity ; he was not there compared with a prelate of the
brilliancy and working power of Wilberforce. At first, he
appears to have meant to refuse it ; but after a while, over
borne, as he sometimes was, by the urgency of friends, he
accepted the offer. His letter to Bishop McDougall, his
most intimate friend and colleague, shews how great the
perturbation of his spirit had been : —
"Rose Castle, August 4th, 1873.
" My dear Bishop, — This is to me a sad letter. After
what I said at Ely you will hardly believe that I have
accepted Winchester. Yet so it is. It has altogether been
so set before me that I could hardly refuse. Gladstone
of his own motion suggested a Suffragan, and said that,
though he refused it for Ely, he would gladly and cheerfully
sanction it for Winchester. I found I was the only Bishop
to whom he meant to offer Winton. It would, if I had
refused, have been given at once to a presbyter. I can hardly
tell you all that has weighed with me to accept this. I
fully resolved to refuse it, unless some very objectionable
arrangement was impending ; but the very strong advice
given me and pressure put on me have made me yield,
greatly against my inclination. I shall be a loser in almost
every way. Personally, I shall be a gainer in nothing ; for
393

394 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
what some would think a gain, more of courtly society and
parliamentary position, is to me an insufferable nuisance.
I have prayed earnestly to be guided rightly, and, with
innumerable reasons against it, I have thought the reasons
why I should accept are the stronger.
" I cannot tell you how much I shall regret my friends
at Ely and in the diocese, many of whom I love most
affectionately. You and yours are among those I value
most, and shall miss most. I wish I could take my four
Archdeacons with me. There is no diocese so officered,
I am convinced. It is, however, some satisfaction that I
have been able to leave two of my Archdeacons' families
fairly provided for."
Bishop McDougall appears to have replied, suggesting
that, if possible, he would like to follow his friend into
the new field of work. For, in a letter in answer dated
August 19th, Bishop Harold Browne says : —
" It would be most agreeable to me to carry you and
Mrs. McDougall with us to my future diocese ; and certainly
the thought had crossed my mind. I never thought,
however, that it would cross yours. And indeed the
difificulties seem very great. I imagine you would excel
lently supply my deficiencies in some points ; especially,
you would make a good Sea King, whereas I abhor the
sea. I may be Bishop of the See, you might be Bishop
of the Seas. But the difficulties are considerable. It is
doubtful whether I could ever find a berth for you so
profitable as you have now. There might be some
jealousies about my bringing a man into high position
from my old diocese. It would be almost easier to bring
a man from elsewhere. Then comes the question of health.
The population of Winton is three times that of Ely, the
confirmations ought to be double at least My time would
be so occupied that I must give more confirmations to
my coadjutor than I could take myself and I could not
bear to see you killing yourself by confirming. Then you
have those bronchitic attacks to which you are so subject,
especially at the confirmation season. These and other
thoughts have seemed to me to make a transference, which
would be most pleasant to me, full of difficulties. But

I-] APPOINTMENT. 395

believe me, whatever happens I shall always cherish the
most affectionate regard for you and yours, and shaH be
" Your ever attached brother,
"E. H. Ely."
The Bishop also tried to get for Bishop McDougall the
Canonry at Winchester then vacant which had fallen to
the Crown, and wrote to him to that effect.
To this Bishop McDougall repHed, setting out his doubts
and fears about the move (September 12th, 1873). He
would lose in income ; he thinks he would not be efficient ;
he is no Londoner (as people might well have said when
they saw him in full episcopal dress strolling down Regent
Street with a short pipe in his mouth !) ; he is no good at
dinners, public meetings, and the like ; he is bronchitic and
unfit for night duty of any kind, though his health is
better ; yet, after all, he would like it, if he could but see
his way ; he would love nothing better than to continue to
be the Bishop's helper ; and he would rub up his French
again, and qualify for the Channel Islanders. He adds that
in the new diocese the travelling expenses would be heavy,
and he would have to put down horses and carriage.
Directly on receipt of this, the Bishop set himself to smooth
the way. It would be a warmer climate ; the confirma
tions, etc., might be so arranged that he himself being
usually stronger in cold weather, might take those in
spring, and Bishop McDougall the summer ones ; he
would relieve him of almost all London work. Then, as
to money matters, the expenses of travelling should cost
him nothing ; " though," he adds, " I fear I could provide
no actual income, as I shall be nearly ;£^8oo a year poorer
than at Ely. There is a mortgage on the house, and other
outgoings, of which I did not know."
The serious loss of income mentioned above was only
temporary, for within eighteen months Bishop Sumner

396 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

died. The way was also made easy by the consideration
of the Prime Minister, who offered Bishop McDougaH the
vacant Canonry at Winchester ; and so the two friends,
after all, were not severed.
It is in connection with this negotiation that we hear
the Bishop's views as to the subdivision of work in his
huge diocese. It is clear that he was very jealous of any
attempt to minish aught from the dignity and importance
of the See of Winchester. Certain influential Surrey men
had been at him at once.
" They have lately impressed me, or tried to impress
me, that a bishopric of South London cannot be, as it
would take that poor and needy population away from
the rich population of the country parts of Surrey. They
maintain that a bishopric of Surrey might be formed, but
at great expense, and prefer on the whole, at least for a
time, the notion of two coadjutor Bishops, one to throw
himself greatly into South London, the other for the
Islands, and south of Hampshire."
During these days the Bishop received innumerable
letters of regret from Ely, of hope and encouragement
from Hampshire. One from Charles Kingsley, then Rector
of Eversley, contains a phrase which shews that he appre
ciated the kind of Bishop who was coming.
" I welcome you," he writes, " with the hope that you
will be able — willing i-you will be — to keep the balance
even between extreme parties, and win the respect and
affection of the good men (and there are many amongst
us) of both."
There is also an affectionate note from Archbishop Tait,
warning him earnestly against trying to carry on both
dioceses together, lest he should break down in the attempt ;
he ought to clear entirely out of Ely before settling down
to rule over Winchester.

I.J APPOINTMENT. 397
And his loving friends at Cambridge, though they were
very sorry to lose him, could still pluck up heart to make
an epigram or two, turning on his uneasy position between
the two Sees.
"Dear Mrs. Bro-WNE, — On my return to Cambridge
I put the matter into the hands of ' Our Poet,' and you see
the result ! Poor fellow ! You will not be surprised to
hear that he ' now doth crazy go.' It was the last effort
of his waning reason. " Yours very sincerely,
"J. B. Lightfoot.
"Trinity- College, August nth, 1873."
" ON A RECENT PERPLEXITY.
Tottos SifldXacrcrof.
" Tossed to and fro, all vainly I endeavour
Forward to steer my bark, or to retreat.
No marvel this ; for madly rages ever
The fierce, tempestuous surge, where two Sees meet."

"TO my lord bishop of echester and winley, on his present
EQUIVOCAL POSITION.
" Fy, fy, my Lord ! can this be so ?
Your footing, quick, recover ;
For 'tis a shocking thing to see
A Bishop half-sees-over."
Bishop Harold Browne was confirmed in Bow Church
on October 23rd, 1873, and enthroned at Winchester on
December i ith, going through the long imposing ceremony,
and paying the accustomed visit to St. Lawrence' Church
to toll the beH. An opportunity soon came for him to
declare the principles on which he hoped to rule over his
diocese. After the consecration of the enlargement of
Stoke Church by GuHdford, he addressed those who had
come to meet him, and assured them of his deep sympathy
with all earnest work.

398 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

" I have always called myself an Evangelical, but I am
equally ready to call myself a High Churchman ; . . . most
distinctiy an Evangelical, and most distinctly a High
Churchman. I believe very thoroughly in both." And,
as he remarked long after, in 1889, " I can find no party-
name by which to call myself"
He also defined his position as between the Roman
Church on the one hand and Nonconformity on the other,
speaking in a kind and gentle tone of both, and declaring
his firm faith in the " principles of the Primitive Church
and the Reformed Church of England " ; and he ended by
appealing to them to find out the ninety-nine points of
agreement rather than the one of variance ; and to accept
him on these terms as " Bishop of the Church, not a Bishop
of a party."
He aimed from the outset at a subdivision of work
rather than at a reconstruction of his diocese, and dis
couraged, without definite opposition, the schemes put
forth from time to time, whether for a bishopric of South
London or for the separation of the Channel Islands from
the See. And, meanwhile, he took such steps as seemed
to him wise for the better distribution of the duties. For
the northern portion of the diocese he obtained the ready
and efficient help of Archdeacon Utterton, who was con
secrated Suffragan Bishop of Guildford on March 15th,
1874, At the same time he placed Bishop McDougaH as an
assistant Bishop in the southern part of the diocese, specially
to look after the Isle of Wight and the Channel Islands.
The great growth of episcopal work, the higher sense of
duty, and the feeling that a Bishop ought to make himself
felt throughout his diocese, and to be ready to take part in
every kind of Church work, have taxed the strength of
the episcopate of modern times. As the vigour of the
Church increases, it is seen that nothing is so valuable

1.] APPOINTMENT. 399
as an active Bishop. There is a vast future before the
episcopate, if it wiH read the sign of the times, and truly
guide and befriend the people, — the main duty of the
Church. If the Church can win the confidence of the wage-
earners of England, direct their advance, and inspire them
with new and higher aims, establishment or disestabhsh-
ment will become a minor affair, a matter of convenience
or inconvenience, devoid of any essential character.
A little incident in the summer of 1874 illustrates clearly
Bishop Harold Browne's profound belief in the authority
and dignity of the episcopal office. In the Public Worship
Bill of that year there was a clause allowing an appeal to
the Archbishop, in case a Bishop decided to place his veto
on proceedings under the Act The Bishop of Winchester
saw in it an infringement of the episcopal authority ; and
led the opposition to the clause in a spirited speech, which
carried the House of Lords with him. The clause was
thrown out. A letter from him to Bishop Magee of
Peterborough shews how he regarded it, with exaggeration
no doubt, yet in the main correctly. It would have been
fatal to the authority and influence of a Bishop if after
be had forbidden proceedings against one of his clergy,
the Archbishop of his province could interfere and compel
him to allow an action to proceed.
" I hope you wiH do all you can against the clause. . .
The whole Bill does much to diminish the condition of
Bishops. This clause strikes at the root of Episcopacy.
It brings the Archbishop into the Bishop's diocese. The
Archbishop of Canterbury cares for nothing but to pass
the Bin, quocumque modo — ' Si possis, recte ; si non,
quocumque modo, rem.' The effect of this clause is in
the direction of absorbing the episcopate (a divine institu
tion) in the archiepiscopate (which is a human institution).
I am sure that disestablishment wHl follow, and I think
on good ground that Gladstone is quite ready to go in for
it in the event of this clause becoming law."

400

EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

And later on (August loth, 1874) he writes again to
Bi.shop Magee : —
" I confess that this triple alliance between the Arch
bishop, the Prime Minister, and Vernon Harcourt seems to
me the most ominous conjuncture against the Church. . . .
I for one would much sooner pass the Red Sea of dis
establishment, and wander for forty years in the wilderness
with the Cloud of Glory guiding us."
This the Bishop writes from Guernsey after a bad
passage ; his equilibrium must have been not a littie upset
before he could have attributed such fearful consequences
to a comparatively unimportant clause in the BHl. "We
had a rough voyage," he adds, "and have to leave for
Jersey at the end of the week. The islands are very
beautiful, but stormy as ' vex't Bermoothes.' " The Bishop
always shrank from the sea, and disliked even to stay at
seaside places, \\'ithin sight and hearing of the waves.
During this visit to the Islands Bishop Sumner died,
and the important question as to the future home of the
Bishop of Winchester came up. On the one side was the
splendour of a palatial house, one of the finest in South
l^ngland, and the ancient historic connection between
P'arnham and the See of Winchester. On the other side
was the enormous and altogether disproportionate cost of
living in so large a place. Bishop Harold Browne once
told me that it cost him all his official income to keep up
the Castle ; so that for the heavy outgoings of the diocese
he had to depend on his private resources, and was con
sequently always tempted to impoverish himself Added
to this was the evil of lifting up the Bishop almost to the
position of a temporal prince, which could only confirm the
widespread notion that the State Church was an upper-
class affair, hung as an ornamental appendage on the

J-] APPOINTMENT.

401

show side of society. This view of it seems never to
have affected the Bishop. With all his personal simplicity
and humility, he still believed that a Bishop's magnificence
was important and that if his official dignity were lowered
the stability of the Established Church would somehow
be endangered. He also felt that the greater income of
his See was given him specially to keep up this grandeur,
which from time to time brought him into contact with
the highest in the realm. He went at once, on Bishop
Sumner's death, to see the Castle.
" I have just been to Farnham," he writes on September
19th, 1874. "The house is much worse than Ely in every
thing but the hall. It would be no more trouble or expense
than Ely, except for its long passages, staircases, and
boundless roof The garden is rather troublesome, though
very pretty, and the park beautiful It ought to keep
itself" The sanguine tone of this note shews that from the
outset the Bishop looked on Farnham with favour. The
house, as a fact, was far more costly than the Ely palace ;
and as for the park keeping itself this was a mere delusion.
Anyhow, he decided at once in favour of living at Farnham,
especially as he thought his way was clear, both to a larger
income, and also to the sale of Winchester House in
London, which would relieve him of some outlay. The
Archbishop of Canterbury wrote at once to express his
pleasure at the decision : —
" I am glad to hear that you have decided to keep
P'"arnham. I am sure it is an evil to break the old ties of
association, which are a help to aH of us in our work."
The Bishop had consulted him about Winchester House,
and his reply was : —
" No objection can be raised against your plan of aiding
the foundation of a new diocese by the sale of Winchester 26

402 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

House. To get rid of so large a town-house would
probably be a benefit to your successors, and I should
rejoice to see the diocese made more manageable without
any diminution of the ancient prescriptive importance of
the See."
The Bishop's mind turned sometimes towards his Win
chester Palace of Wolvesey, a far more central position for
residence. In 1877 Dr Ridding, thinking that the place
would be valuable for school purposes, wished to get posses
sion of Bishop Morley's house and the ruins and grounds
around it. The Bishop consulted Bishop McDougall : —
". . . It is a reason why I should soon learn what is
necessary to be done to it. If .£"1,000 of solid repair and
;£^500 of paint and paper would make it right and habitable,
I should be inclined to venture it. I hardly like to sell it
A future Bishop might live there. Whether a disestablished
Bishop could afford to do so I doubt ; and folks now seem
to count the years of the Establishment"
What the Bishop thought of Farnham can be seen from
a letter written to a kinsman in the autumn of 1875, just
after he had come into possession of it : —
"Highfield, near Southampton, October qth, 1875.
" My dear Philip, — Very many thanks for your kind
letter and greetings to me in my new home. We are in it ;
but masons, carpenters, painters, and paperers hold by fai
the greater part of it against us, and will do so for months.
It is a beautiful old house, with beautiful garden and park ;
but the house is very unequal, patched in many ways.
I hope I shall have improved it. Among other things, I
have opened four fine Early English windows, which had
been blocked up by a dead wall. Unfortunately they are
in the kitchen. The oldest part of all is the servants' hall.
That and the keep, which is a grand fortress, are of the age
of Stephen, built by Bishop Henry de Blois, brother to the
king. Perhaps the oldest thing of all is a Norman oak
pillar, which is in a small cupboard or closet, hard to see ;

I.] APPOINTMENT. 403

but I am told that an oak pillar with a Norman capital is
very rare indeed. I trust the place is very healthy as well
as pretty ; but I am little there. Like my sister-in-law,
Harriet, I only go home now and then for change of air.
Of late, since my return from the North, my work has been
even harder than ever."
As he grew older the Bishop felt the burden of Farnham
pressing very heavily on his shoulders ; and when the
present Dean wrote to him, suggesting (under the circum
stances of the shrunken income of the Capitular body)
that the Deanery should be handed over to the Bishop for
his episcopal residence, and the Dean find himself a smaller
and more manageable house, his reply shewed that, though
unwilling to face further changes, he saw what would be
best for the See. " Farnham Castle, January \st, 1884.
" Your scheme about changing houses is a bold one. I
dare not answer your question yet. I should not like to
see you removed from your palatial house. I hardly know-
how to make a change in my old age, unless it were to
retirement ; but I quite think that a future Bishop would
be richer and more efficient at Winchester ; perhaps future
Deans might like a smaller house than the Deanery."
No sooner had the Bishop settled these preliminary
matters, than he found himself caHed on to undertake the
task of helping towards an interesting expansion of the
Episcopate. The increase of England's responsibilities
in India by the annexation of two huge territories to the
imperial crown led Churchmen to think they must bestir
themselves. A plan was floated for two new bishoprics,
one, for the North West provinces, at Lahore, and the
other, for the Burmese country, at Rangoon. Of these
it was proposed that the Winchester diocese should raise
the funds for Rangoon ; and the Bishop at once fell in

404 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
with the plan. The moving spirit, to whom the success
of the proposal was mainly due, was Sir Walter Farquhar.
There were many different suggestions. Some wanted
" Chota-Bishops," or little Bishops, natives of the districts,
to head native Churches, and to make it clear that
Christianity was not merely another form of English
influence. This scheme, highly to their honour, was
warmly supported by the Committee of the S.P.G., and
had much to be said in its favour. But the counsels of
old Indians and others, anxious for a larger scheme, pre
vailed. It was decided to raise funds for the endowment
of two new bishoprics, to be held by Englishmen. The
Winchester diocese, moved by the urgent appeals and
advice of Mr. Jacob, son of the good old Archdeacon
of Winchester, a man of great Indian experience and
unusual vigour and power, undertook to raise ;£io,ooo
in two years, a sum which, with help from other sources,
would provide a sufficient fund for the endowment of a
bishopric for Burmah. The diocese of Oxford offered to
do the same for the other See at Lahore.
The Bishop began by issuing a memorandum on the
subject, in which he appealed to the consciences of English
men, responsible for the welfare of India. We had shaken
the faith of the inhabitants of that great peninsula in their
older religions, and were bound to shew them a better
way. Even on political grounds it would be wise, if we
could, to make them Christians ; stiH more are we bound, on
religious grounds, to do what we can to give the Gospel
of Christ to a dependency numbering quite one-fourth of
the human race. Christian missions are not failures : " If
it took many centuries to convert Europe, we must not
expect to convert India in a single century." He says
that the true step forward would be that of erecting
missionary bishoprics, which would not be too costly.

I-] APPOINTMENT. 405.

India needs men of high intelligence to evangelise her ;
good missionary Bishops have ever gathered good men
round them, as did Selwyn, Mackenzie, Pattison, and
others. This appeal was followed by public meetings,
at which the Bishop did his utmost for the scheme,
sketching also a picture of a development of native
Bishops, under the English ones, with perhaps as many
as ten or twelve of them at work in India alone.
In a year the diocese had raised £y,000 ; the great
Societies promised £y,<)00, and ere long the diocesan
contribution reached the .£"10,000 desired. The plan of
native Bishops was put aside ; a proposal for two Bishops,
an Englishman for the English, a native of India for the
Indians, was also suggested, but was rejected as likely to
emphasise the odious distinction between conqueror and
conquered. The Church Missionary Society in Tinnevelly
shewed a wise desire to train the Churches into supporting
themselves ; they urged that instead of providing endow
ments from England for the whole cost of a bishopric,
native efforts should be encouraged, and life and self-
devotion elicited among the converts. They suggested that
;£^i 0,000 should be handed over to each of the Societies,
to be invested as permanent funds, the interest of which
should provide stipends for the two missionary Bishops.
The other Society was also shy of helping, and seemed,
in an unfriendly sort of way, to think it impossible for
one Bishop to care for both the English and the native
inhabitants of Burmah. On the other hand, Lord
Salisbury, who was then at the India Office, was very
friendly and helpful, and undertook to attach the stipend
of a Government Chaplaincy to the Bishop's salary. Mr.
Jacob also appealed to Archbishop Tait, who listened to his
earnest and hopeful statements as well as to Mr. Bullock's
frigid criticisms, and was not afraid to range himself on

406 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, DD. [Ch. I.

the side of venture and advance. To Mr. Jacob's sensible
and weighty arguments the ultimate success of the effort
was largely due. In the end, the original plan was carried
out, and the two English dioceses had the privilege of
creating, out at the far distant edges of the old diocese
of Calcutta, the two permanent and independent bishoprics
of Rangoon and Lahore.

CHAPTER II.
the ANGLO-CONTINENTAL SOCIETY, AND THE RE-UNION
OF CHRISTENDOM.
THROUGHOUT all this period Bishop Harold Browne
took the greatest interest in the character, constitution,
and development of Episcopal Churches. They were to
him the true allies of the English Church ; he was always
eager to join hands with the Episcopalians in America or
in Scotland, in the Eastern Churches or in Scandinavia,
and especially with the old Catholics of Switzerland and
Germany. He also, in his pastoral of 1875, on " The
position and parties of the English Church," while looking
askance on any general alliance or federation of Christian
bodies, warmly urged a closer union among the reformed
Episcopal bodies.
It was therefore natural that he should take a leading part
in the affairs of the Anglo-Continental Society, of which
we have already mentioned the origin. He was, in fact
" the life and soul of the Society." He had clearly stated
his point of view in " Visions of Peace," a letter addressed
in 1870 to his old and zealous friend, Mr. Higgins. We
must aim at a Church and a faith orthodox alike and
comprehensive, " broad without laxity, indifference, unbe
lief or scepticism ; evangelical without sectarianism or
intolerance ; hierarchical without priestcraft or supersti
tion " ; in a word, Anglican and Episcopal. He appeals
407

4o8 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

to Nonconformists to lay down their arms and come in ;
he tells the Romanists, in reply to their claims, that they
are but a sect, and that not a very orthodox one ; he
invites the Eastern Churches to accept a hearty union.
In 1870 he held a conference with Archbishop Lycurgus
of Syra, who \'isited him at Ely, on the subject of the
" Filioque " Controversy, and shewed the keenest interest
in all questions relating to both the Easterns and the old
Catholics. Whether in Convocation or at Lambeth Con
ferences, or in the Old Catholic assemblies at Cologne or
Bonn, the Bishop was unwearied in trying to smooth away
difficulties, to remove barriers, to display the English
Church as a model, to hold out a friendly hand. These
overtures were well received, though little came of them.
His hopes as to the Old Catholic movement are summed
up in a letter written just after his visit to Cologne : —
" The meeting was deeply interesting. The speakers
were thoughtful, earnest, eloquent, calm, but determined ; . . .
all were apparently deeply interested, applauding the
speakers enthusiastically. The movement evidently excites
deep interest. God only knows what the future will be,
and to what it will lead. It is the greatest effort at reform
made within the Roman Church since the disruption of
the sixteenth century, and it may well have our prayers
and sympathy."
Head and shoulders above all the others who took part
in this movement was Dr von Dollinger, the most learned
of German theologians, at that time Professor in the
University of Munich. An eye-witness of the turmoil created
by the Ultramontane dogmas of the Vatican Council says, in
1872, that " Dollinger is doing his utmost to restrain those
who would make it a mere party and semi-political movement,
and he will accept no party-position which he is not forced
by his opponents to assume."

II.] THE ANGLO-CONTINENTAL SOCIETY. 409

With Dr. von Dollinger our Bishop was very friendly,
for he recognised in the great Church historian a kindred
spirit During this period he took his holidays in Germany
or Switzerland, because he hoped there to help on the
movement In 1872 he had been to Grindelwald, to Bern,
and eventually to the Conference of Old Catholics at
Cologne : the Old Catholics seemed likely to enter into
relationship with both the Anglo-Continental Society and
another Reform Society which represented the movement
in favour of independent unity in England and among the
Greek Churches.
They also, it is interesting to note, suggested that "it
may be important" as Dr. Lewis Plogg writes, " to include
in such a committee (of united Churches) some eminent
Irish Churchmen, e.g.. Professor Salmon and others, and
also some Scotch Churchmen, to show to German Old
Catholics and others that Anglican ideas of unity are
quite unaffected by ' establishment ' or ' disestablishment.' "
At this same time the Bishop had lately received a visit
from Pere Hyacinthe, who was very anxious for the
appointment of an organising clergyman of the English
Church to help his struggling young community in Paris.
The Bishop spent his first holiday, after coming to
Winchester, paying a visit to the Bonn Conference, in
which he was most deeply interested. After one session of
it he writes from Cologne (September 14th, 1874) : —
" I have just returned from Bonn, where we have had
a very successful day. Dollinger was very wise and con
ciliatory. The English and Americans were good enough
to say that my help was of great importance, and that I
had succeeded in getting through difficulties which would
have been insuperable without me ; so that I feel thankful
to have been there."
A letter from our Bishop to the Bishop of Melbourne

4IO EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
well expresses his feelings as to the Conference after his
return : — " October <)th, 1874.
" Dollinger and the great body of Old Catholics have
no greater difference of theological opinions from an old-
fashioned and moderate English Churchman than such an
English Churchman would discover between himself and
the adherents of the three extreme parties at present exist
ing in England. I call myself an old-fashioned English
Churchman, and I find more to repel me in any one of the
extreme schools in England than I do in anything I have
seen or heard in the Old Catholics. Now, I do not wish to
expel from my own communion any of the adherents of the
three schools within it. The Church ought to hold them
all, or it will become a sect A fortiori, I would gladly
welcome to Christian brotherhood men so much to be loved
and honoured as Dollinger, and those who have escaped
from errors for which, I fear, some within our own body
have too much sympathy."
During this visit to Germany the Bishop heard of the
alarming illness of his brother. Captain Barrington Browne,
at Winchester House, in town. This hastened his return,
much to his regret, before the Congress was over ; he
hurried home, full of affectionate anxiety, and had the
comfort of ministering to his brother in his last hours.
Though he was unable to be at Bonn the next year, he
was heartily with the German Conservative reformers in
spirit. As he could not be present, he addressed a long
letter to Dr Dollinger on the subjects to be discussed in
1875. In 1874 the Old Catholics had declared —
" That the way in which the ' Filioque ' was inserted into
the Nicene Creed was illegal ; and that, with a view to
unity, it was much to be desired that the whole Church
should consider seriously whether the Creed could not be
safely restored to its primitive form, without the sacrifice
of any true doctrine conveyed under the present Western
form of words."

II.] THE ANGLO-CONTINENTAL SOCIETY. 4 II

Their desire was to find a possible middle formula,
between the incomplete Greek, " proceeding from the
Father," and the doubtful Latin, "proceeding from the
Father and the Son." The Latin form demands some
limitation, lest it should tend towards " bitheism " or even
" tritheism " ; on the other hand. Scripture is quite clear
that the Divine Son did send the Holy Spirit ; and, in
fact, the " Double Procession " is scriptural.
In his letter Bishop Harold Browne treats the subject
with his accustomed clearness. Writing from Winchester
House on August 3rd, 1875, he says : —
" I believe that the Old Catholics and the Anglican
Church fully concede to the Eastern orthodox Church that
the ' Filioque ' ought not to have been added without the
consent of a General Council. We admit, also, that the
doctrine as expressed in the creed of Constantinople, in
the words 'E/c tov Uarpo'; iicTropevofMevov, ' a Patre procedens,'
is in itself orthodox and true. Moreover, we maintain the
doctrine of the Movapx^ ', holding as firmly as the Greeks
that there is but one Alrla, 'Apxv, or TIt]^r), one ' Eons
Deitatis,' viz., the Eternal Father. We Anglicans are
willing to make any declaration to this effect which may
be satisfactory to the Easterns ; yet we say that there is
a true sense in which the Greeks as well as the Latins
spoke of the Spirit as e« tov IIaTpo<i ical tov T'lov {Epiph.
Hcer. 72. 4), or irap ap,(poTepa)v (Hcsr. 74. 8), or e^ afjucpoli'
{Cyril de Ador., Lib. i., opp. i. 9). We therefore do not
see how it can be wrong so to speak, though we admit
that the 'Filioque' was an unjustifiable addition to a
Catholic symbol without Catholic consent.
" The difference between us is one of words, not of
truth ; for we believe the Son and the Spirit to have derived
Being from all eternity from the One God the Father, and
to be One God with Him ; but we say the Father is first,
the Son second, and the Holy Spirit third, and so that the
Spirit is from the Father, but also of the Son. The subject
is abstruse and mysterious. Both the Greeks and the
Latins held important truth concerning it apparently
diverse but really reconcilable."

412 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
The Bishop then considers the subject of Anglican
orders, and the question as to the sacramental character
of ordination, well explaining the position, and ending
thus : —
" We do not think that either the Old Catholics or the
Greeks will consider our orders to be invalid because we
have been excommunicated by the Roman Patriarch, and
so are not in union with the centre of faith and fountain of
order. We deny that our branch of Christ's Church was
originally a part of the Roman Patriarchate, maintaining
that it was originally autocephalous, and if not a Patri
archate under the Patriarch of Canterbury, of which there
is some evidence, yet at least an Exarchate, and that we
had a right to return to our independence and to throw off
the usurped supremacy of Rome. But, moreover, when
Parker was consecrated the Pope had not yet excommuni
cated us. It is true the Pope did not give his consent to
Parker's consecration, nor send him the pallium ; but we
deny that this was necessary to make that consecration
valid." He lastly touches on the Invocation of Saints, giving
the reasons why the English Church does not hold the
doctrine or encourage the practice. There is no authority
for it in Scripture, or in the earliest ages, or in the pages
of the early Fathers. When it first crept in by corruption
it vfcfas strongly condemned by St. Augustine and others.
There is no authority for it in the first six General Councils :
the seventh (a council of less weight) gives it some sanction ;
but it was not generally acknowledged, and its decrees on
this point are repudiated by the great Council of Frankfort
under Charles the Great. " We think then that, if we err
in this, we err with Holy Scripture, with the earliest
Greek and Latin Fathers, and with the primitive Councils
of the Church. Errarc possumus, hceretici esse nolumus!'
As a result of these discussions, the Old Catholics
accepted the dogmatic statements of St John Damascene

II.] THE ANGLO-CONTINENTAL SOCIETY. 413

on the " Procession," and offered them as a safe ground of
union to both the Greek and English Churches. At the
close of the debate Dr. von Dollinger said that the Con
ference had attained to a union far beyond his utmost
hopes, and that on the " Procession " they were all really
at one. The Greeks present headed by Archbishop
Lycurgus, were satisfied, and convinced that the Greek
Synods would receive the result gladly, and that thus " the
rent robe of Christ be made one again in the One Catholic
Church." Archbishop Lycurgus seemed to be the means
appointed by Providence for this reunion, thanks to his
breadth of vision, his Western education, his Eastern dignity,
his force of character. But all in vain. Soon after this
he died, and things in the East dropped back into their
wonted apathy. Nor did much result from it in England.
Though Committees of the Southern Convocation sat on
the clause, the fear of disturbing the Creed was in itself
enough to arrest all action ; the formula commended by
our Bishop was never adopted by Convocation ; the whole
question as to intercommunion with the Greek and Russian
Churches remained where it was. The next spring, under
the Bishop's eye, the Anglo-Continental Society drew up
and sent to Dr. DoHinger an address of sympathy with the
Old Catholics, and of thankfulness for the results of the
Conference of 1875 : it was signed by twenty-seven Anglican
Bishops, and by many clergy and laity of note. In the
same month in which this address was presented, September
1876, Bishop Reinkens, the Old Catholic Bishop of
Germany, consecrated Dr. Edouard Herzog first Bishop
of the " Swiss Christian Catholic Church," and the Bishop
of Winchester was glad, and sent friendly greetings. Two
years later these two Bishops paid Farnham Castle a visit,
and an informal Conference was held, at which several
American Bishops, several English, the Scottish Primus,

414 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D D. [Ch.

and M. Loyson, the celebrated Father Hyacinthe, were
present, and expressed their warm goodwill towards the
movement in Germany and Switzerland, " rather by way
of brotherly sympathy than of ecclesiastical interference."
The Conference agreed to support two theological students
at Bern, and to raise a special fund to help Father
Hyacinthe in his efforts for a reformed Catholic Church in
France. Discussion also took place on the movement in
America and Mexico, and the Conference broke up with
a feeling of hope and solid advance. " Even yet," said the
Bishop, " the Church of England, putting one hand on
Roman Catholics and the other on Protestants, might say,
' Sirs, ye are brethren : cannot you in some way unite
together?'" His affectionate appeals as yet have met
with but scant response.
On the occasion of another visit of the two Old Catholic
Bishops, the Bishop of Winchester met them at Cambridge,
and carried them back with him to Farnham. Dr. Dollinger,
then eighty-two, was too infirm to come. At Cambridge
the Bishop spoke at some length on the " slow and cautious
reformation " going on in Germany and Switzerland, and
also preached on " The faith once delivered to the saints,"
on the organisation of the Christian Church, and the
Roman claims. At Cambridge and Farnham the Old
Catholic Bishops received the Holy Communion in the
English form, and shewed their practical belief in the
unity of the Churches.
Dr. von Dollinger's death was a very serious blow to all
friends of Anglo-Continental reunion. He had guided
the Old Cathohcs with so much sagacity and prudence that
the present Bishop of Salisbury could say that " they have
not made a single false step." The worst of it is that such
wisdom and guidance are not the only qualities needed
for an aggressive movement. The Old Catholic reform is

II. J THE ANGLO-CONTINENTAL SOCIETY. 415

slow-moving, cautious, conservative ; it neither dies out,
nor does it win the enthusiastic support necessary to secure
a vigorous advance. Let us hope, with Father Hyacinthe,
that— " This reformation, as far removed from religious
anarchy, too often the outcome of Protestantism, as from
ecclesiastical despotism, the mark of Rome, a movement
more modest, yet more sure, than that of the sixteenth
century, is preparing for the twentieth century a platform
on which shall yet be seen the reconciliation of liberty
with authority, of tradition with progress, of reason with
faith." Again in 1888 the Anglo-Continental Society was
received at Farnham ; the Archbishop of Dublin, the
Bishop of Western New York, the Bishops of Guiana and
Pretoria, Bishop Herzog, Mar Gregorius the Syrian,
Count Enrico di Campello, the Italian reformer, Sefior
Cabrera from Spain, a pastor from the Church of Utrecht, and
another from Austria, with many English clergy and laity,
were present Just before this meeting, the Bishop had
spoken despondingly about English Church feeling on the
subject of the reunion of self-reforming Churches.
" Nothing," he writes, " of late has made me so sad and
so little hopeful as to the spirit and progress of English
Churchmen in the latter part of this eventful century as
the narrow tone and temper displayed for some weeks
past. When you and I [he is writing to Prebendary
Meyrick], Bishop Christopher Wordsworth, Bishop Whit-
ingham. Canon Liddon, etc., went to the Old Catholic
Congress at Cologne and Bonn, the majority of High
Churchmen writers hailed these gatherings as full of hope
for the re-union of Christendom and of Catholic reform in
Continental Churches. Now all similar, or rather identical,
moves are clamoured against as schismatical interference
with such Churches, and that by men who ought to know
better. It is not a littie trying that the name of Bishop
Wordsworth should be brought up against us ; whereas

4l6 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
he and I were on these questions always at one, only that,
if anything, he always took the more advanced position,
more fierce against Ultramontanism, urging on the Old
Catholics more .strongly to break with the Church of-
Rome." It is curious to notice how his centrally balanced mind
was affected by this strong lurch of the High Church sen
timent and practice towards Rome.
"I very much share your feeling," he writes in 1891,
" about the general action of High Churchmen. A reaction
to Evangelicalism is not unlikely, and if it tends to redress
the balance, without leading to sectarianism, I shall not
regret it, i.e., if I live to see it."
At this time the Bishop had been very active in the
Lambeth Conference on behalf of reunion.
" I advocated warmly," he says, " the reception of the
Swedish Church to communion with us, though it wants
entirely one of the three orders of the ministry, and has
the other two very imperfectly ; and I virtually carried my
point, hoping that the Swedish Church would rise to greater
Catholicity, as I should hope the Italians and Spaniards
will become more Protestant."
He also moved for and obtained a committee of this
Conference to study and report on the complicated and
interesting subject of Moravian orders, with a view to
definite and visible intercommunion with them. With his
jealous regard for the apostolical character of the succession,
the Bishop would naturally hold back from committing
himself All his sympathies and wishes would be strong
for such intercommunion, but his habitual caution was
such, and the difficulty of proving historically the Moravian
succession so great, that he could only stand aloof, the
better instincts neutralised by the theological theories.
His ideal was that of " an intercommunion of national

II.] THE ANGLO-CONTINENTAL SOCIETY. 41 7
Churches, all independent and self-governed, all free to
retain their distinctive forms and usages" under certain
marked conditions — those of accepting Holy Scripture,
the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds, the doctrines of the two
Sacraments, and the historic Episcopate. His action was
limited, as we see too in Cardinal Newman's case, by
trammels imposed on himself ; while, on the other hand, it
was modified by the impulses of a loving and liberal
nature. Rome lays down, as a preliminary for acceptance,
her own infallibility and authority, and there is an end of
it with her. The Eastern Churches hold stiffly to their for
mularies, and if (as in the case of the "Double Procession") we
do not accept every item, again there is an end of it There
is no "give and take" with these venerable Churches. The
Anglicans assert their scriptural convictions, as to the Creeds
and the Apostolical Succession, and hold out a friendly
hand to all Episcopalian bodies. As yet, outside the limits
of the English-speaking world, little result has followed.
The Anglican position is not an easy one. The old
historic Churches look on coldly : " If you will surrender,
we shall be delighted to invite you," is their posture ; the
lesser Episcopal Churches would be glad of friendship
and brotherly recognition ; but the Anglican mind sees
difficulties ; their orders are of doubtful origin, or (as with
the Christians of St. Thomas in India) their views are
suspected of heresy, or there is some other block ; con
sequently, little advance is made with them. The whole
theory of the non-episcopal bodies is different from ours ;
they feel that we look down on them, socially and reli
giously ; they cling all the closer to their Bibles and their
independence. And so the rifts are not closed up ; and
the Reunion of Christendom being apparently as far off
as ever, one can see signs of a longing in some minds for
surrender to the high pretensions of the Roman Church,
27

4x8 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

and in others a desire to have done with the whole matter,
and to turn all the energies of modern Christian faith and
life into purely social channels. Yet as the Archbishop
of York said, when presiding over the meeting of the
Anglo-Continental Society in 1893 "in the place of the
most learned and popular and most beloved of men. Bishop
Harold Browne " : —
"We must not look for striking results or triumphant
statistics. We must influence religious life abroad, and
try to bring Churches nearer to each other, and to get
them on one platform of evangelic zeal and truth and of
a common apostoHc order."
All earnest men, who combine charity with faith and
hope, dream of some golden future, in which whole bodies
of men will distinguish between things important and
things trivial, and will realise, far more than now we do,
the vast importance of the points on which we agree. At
present there is but little daylight showing above the
dark horizon of the Churches.
Who shall venture to say that Christians will ever here
be able to attain to unity? Not through the Imperialist
claims of Rome, who deems herself the inheritor of the
Caesars ; not through the rigid orthodoxy of the Greek
Churches, an imperialism of another type ; nor through
a federation of aristocratic Churches to which the Christian
democracy wHl not bow ; nor through the indistinct claims
of a spiritual and inner unity, which deems the personal
illumination, the personal faith in Christ, the only bond
of union ; for the organised Churches refuse to be content
with so subjective and unprovable a test It is the
insoluble problem of Christianity. The Master foresaw
this when He warned His disciples that He was to bring
" not peace but a sword " ; He also laid down the simplest
possible basis of union when He proclaimed that " wherever

II.] THE ANGLO-CONTINENTAL SOCIETY. 419
two or three are gathered together in My name, there am
I in the midst of them." This is the unit from which
the whole Church life of Christianity must advance. There
must be a new spiritual outpouring, such as has never
been, ere we can hope for the blessing of a Reunion of
Christendom. If ever a federation of Churches across the world does
take place, it will largely be due to the seed so prayerfully
sown by Bishop Harold Browne. Such a result seems
very far away ; and yet, in spite of many disruptive
influences, there is the same Christ, and the same love
for the souls of men, and the same desire to see in truth
the Kingdom of God established among men. And when
it comes to this, then will the end be nigh.

CHAPTER III.
THEOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES AT WINCHESTER.
"OISHOP HAROLD BROWNE had come to Win-
-*-J Chester with anxiety and forebodings. Writing from
Andover in May 1874 he says : —
" I think I have worked this year almost as hard as
Bishop Wilberforce would have done ; only I am not
good at society at the same time. Certainly I have
given notice of twice as many Confirmations as he did in
his first year in this diocese ; and I have worked often
when I ought to have been in bed ; and yet I hear that
clergymen grumble at my not doing all they want They
make no allowance for the difficulties of a man unknown
to and unknowing a diocese. But I suppose I ought not
to care for their unreasonableness."
Churchmen seemed to him far harder to control and
lead here than at Ely. The problems of town-life were
far more urgent ; and with less learning there was more
difference of character. " There is more diversity of
opinion and variance here than at Ely," he cries, soon after
he entered on his new duties ; the evident presence of
irritable elements in the diocese filled him with alarm.
He never shrank from speaking out and letting people
know what he thought ; but his charitable spirit, which,
as he said, "loved a moderate harmless diet," was vexed
within him when men pushed on too fast and over
stepped the bounds of good taste and moderation.
420

Ill,] THEOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES AT WINCHESTER. 42 1

"Some think," he said at the 1880 Congress, "that a
parish in Evangelical hands should continue so, in High
Church hands also ; but I think it might often be desirable
to have a change, though not an abrupt one. If there
had been an extreme man, I would try to let the parish
down gently ; not appointing another extreme man, on
the other side ; because my taste is rather in favour of
mhk, or milk and water, which is better as a rule than
brandy. Brandy may be a medicine ; milk is a food."
On the other hand, the unsettled state of opinion in
different parts of his diocese caused him great uneasiness.
While in South London there were men crowding all
sail in the direction of Ritual advance, and shewing not
obscurely that the elaborate ornaments and new manner
of conducting services were intended to express extreme
views as to the Church and Sacraments ; at the other end
of the diocese, in the far-off Channel Islands, there was an
opposite tendency. There the old Presbyterian feeling was
still strong. The Islanders felt that they were very close
to the borders of Rome, and, like the Irish Protestants,
leant heavily in the opposite direction. Throughout the
diocese there seemed to be a feeling of unrest, and perhaps
of unreason, which troubled him exceedingly.
At the outset he had an example of the diflficulty of
guiding this diocese in the differences which sprang up
over the memorial to his predecessor. Bishop Wilberforce.
The large sum of money collected was broken up, and
three or four different memorials undertaken ; the result
being much dissatisfaction. The Bishop himself was not
altogether content with the chief memorial, the Mission
House to be established in South London, though he
loyally supported it He had desired the erection of a
separate See for that district In June 1874 he remarked
that— " He did not say that the proposed memorial was the

422 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

best that could possibly have been devised — there were
others he would quite as soon have seen ; but it was a
kind of work which all agreed the late Bishop had much
at heart."
The contributions to it at that time had not quite
reached ;£"! i,ooo ; and this was but a smaH sum with which
to establish and endow an important institution. The
Mission House was nevertheless created, and one of Bishop
Wilberforce's sons (now Bishop of Newcastle) took charge
of it When, somewhat later. South London, as one of
the changes due to the establishment of the See of St.
Albans, was transferred to the Bishop of Rochester, this
Memorial Mission passed away from the Diocese, and
occupied the Bishop's thoughts no longer.
As at Ely, the Bishop divided his attention, in hope
of steadying opinion, between doctrine and organisation.
For the former, beside advice and information given with
out stint to those who applied to him, he issued a very
weighty Pastoral in 1875 ; for the latter he meditated a
structural change of importance, in the direction of more
direct synodical action in the diocese.
To Dr Millard, then Rector of Basingstoke, he wrote
interesting letters on the baptism of adults, a matter
which touched the episcopal authority. A notice has to
be given " by the parents or some other discreet persons "
to the Bishop before a parish priest can bapti.se an adult ;
this gave him an opportunity of stating his views to a
sympathetic friend. For Dr Millard was one of the most
straightforward and right-minded of High Churchmen,
loyal to his Bishop, and little inclined to new fashions.
A little later, he writes to Dr Millard on another
question of Church order. A Quaker gentleman had been
duly baptised, and was anxious to be admitted to Holy
Communion without being confirmed. The Friends, Dr

III.] THEOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES AT WINCHESTER. 423
Millard says, " tolerate Baptism and Holy Communion, but
eject from their body, and from all social advantages of
belonging to it, any one who is confirmed." He therefore
appealed to the Bishop for permission to shut his eye to
the rubric which regards Confirmation as a necessary step
before Communion ; and the Bishop, while he states that
he has no power to absolve him from obedience to the
rubric, says : —
"If I had the power I should not hesitate to do so
[absolve him]. But I think you will be right to admit him
to Holy Communion, taking the widest and most hberal
interpretation of the words of the Church, which were
evidently not intended to apply in cases of this kind.
Summitm jus, sum.ma injuria. We are in a peculiar con
dition of things, owing to the wide spread of Nonconformity
and the readiness of some Nonconformists to return to the
Church's communion, if the door is not made too strait for
them." On the other side, it will be seen from the following
letter how the Bishop dealt with those who were mirided to
listen too readily to the Roman claims to the obedience
of mankind, on the ground of the primacy of St. Peter.
The name of his correspondent is lost ; the letter is
characteristic of his way of handling such questions.
" You must not suppose," he writes, " that I admit your
premises or inferences. To my reason it appears clear as
the day that the kind of honour bestowed by our blessed
Lord on St. Peter was as unlike supremacy as can possibly
be. It is quite true that He singled him out for special
service, that He entrusted to him more specially than to
the others the keys of the kingdom, and the founding of
the Church, and the feeding of His flock, as a shepherd
feeds a flock. And without doubt St. Peter was the first,
after the Ascension, to bring in converts to the faith, so
opening the Kingdom of Heaven and founding [the] Church.
In this, and this is the true, sense, the power could not be

424 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

handed down to his successors. No one after him could
be the first unlocker of the Kingdom, the first founder of
the Church. It was this great privilege \\'hich our Lord
gave to Peter, viz., to be the first to bring in both Jews
and Gentiles to the flock of Christ, first at Pentecost, next
at the conversion of Cornelius ; and this could not descend.
" I do not say that Peter was not the Rock, I feel with
St. Augustine that much may be said on both sides ; but
I deny that those Fathers to whom I referred all spoke
ambiguously. The earliest, Justin Martyr, is quite clear
St Augustine declares that he used to think it meant
St. Peter, but that he had cause to believe it meant Peter's
Confession, but that he left the question open. As for his
ignorance of Syriac, I am afraid that has descended to
Roman controversialists, for the distinction of the masculine
and feminine IIeTp6<; and TveTpd is preserved in the most
authoritative Syriac document which has come down to us,
which some think to be the so-called Hebrew original of
St, Matthew, but which must be the best existing repre
sentative of it viz., the Peschito Syriac, where though the
KepJiah cannot as in Greek, change its termination, the
second Kephah has the feminine article, which is as signifi
cant as the Greek change of termination.
" Be this as it may, the Fathers were much divided in
their interpretation. Strange, if the question be so vital.
" The truth is clear, as the Greek liturgies express it so
often, viz., that St. Peter was the Kopv<f)alo<i, so ignorantly
or dishonestly (I leave you the choice) translated SUPREME,
and put in capital letters. ' Coryphaus ' means leader of a
chorus or quire, and speaking for the rest This St. Peter
doubtless wa.s, primus inter pares."
The Bishop's general attitude can be seen from a weighty
Pastoral Letter entitled " The Position and Parties of the
English Church," which he published in 1875. In this
document, after stating how he had been disappointed of
his hope that South London might become an independent
bishopric, with St. Mary Overy (St Saviour's) for the
Cathedral, he turned to the religious difficulties of the day.
" On the threshold of a future history full of change in
Church and State, in politics and religion ... a wave of

III.] THEOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES AT WINCHESTER. 425

new thought and excited action is passing over the world."
And he appeals to his clergy to show wisdom, self-control,
disinterestedness, as befits the pilots and directors of
religious thought in a troubled sea of change and doubt.
They should not ride the storm, but pour oil on the
troubled waters. He then points out that the English
Reformation, —
" Nullius addicta est jurare in verba magistri ; "
for it had " no one great master-mind, like Luther or
Calvin." And so the Reformed Church was the old Church
with a difference. He then traces the growth of two
parties, one more strictly episcopal, the other " at least
sympathising with Presbyterian government ; the one more
earnest for the Sacraments of the Church, the other for
the preaching of the Word ; the one, consequently, more
eager to adorn the sanctuary, the other to find space for
convenience of the auditory ; the one more careful to
train the baptised young, the other to convert the grown
up sinner ; the one more eager for pastoral work at home,
the other for missionary enterprise ; the one father of
nearly all our modern theological literature, the other given
up chiefly to devotional and practical writing ; the one
earnest for the corporate life, the other for personal
religion ; the one looking back to Christian antiquity, and
tracing thence the one stream of Church life, the other
looking into its Bible, and finding there the Christianity
it is seeking for ; the one dwelling much on repentance
and striving after holiness, the other cheering the sin-
laden soul with the hopes of pardon purchased by the
blood of Christ."
And having thus traced the divergences, he sets him
self to show that the unity within the Church is infinitely
greater than the differences, and appeals for forbearance and

426 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
mutual toleration. He relegates the third or liberal school
to a footnote, as though he thought their influence on
English theology and opinion need hardly be considered.
This done, he speaks of the controverted topics : of the
Eucharistic Sacrifice and the dress suitable for it ; of
" Catholic " principles ; of the eastward position : he speaks
temperately as to the Courts and judgments on these
subjects, and once more appeals to the heated comba
tants to reconsider the position and to moderate their
passions. Nor is he without good hopes : —
" From the experience derived from acquaintance with
two very different dioceses I can say with confidence that
the great body of the clergy are more sober and moderate
in their views, and have really more sympathy with one
another, than in almost any period of our past history —
certainly than in any period of active life and zeal."
And he closes the long description by an interesting
statement of his views as to the possible disestablishment
of the Church ; a far larger and braver utterance than is
commonly heard from episcopal lips : —
" No one would reahy gain by disestablishment so much
as a Bishop. If my feelings were only for the aggrandise
ment of my order, I should work for disestablishment
to-morrow. . . . But as I am a loyal subject to my
sovereign, and as I believe in the liberty of an English
citizen, I do not wish to see the Enghsh Church cease to
be a part of the English Constitution. I am prepared,
if Providence so orders it, to accept a Republican Govern
ment and a disestablished Church. I think the Church
politically would then be far stronger than it is now ; but
I don't think the nation would be happier ; ... the extreme
schools who wish for all this would be far less likely to
find toleration. . ."
His fear is that it would narrow the Church, weaken
the influence of Christian dissent swell the forces of

III.] THEOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES AT WINCHESTER. 427

infidelity and indifference. And so, with a last appeal to
all who name the only " Name under heaven whereby we
may be saved," he bids his clergy " not rend the seamless
coat nor cast lots on it, whose it shall be. It is the one
priceless heritage of Christians, and it is held as an un
divided whole by the Church of Christ"
This Pastoral attracted great and general attention. As
it proposed to leave the Ritualists alone and to discourage
party strife, it was naturally not too acceptable to the
fighting newspapers. The Nonconformists were strongly
opposed to it, the Evangelical Alliance champions resented
his calling their idea of unity hollow and ineffective. It
may be also that some of the more advanced of the newer
school of High Churchmen were in their hearts con
temptuous towards an Eirenicon based on an attempt to
neutralise, or at least to minimise, the doctrinal significancy
of their symbolic acts in the Holy Communion, They
were not prepared to say that their elaborate and solemn
ritual was doctrinally unimportant Though they might
not be wHling to formulate definite statements as to the
Presence, they were determined that every mark of
obsequious honour should be paid to the Elements, in
order that English Churchmen might become familiarised
with the usages, and so be unconsciously prepared for the
doctrine underneath. As, however, the Pastoral urged
tolerance for them, they raised no protest, and accepted
it so far as it went. On the other hand, most moderate
Churchmen, and all the old High Church party, received
the Pastoral with warm approval. The rural deaneries
in some cases drew up memorials thanking the Bishop
for his wise and temperate advice ; and these docu
ments were signed by men of very varied schools of
thought. Canon Trevor, a high authority on questions of Church

428 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

order, addressed the Bishop an interesting letter, which
well deserves to be preserved here : —
"Beeford Rectory, Hull, December 20th, 1875.
" It is, I believe, perfectly true that no public order was
ever issued as to the position of the Tables substituted for
the Altars. They were placed as the Ordinary (or who
ever heard them) chose to set them. But I feel some
surprise at your Lordship's doubt of the fact that they
always stood length-wise, and that this was what was
meant by the ' table-wise ' position. I never met with
any hint of a table being placed in the • altar-wise '
position, before Laud. It is often supposed that the change
was made by the rubric of the Second Book ; but in fact
it was begun in London in the year 1549, and was justified
under the rubric of the First Book in the Order of Council,
November 1550. I have dwelt on this fact in the enlarged
edition of my book on the Eucharist, as conclusive evidence
that no doctrinal significance is involved in either position.
The ' table-gesture ' of Hooper and Knox was never
allowed ; of which Dr. Lorimer has supplied some interest
ing proofs in his monograph on John Knox. I rejoice to
see your Lordship endorsing my protest against doctrinal
significance. After all, it is the doctrine itself that most
concerns us, and I have long been convinced that the root
of all the Ritualistic excesses is the false doctrine of the
' Objective ' Presence invented by Archdeacon Wilberforce
in 1848, and since developed into consubstantiation by
Dr. Pusey and Keble, and into transubstantiation by their
less learned disciples. The main object of my book is to
shew that this is not the doctrine of the Fathers or Anglican
divines. Indeed, it was not Dr, Pusey's doctrine in his
letter to the Bishop of London, 1850. He had not then
discovered the ' Objective ' theory. This is a bold assertion
to make, but I have proved it (I think) from a mass of our
divines, including Andrewes, BramhaH, Laud, etc., etc,
and from the fathers relied on in the controversy, who are
given in the originals in the Appendix. This has been
the labour of my country life, and encountering, as I do,
the extremes of both sides, I expect the hearty abuse of
the Church Times and the Rock. The mischief is that we
have no genuine Anglican Review, unless the new Church
Quarterly supplies it By the way, its article on the

III.] THEOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES AT WINCHESTER. 429
Kantian Philosophy ought to dispose of the word ' Objec
tive,' which properly means ' imaginary ' and non-existent' "
Sir Robert Phillimore, with his legal sagacity and High
Church feeling, wished —
" that all the Bishops had as clear an apprehension of
the perils to which our Church is now exposed. It is
surely a very critical period ; and to me the strangest of
all things is that those in authority should see a safeguard
against division in Acts of Parliament, past, present, and,
I fear, to come,"
Canon McColl quotes a letter from Mr. Gladstone, in
which he says, " I am delighted with the Winchester
Pastoral," and adds that " I have heard but one opinion
of it from all shades of ' High Churchmanship,' — Machono-
chie, Lowder, and others.''
And lastly, there is a brief note from Mr. Gladstone
himself in which he thanks the Bishop for —
" that wise and good gift to the Church which you have
not feared to present, noiseless amid the din of arms. This
phrase," he adds, "is not unnatural, for I write with the
blood-red book of the good and well-meaning, but fussy
and ill-balanced . . . in my eye. May your counsels of
peace be blessed."
Such was the tone and temper of this Pastoral, which
won the hearty commendation of aH that was most high-
minded in his diocese. In this spirit he replied to those
who complained of the use of a manual or " Book of the
Mission" drawn up by the Cowley Fathers, and brought
into use at the Southampton "Mission" of 1876. To
the lay remonstrants, headed by Mr. Hankinson, he
replied : " I am very sorry that missions . . . should be
so conducted as to lead to or encourage habitual confession,
or the system known as ' direction,' or the system of the

430 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
' enquiry room ' " ; and he points out the wholesome direc
tions of the prayer-book on the subject. And the clergy
he assured, through Mr. Wigram of Highfield, that in
approving the mission he had no thought of giving
sanction as Bishop to any system of enforced confession
or direction.
" Whatever may be desirable in the case of one unable
to satisfy his conscience by confessing his sins to God,
I agree with you in holding that the Church does not
encourage habitual compulsory sacramental confession to
man, or the system known under the name of Direction.
I believe, moreover, that that system is warranted neither
by Scripture nor by the practice of the Primitive Church."
A little later he received a remonstrance from certain
clergy in Portsmouth against language used of the Holy
Communion, He does not propose to enter into discussion
or controversy : he desires a large toleration for " all that
is fairly within the lines of the English Church," and is
not indifferent to the maintenance of fundamental truth
or the banishing of serious error. He has by God's
blessing preserved members of our Church from seceding
to Rome, has converted Romanist priests, notably a well-
known Father Felix, to the English Church, and in
the opposite direction has preserved men from infidelity.
He then explains minutely and somewhat subtly the
bearing of a phrase, " Prepare to receive the Lord's Body
into the palm of your hand." The words, he says, " are
very objectionable as likely to mislead, and yet they
do not necessarily imply Transubstantiation, still less the
' Material Presence ' (which is very different from Tran
substantiation)." If they did, then our Lord's words, " This
is my Body," must be taken, as the Romanists take it as
Christ's authority for that doctrine. He also condemns
such a phrase as " a share in the Prayers of the B. V. M.

in.] THEOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES AT WINCHESTER. 431

and all Thy saints." Still, feeling Portsmouth to be in
great need of zealous clergy and men wiHing to work
amongst the lowest of the population, he is not prepared
to interfere hastily.
" On this ground, while I am myself deeply attached
to the simple ancient faith and practice of the English
Church, and whilst I greatly deprecate any extravagance
of Church doctrine or ceremony as calculated to weaken
the Church and cause prejudice against it, yet I cannot
wholly check the exertions of men on either side who are
zealous, even if they are sometimes extravagant, knowing
that zeal is always in danger of degenerating into
extravagance. "
Soon after this time, in 1877, the Bishop wrote on
similar subjects to a lady eminent in active good works
in the slums and courts of London ; she had written to
him, anxious to see her way in dealing with confession as
a very important factor in the conversion of sinners.
" I don't think confession wrong," he writes, " or even
undesirable, when there is special need for some unrelieved
weight upon the conscience ; but I am afraid lest the
habit should weaken the conscience instead of strengthening
it Confession has been called ' the luxury of repentance.'
... It is possible that some may be so weak as to need
to be led by the hand. I believe it far better to acquire
a habit of leaning on the Hand of Jesus and letting Him
guide us and sustain us.
" The craving ever for human support and to tell our
griefs, trials, and temptations to human ears, is, I think,
morbid, not the healthy condition of the Christian soul.
To tell them all to the Saviour, receive absolution from
Him in private and with our brethren in the Church and
at Holy Communion, — this appears to me healthy and
true." Again, ten years later, he addressed a letter to the same
lady on the Reservation of the Elements in primitive days

432 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

" Farnham Castle, August 22nd, 1887.
" My DEAREST  , — Dora gave me a message from
you about Reservation of the Eucharist, I believe the
facts to be these :— The first mention of it is by Justin
Martyr, who simply records that the consecrated Elements
were carried from the church by the deacons to the sick
(ApoL, p. 98). This was in the middle of the second century.
Towards the end of that century (if Eusebius reports his
words rightly), Ireneeus speaks of the Bishop of Rome as
having sent the Eucharist to the brethren of other Churches
as a token of brotherly love. We find not long after that
the consecrated Elements were kept in the house of the
priest (Eus,, vi. 44), and also in private houses, that they
might be received in case of sudden illness or danger of
death. That it was not the one Species only that was
reserved appears from a passage in St. Chrysostom
(tom. iv, p. 681), where he complains that soldiers broke
into the church, and the Holy Blood was sprinkled upon
them. " One custom of the Eastern Church was 'the Mass of
the Pre-sanctified.' In Lent they did not like to consecrate
the Elements, except on Saturdays, Sundays, and great
festivals. The people communicated on other days, so
the Elements were consecrated on the festivals and kept
for communion through the week. All this, no doubt, led
to communion in one kind. It was not easy to send both
kinds to a distance ; so probably but one kind was sent.
The whole originated in the simple notion of sending the
Sacrament direct to the sick and absent. The rest grew
gradually, till it reached, in the Western Church, the re
serving of the one Species only, and the communicating
the laity in that alone. In the Eastern Church the bread
is still dipped in the chalice, and so both Species are
received." Interesting as are these examples of the way in which
the Bishop worked out his middle path, it is clear that he
was under no delusion about them, but saw that more was
necessary than an appeal to reason and antiquity.
Feeling that there was much restlessness on these sub
jects, the Bishop thought at first that matters might be
smoothed by a conference on Ritual between High Church-

in.] THEOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES AT WINCHESTER. 433
men and some moderate men, lay and clerical. The Bishop
of Peterborough and other Bishops warmly supported
the scheme. It was proposed not to invite the " intransi-
gentes," the extreme men likely to refuse all compromise,
but only those who had the unity of the English Church
at heart, and were willing to make some sacrifice for
her sake. It was thought that a " modus vivendi," on
lines of moderate Church principles and reasonable
obedience to episcopal authority, might be secured by
friendly conference, and the irritating difficulty as to
allegiance to the lay courts avoided. Bishop Harvey
Goodwin went so far as to formulate his view of the course
of action to be followed. The Ritualists were to produce
their scheme of Church government, and the Bishops to
consider it, using it as a basis for their deliberations, in
strictly private meetings among themselves. Nothing,.
however, came of it.
This scheme (in the end of 1876 and beginning of 1877)
having thus failed, the Bishop had yet another plan to lay
before his diocese. This time he would not grasp at too
much ; but fell back on the episcopal authority, and hoped
to discover a course by which that authority could be
brought to bear on the divergent parties, so as to impose
a light yoke of uniformity on all.
It seemed to him that the eminent success with which
he had carried out his diocesan Conferences was really
almost without practical results. It was quite true, as Mr.
Lewis M. Owen, the Secretary to the Conferences, wrote
to Mrs. Harold Browne, that the Bishop's presidency had
been most successful.
"I feel," he writes on November 8th, 1876, soon after
the close of one of the yearly meetings, " that I must tell
you what every one has been saying to-day about our
good Bishop.

434 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

" I have conversed with representative men of all grades
and shades of opinion, some of them famous for their
fastidiousness ; and all agree in saying that his skill in
managing the Conference was something marvellous. I
have heard nothing but praise and admiration of his
speeches for their wisdom and good taste, to say nothing
about the learning which came out in every part of them.
" The general feeling amongst the lay folk is, — led by such
a chief as we have we feel ready to do anything for him or
for the diocese. I travelled homewards with Mr. Cowper
Temple, who came away simply delighted with his Bishop.
The Dean describes his conduct of the business as most
masterly, and other equally good judges agree."
Yet he still felt that more was needed.
" There is no Christian Church," he cries, " no Christian
sect which is not more closely organised than the Church
of England. We rest," he adds, "on our connection with
the State and our parochial system ; the former giving
us a machinery not all our own, the latter strengthening,
if isolating, our efforts. And as the Church existed and
flourished for centuries without either State support or
parishes, and may at any time again lose both, we must
organise, by conferences, by ruridecanal meetings, by more
activity in the Cathedral body (to whom he addressed these
remarks at his Visitation), and in parishes by the establish
ment of parish councils, which will often be found of use,
both for counsel and for work."
He had also hit on another plan, that of Diocesan
Synods, which the Bishop of each diocese should call
together once a year. And in September 1877 he issued
the following circular to each of the members of a com
mittee of Conference. It will be seen that the point of
it is the hope of peace to be attained through authorita
tive decisions of a Bishop in matters of ritual. The
Bishop was prepared to promulge in a Synod of his
clergy " the Law of Ritual for the diocese, to continue
in force till further order be taken by authority higher than
that of a single Bishop in his Synod."

III.J THEOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES AT WINCHESTER. 435

The answers to his circular were not encouraging. His
reply to his friend Mr. John Pares of Southsea shews this
very clearly (September 12th, 1877) '• —
" I am very much obliged to you for your kind letter
and all that it says. I am thankful to find that you are
sanguine. I confess it seems to me that the clouds are very
dark. I find almost all the laymen unfavourable to the
Synod. Most of the clergy are for it."
Chancellor Sumner sent him a very clear view of the
difificulties surrounding the authority of such a diocesan
Synod, i. He doubted the sanction for it ; it is not in the
Canons. 2. Custom and use fail entirely. 3. The Prayer
Book nowhere seems to point to it ; on the contrary, the
Bishop is to resolve doubts, and, if necessary, he must
appeal to the Archbishop. 4. What would be the pro
cedure? Discussion? resolutions? and decisions? If so,
who shall guarantee their soundness ? if not, why the
assembly? The Bishop's dicta would really derive their
weight from his character and office, not from the fact of
their promulgation in Synod, 5, If a code of laws or ritual
were laid down in Synod, it might easily clash with the
Act of Uniformity. 6. The appeal from the Bishop's ruling
would be illusory, 7. Different dioceses would lay down
different codes, and there would be many " uses." This
would be an unwholesome and dangerous state of things.
He ends by urging that considering the difficulties, dangers,
and even the positive evils likely to arise from such
synodical action, the Bishop should pause before trying
it A still higher authority, Lord Selborne, entered at
great length into the subject, in two letters, which are so
weighty that they are here given as the view of the legal
mind when most friendly to the Church.
On September 8th, 1 877, he says : —
"The judicial supremacy of the Crown is really the

436 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

keystone of the existing settlement between Church and
State ; and I cannot doubt it is an essential part of the
idea of the Royal Supremacy, not only as embodied in
the statutes of the Reformation epoch, but as affirmed in
the Canons and the Thirty-Nine Articles. To deny or
resist it is ipso facto to commence the work of disestablish
ment ; and it seems to me that the principle of the scruple
in question is essentially at variance with it. How these
scruples could be met by a ruling ex cathedra of the Bishop
in a Diocesan Synod, unless that ruling proceeded on the
assumption that without it the decisions of the Queen's Court
of Appeal were not binding on the consciences of the clergy,
but might be made so by it, I do not at present see. But a
ruling, proceeding on that assumption, would appear to me
to be full of danger. It is, I conceive, quite certain that,
in a legal point of view, such a ruling could have no force
whatever, and would add nothing to the obligation which
the law considers to be laid on the clergy without it. Nor
do I see how it could add anything to the pre-existing
obligation in foro conscientice, unless the Bishop (if he
differed from the Court of Appeal in his own private
opinion) would be equally at liberty to lay down the law
otherwise ; in which case I, for one, should certainly be
unable to admit that such a ruling would be, either legally
or morally, binding.
" It is, of course, possible that you may have in view
some mode of proceeding which would avoid these diffi
culties ; e.g., to declare, in Diocesan Synod, not merely
that the Bishop, ex cathedra, pronounced the law as laid
down by the Judicial Committee to be binding upon his
clergy, but also that he does so upon a principle which
recognises the jurisdiction and authority of the Queen's
supreme Court of Appeal in ecclesiastical causes. If this
could be done, and if it would answer the intended purpose,
my apprehensions would be obviated.
" There can be no doubt that according to the decisions
of the Judicial Committee in the Purchas and Ridsdale
cases, the cope ought to be worn in cathedral and
collegiate churches at the administration of Holy Com
munion. "Believe me, my dear Lord,
"Yours faithfully,
" Selborne."

III.] THEOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES AT WINCHESTER. 437
And this was followed by a second letter, in which he
goes more into the matter of ritual observances and the late
judgments. It will be seen that he commits himself to no
expression which could be regarded as favourable to the
synodical action proposed by the Bishop.
" Blackmoor, Petersfield.
" September 12th, 1877.
" My DEAR Lord, — If any way can be found by which
the object you have in view can be accomplished without
the danger which I apprehend, I do not doubt you will
discover it. But it seems to me to be eirl ^vpov aK/jLi]^.
That is all I need say further about it.
" I confess that my own hopes from the more moderate
section of the clergy who follow (for truth obliges me to
make this admission in their favour) Mr Keble's later
teaching have been pretty well extinguished by the events
of this year, and particularly by those events which preceded
the delivery of the judgment in the Ridsdale case, and of
which subsequent effects have been only the natural sequel.
They seem to me to shew that, when men have once
become well entangled in the meshes of party Association,
the effort necessary for a change of attitude (even if the
safety of the Church is at stake) is greater than the majority
can make.
" Of the stronger minds of the party, some are always in
the front rank of the movement ; and these are able,
practicaHy, to regulate the action of the great majority,
who are well-meaning but weak. History seems to shew
that it always has been so, in the origin of all schisms
and heresies : the heresiarchs lead ; they have an active
immediate following, violent and unscrupulous, and the
rest, who learn their shibboleths, go down the inclined
plane into heresy, without being aware of it.
" I am not, therefore, sanguine as to your success. The
subscribers to the Church Times, etc., and the members
of the ' Order of Corporate Reunion,' the ' English Church
Union,' and the other self-constituted confraternities which
have undermined and disintegrated our Church, will (I feel
only too sure) set at naught all. episcopal declarations
against their views, whether made in Diocesan Synod or
elsewhere, as they have always hitherto done. Experience

438 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

also compels me to fear, that Dr. Pusey and Canon Liddon,
etc., will continue to side with them against all Bishops
whatsoever, and that this intermediate influence will pre
vent those on whose disposition to accept an ex cathedra
utterance of their Bishop (on the condition that he does
not expressly recognise the duty of obeying the law of
the land in such ecclesiastical matters as those in question)
you are at present encouraged to rely, from using the
means of escape from a false position which you desire
to provide for them.
" I am far from thinking that it is ' inconsistent with
loyalty to the present constitution in Church and State'
to try such an experiment ; nor can I presume to say that
there may not be enough chance of some good resulting
from it to make it worth trying. But you will, I am sure,
pardon me for finding it difficult to trust in the effect of
palliatives with those who are radically disaffected towards
that constitution, and to whom every new manifestation
of the power of the law (which they defy but cannot defeat)
will be a fresh occasion of discontent. I agree most
entirely in what you say as to the gravity of the crisis.
We seem to me to be, ecclesiastically and politically also,
on a volcano's edge ; and these men are doing all in their
power to make it overwhelm us. . . .
" Believe me, ever, my dear Lord,
" Yours faithfully,
" Selborne."
With Dr. MiHard he entered into correspondence on the
subject and the letters shew how carefully he had studied
the historical aspects of synodical action.
"Farnham Castle, September ith, 1877.
" My dear Dr. Millard,— Your correspondent seems
to be entirely ignorant of the nature of a Diocesan Synod.
If he will read Benedict XIV, ' De Synodo Dioecesana,'
or Ferrari's 'Prompta Bibliotheca s.v. Synodus Dioecesana,'
or Thomassinus, or any other Canonist of authority, he
will see that though, in a Diocesan Synod, the Bishop
should ask the counsel of his Chapter, and propose to his
Synod whether they will accept his decrees by acclamation,
yet he is not bound by the counsel of his Chapter or the
acclamation of his Synod, but is the sole legislator ' In

III.] THEOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES AT WINCHESTER. 439

Synodo Dioecesium potest Episcopus facere constitutiones
et decreta absque consensu et approbatione capituli et
cleri. . . . Solus potestatem legislativam statuendi habet,
et consilium sequi non tenetur' (Ferrari). The Bishop
of Lincoln in his Synod proceeded on this principle. I
explained to the Conference that I preferred generally a
Conference to a Synod, because in every true Synod of the
Church Catholic the Bishop or the Bishops were always
absolute, and I did not desire to be absolute. In the
question of ritual, the ancient power of the Bishop was
even exceptionally great Each Bishop would frame his
own Liturgy, and in early times even vary the form of the
Creed (Bingbam, Book II., ch. vi., ss. 2, 3). It was the Act
of Uniformity which took away their power from Anglican
Bishops. But still the right to interpret is reserved to
Bishops. It is only by falling back on an Act of Parlia
ment that the Catholic authority of a Bishop, either alone
or in his Synod, can be disputed. It was with the hope
of saving the Ritualists that I desired to hold a Synod,
and by ecclesiastical authority pronounce on Ritual. Very
High Churchmen have entreated me to do so, as the last
hope of peace ; but the lay members of the Committee are
so strong against it (only two clerical members siding with
them) that I feel I must give it up. I am very sorry ; for
unless something can be done to appease the present
diversity, I am sure that the Church will go to pieces.
Both sides wax fiercer and fiercer. I am inundated with
furious appeals from both extremes. Already the strength
given to dissent and infidelity by our contentions is very
grievous. The Low Church party in the Church was
moribund, and almost in extremis. It is now triumphant
among the laity, and gains fresh strength even among
the young candidates for Orders. This is whoHy due to the
impracticable conduct of the advanced Ritualists."
" Believe me, ever,
" Most truly yours,
" E. H. Winton."
And again he writes from Farnham on September
loth :—
" My dear Dr. Millard,— Very many thanks for
what you say. I am more apprehensive of a difficulty
coming from the opposite side, viz,, from those who are

440 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
jealous for the Royal Supremacy ; e.g.. Lord Selborne. I
think your objections might be moderated (not perhaps
removed) by the following statements.
" I. A Diocesan Synod never deliberated. Gravamina
were presented to the Bishop (to which presentments at
visitations now correspond) ; causes were heard by the Bishop
(now transferred to the Consistory Courts) ; and laws were
promulged by the Bishop, which were not discussed, but
received by acclamation or objected to, but not therefore
rejected, by acclamation or by silence,
" 2, The form in which I should propose to promulge
any law or decision would be this, ' The Law of the
Church for this diocese at present, and till further order
shall be taken, is so and so.' By this means nothing would
be stereotyped or rivetted. Only, if it were obeyed, the
result would be present uniformity {e.g., acceptance of the
surplice in parish and of the cope in cathedral churches)
and prosecutions would be prevented. My special purpose
is to let down the extreme men as gently as possible.
" Most truly yours,
"E. H. Winton."
It is clear from his next letter that Dr. Millard took a
good and wholesome English alarm at the huge increase in
the episcopal authority here foreshadowed. The Bishop's
reply to his remonstrance may well close the subject : —
"Farnham Castle, September 20th, 1877.
" My dear Dr. Millard,— I shall be very soriy if I
leave an impression on your mind that I am not grateful
to you for freely and fully expressing your views. I am
sure that any experiment now is dangerous ; but I think
the crisis altogether so very perilous, that a bold policy
seems to be the best The laity, who advise against the
Synod, do so generally on very opposite principles from
those which guide you. They fear the Bishop's taking
a position of apparent antagonism to, or at least inde
pendence of the law, and so a distinct move being made to
disestablishment. " As to the paper which you sent me from an unknown
writer, it seemed to me that he wholly misunderstood my
plan, and the nature of Synods. I never dreamed of a
mongrel Synod. It appears to me that our only alternative

in.] THEOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES AT WINCHESTER. A,^l
is the true ancient Synods of the Church, or Conferences of
Bishop, clergy, and lait}-. I believe that the Church may
always adapt itself to new necessities. In ages of com
parative rudeness laymen were unfit to join in counsel.
Now, I do not think we can work without them. If I
attempted to revive Diocesan Synods side by side with
Conferences, I should certainly revive the ancient Diocesan
Synod. I incline even to the same view as regards Con
vocation. Provincial Synods were Synods of Bishops only.
In the thirteenth century the addition of abbots and other
ecclesiastics was made to the Provincial Synod in this
country (and in this country only, I believe) ; and that
addition was originally quite as much from national as
from ecclesiastical expediency, if not wholly from national
expediency. This has grown into a Convocation of prelates
and clergy. As it is not the ancient Provincial Synod, but
a form of Council unknown to antiquity, I see no reason
why a lay chamber should not be added, if such lay
chamber should seem likely to give strength and popularity
to it
" In the Middle Ages, Diocesan Synods were not sum
moned annually ; often but once in an Episcopate, and
often because of some grave necessity. There seems to me
now a digitus vindice nodus. But a considerable majority,
on very different grounds, dissuade.
'' I hope you are right in your sanguine expectations.
We are on our beam ends ; and the crew, if not in actual
mutiny, have no united action. As far as my power of
judging goes I should say that there was universal distrust.
I do not for a moment think that the ship will sink ; but I
do fear that the one organisation in Christendom which has
hitherto succeeded in keeping up religious life in a nation
may be altogether disorganised. France, Italy, Spain,
Germany, Switzerland, Holland, have all but lost anything
like true national Christian life. There is a pretty strong
Ultramontane Church, and a very weak Protestant Church,
in all of them ; but the Ultramontane, which is the only
real power, is extra-national. It does not pervade the
national life. Up to this time, the Anglican Church, with
all its defects, has held the nation more or less true to
its faith, and (imperfectly) loyal to its Head. There are
alarming symptoms that this is a state of things rapidly
passing away. The operatives are nearly lost to us. The
middle class has long been largely dissenting. And now

442 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch. III.

the gentr}- are rapidly going off to rationalism or indiffer
ence. All the work we are doing does not seem to arrest
the downward progress, or to remove the distrust. Let us
trust in Providence and Grace. But we must act wisely
under that in which we trust.
" Pardon length, haste, and scrawl. " Most truly yours,
" E. H. Winton."
The reluctance and remonstrances of the large majority
of the committee led the Bishop to abandon the scheme ;
one sees from above with what despondency he bowed to
their opinion. There is no doubt that the view he took
of the action of a Bishop in Synod, the high-water-mark
of episcopal claims to authority, would, if carried out in
all dioceses, have had many very dangerous tendencies.
With him, who would have judged and spoken with
learning and temperate consideration for others, and in a
true spirit of Christian charity, the results might have
been productive of peace and goodwill ; it would not have
been so everywhere.
It is pleasant to have to record, as the conclusion of the
effort which at this time had given the Bishop so much
anxiety, that the Rev. D. Elsdale, of St John's, Kennington,
protesting against the extravagant language used by more
extreme men, spoke as follows respecting the decisions of
his diocesan : —
" If our Bishops are to trust us, we must trust them. I
have myself the fullest confidence in the saintly character
and godly prudence of my own diocesan, not only
generally, but in this particular decision, which is a more
inconvenient one to me than to any one else in the
world. When I found that the Bishop had deliberately
decided it, I w^as neither persistent in my remonstrances
nor peevish in my complaints. I only trust in the great
day of account I may be judged to have acted as uprightly
and bravely, as kindly and humbly, as my Father in God
has acted."

CHAPTER IV,
ADMINISTRATION AT 'WINCHESTER.
1873— 1890.
\ PART from the anxieties arising out of the unsettled
-^^- state of Church opinion and practice, the Bishop's
Winchester life was full of work which taxed his powers
of endurance. He was well over sixty when he made the
change. No man ever spared himself less. He took great
pains with his Confirmations. Before he had been at
Winchester a year he crossed, with much apprehension
and suffering, to the Channel Islands, and took Confirma
tions in Guernsey, Jersey, and Sark ; preached missionary
sermons ; suggested his favourite Conferences, to be held
at " two or three centres " ; discussed the Public Worship
Bill, over which he had been at variance with the Arch
bishop, and expressed his approval of the Act, because it
strengthened the Bishop's hands without an appeal to the
law courts. His visit roused great interest in the Islands,
and he was welcomed very cordially wherever he appeared.
Consecrations of churches, meetings of Convocation, dio
cesan Conferences, many sermons, filled up all his days ;
one wonders how he could have found a moment for
the weighty topics which occupied his pen during these
years. No wonder if in the Church Congress at Plymouth,
in 1876, he summed up a rather heated discussion on the
increase of the episcopate with an address, in which he
443

444 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch,

declared that the work of the dioceses was much better
done than people seemed to think, and that it was the
Bishops who really had most cause to complain ; he ended
by saying that an increase in their number was needed as
much for their own sake as for the sake of their flocks.
He held a formal Cathedral Visitation on the last day
of April, 1878, and took the opportunity of delivering a
Charge to the officials of the mother church of his diocese.
After saying that in origin Cathedral establishments were
closely connected with the missionary work of the Church,
and tracing the growth of the system to the present form,
he goes on to lay out his views as to their true functions.
There ought to be an active body gathered round their
Bishop, intent on the advance of the Christian faith, holding,
as from the beginning, the posts of danger and hard work,
if also posts of honour and influence. Pie brushes aside
the thought of a leisurely clergy, keeping up " the
solemnities of an elaborate worship," " enjoying a dignified
retirement in old age." " AH points," he says, " to the
Chapters as learned bodies, the Bishop's counsellors ;
intent on teaching and preaching throughout the diocese.
The old notion of a great Bishop, sitting in isolated
grandeur, has become a thing of the past." He no
longer administers his diocese with no assistance but that
of a lawyer at his side ! He must take counsel with the
clergy and laity. Advisers, teachers, missioners, must the
future Cathedral bodies be. He also shews what should
be the true status and honourable work of Priest Vicars,
or of Minor Canons ; nor does he forget an encouraging
word to Lay Vicars, and clerks, vergers, sidesmen, and
chorister boys.
This Visitation was followed immediately by one of the
diocese generally, in which he gave utterance to his strong
alarm as to the " organised " spread of infidelity in the

IV.] ADMINISTRATION AT WINCHESTER. 445

country. This he attributed chiefly to the luxury of the
last half-century, and summed up the result of it in the
appaHing formula, " No God, no responsibility, no sin, no
goodness, no spiritual happiness here, no hereafter," and
treated it as an invasion of materialistic ideals of life and
happiness, the very antithesis of " altruism," Christian or
non-Christian. He mooted the topic again at the " Pan-
Anglican " Synod at Lambeth on July 4th, 1878, in terms
which are, says the Standard, " remarkable alike for intel
lectual vigour and personal piety."
These labours and utterances were followed by a Charge
" as remarkable for the variety of topics it handles, as for
the sound common-sense and practical ability with which
it handles them." It ranges over a wide field : the Con
fessional, the awkward form of the modern diocese of
Rochester, religious education, the Dilapidations Act, the
cottages of the working folk, allotments, the modern de
velopments of infidelity, the resistance of some of the
clergy to the Public Worship Amendment Act
This was followed by the Anglo-Continental Society's
meeting at Farnham ; and the more public labours of
his year were completed by the two-days' Conference at
Winchester in October, in which he again attacked the
subject of unbelief, and took a lively and interested share
in discussions on Church property and on Institutions for
Deaconesses ; he ended by saying (as he had every right
to say) that " he had taken a large part in the debates, and
that he hoped they would give him credit for having no
intention of biassing in any degree the free expression of
opinion by his brethren."
The Bishop's position as one of the preachers or readers of
papers at Church Congresses was now completely assured.
His interest in these gatherings from the beginning, his
moderation, even his fears and despondencies, marked

446 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

him out for the post ; he rarely missed a Congress, and,
when present, often preached one of the opening sermons.
The first of these discourses was delivered at Swansea
(October 7th, 1879). In the 1881 Congress he read a
paper on " the practical working of Cathedrals;" in 1883,
at Reading, he preached a somewhat notable sermon on
Antichrist In 1884 he delivered an address on "The
Advantages of an Established Church," at Carlisle ; in
1885, at the Portsmouth Congress, another "On Some of
the Difficulties of Working-Men." After this, his failing
health forbade him any longer to venture on such exciting
and fatiguing tasks.
The active administrative work of the diocese was
beginning to tell on him ; and the heavy calls on his purse
added to his anxiety. Writing to Bishop McDougall in
1 88 1, he lets us see how his sensitive nature felt the painful
side of his duties : —
" Ordination," he says, " goes on generally well : but I
am greatly shaken from having had to reject two men
yesterday, one . . . who says he has a wife grievously ill,
who may probably die of it These are the saddest of aU
trials as a Bishop."
His ordinations were to him, as they must be to all
Bishops, times of unusual stress and anxiety. Yet, as
Canon Edgar Jacob weH says, speaking of these periods : —
" The leading idea which a young man would take away
with him, would be that he had been brought into contact
with one of the most tender and fatherly men he had ever
met in his life, of exquisite refinement, and most touching
humility ; and that he had been allowed to share in such
a family-life as is rarely seen. ... I have always thought
that the Bishop represented the episcopate in its fatherly
aspect more perfectly than any one I ever knew, and at
an ordination this was especially emphasised. The Bishop
took little part in any examinations. On the occasions on

IV.] ADMINISTRATION AT WINCHESTER. 447

which he felt unable to pass a candidate, the pain which
it gave him to reject a man I can hardly describe, or the
exquisite delicacy with which such a decision was com
municated. . . . You know the combination of feelings
which a young man brings to such a week of abiding
memories.. . . He would carry away from Farnham impres
sions not only of the kindest hospitality, but of a family
life, which would do him a world of good in the parish to
which he might be sent."

't.^'

Many a man can bear out what Canon Jacob here says,
and can look back on this sacred vestibule of his clerical life
with the deepest thankfulness.
Nor was his daily work without more exciting elements.
" Threatening letters," he writes another day to Bishop
McDougall, " are not confined to Corsica. I had one, anony
mous, a few days ago, to the effect that if I do not stop
Confession at St. John's, Kennington (which is no longer
in my diocese), the father of one of the girls will put a
bullet through my head at Esdaile's without further
notice." This amused rather than alarmed him. He was much
more seriously affected by the heated state of opinion at
this period in Bournemouth, where on the death of Mr.
Bennett the Vicar of St Peter's, a kind of warfare had
broken out between Church-parties, always specially in
flammable and irritable at watering-places.
In October 1879 we find the Bishop, as Visitor, present
at the 500th Anniversary of the foundation of New College,
Oxford ; and in the renovated chapel he delivered an
address to the assembled College, in which he gave ex
pression to the forebodings, happily never realised, with
which he and very many regarded the reform of the
Universities, and his fears lest in the future the influences
of religion would be less potent there than they had been
in the past. The sad note of alarm which sounds through

448 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

the address was characteristic of his temperament, which
longed only to see the College moving along the ancient
ways, not engaged in what he calls " the death-struggle of
agnosticism against ifaith, but reverting in spirit and use to
the traditions of their great founder, William of Wykeham."
A little later he laid the first stone of the new Isle of
Wight College, and gave the Island folk a very interesting
account of his visit to Dr. Arnold at Rugby many years
before, and of that great man's desire that his school should
be a potent influence for good in the formation and
strengthening of the religious and moral natures of the
youth of England.
Nothing, it may be, shook the Bishop so much as the
sudden and dramatic death of his friend and coadjutor
Bishop Utterton. That excellent and very lovable man
had been told that his life was hanging on a thread, and
for some time had been walking in the full knowledge that
the summons might come at any moment. It came to
him, as a good man would most wish and pray that it
might come, in perfect peace, without fear or suffering, as
he was about his Father's business. On Sunday, December
2 1st, 1879, he read the Communion Service in the parish
church at Ryde, and when he had ended the Prayer for
the Church Militant, knelt down and gave himself to sHent
devotion. At that moment the summons came, and he
yielded up his spirit to his Master
" His death," the Bishop writes, " throws a sad gloom on
all the diocese. He was all you say of him, and the longer
I knew him, the more highly I esteemed him. He was
thoroughly and actively kind, never sparing himself in the
work of his Master and his fellow-servants. To me he
was thoroughly loyal and useful. He knew the diocese,
and always gave me honest counsel. His death was most
striking. After a week of hard work, going to Ryde to
preach twice, preaching an eloquent sermon, and uttering

IV.] ADMINISTRATION AT WINCHESTER. 449

as his last words, ' that with them we may be partakers
of Thy heavenly kingdom, through Jesus Christ our Lord.'
May we meet him there ! "
The archdeaconry of Surrey, thus rendered vacant, the
Bishop filled up by an appointment which did him honour.
For no one who knew Archdeacon Atkinson could have
failed to recognise in him very high and noble gifts of
Christian power and faith. But the Bishop shall speak
for himself Writing from Farnham on January 8th, 1880,
he says : — •
" I have appointed Atkinson of Dorking to the arch
deaconry, which carries a canonry. He has been only
five years in the diocese, and it seems a Httle hard to
place him above such men as A., B., or C, but I think he
has qualifications which none of them [possess]. He is,
what none of them are, a very able speaker and preacher.
He conciliates every one without being a time-server.
Then, he is an excellent organiser, a thorough gentleman
and devout Christian, a sound and moderate Churchman.
I am afraid he is not strong, and may therefore have to
give up Dorking, but I have not urged him to do so, for he
is extremely beloved there, and it would be very hard to
fill his place as a parish priest. He is the man the Dean
[Bramston] wished for, and I learn that he is the man
whom Utterton would have wished to succeed him. I trust
he will be acceptable to you."
The Bishop now seems to have thought that he could
cope alone with the diocese, relying on the cordial and
ever ready help of Bishop McDougall. For eight years,
in spite of his fafling strength, he persevered, and it was
not till 1888 that he summoned Archdeacon Sumner to
his aid.
During the year 1880 the Bishop's labours were not
lightened in any way. In addition to the ordinary routine
duties of the See, he, as Bishop and Visitor, opened the
new Modern School at Winchester in May, with a speech
• 29

450 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
v\-hich involved the very difficult task of treating gently
the feelings of both the City and the College, and of
shewing that it was a good thing to have education divided,
not by the substance of it, or by the subjects taught, but
by the grades of society attending school. He also threw
some life into a very dry matter — the praises of Latin as
a subject for education — by saying that he had known of a
very excitable youth of nineteen whose brain was in danger,
and his friends saved him by prescribing, as the dullest and
most sobering thing they could think of a steady course of
long doses of Latin grammar ; and he felt sure, too, that
the ancients had been exceeding wise in selecting amo as
the first example of a Latin verb, because of the soothing
effect it was known to have on the youthful eagerness of
boys, who, but for some such cooling medicine, would
always be in danger of falling in love.
A month or so later we find him taking part in the
festivities and speech-making at his old College of Lampeter,
on occasion of the opening of the new chapel. And he
closed the year by a long address, delivered before the
Christian Evidences Society at Bournemouth, on the strife
between faith and infidelity, a topic now pressing ever more
and more on his mind.
Early in 1881 a Resolution was agreed to by the
Upper House of Convocation calling on Government to
appoint a Commission on the Ecclesiastical Courts, and
he was made a member of it. On this Commission he
sat for two years. He felt that the three Courts, (i) that
of First Instance, the Bishops', (2) the Archbishop's Court
of Appeal, and (3) the Judicial Committee of the Privy
Council, were all open to objection. How could they be
better framed so as to maintain at once the supremacy
of the Crown and the liberties of the Church and of
Churchmen ? He was in favour of making the Arch-

IV.] ADMINISTRATION AT WINCHESTER. 45 1
bishop's Court, in which the Archbishop himself sat with
comprovincial Bishops as assessors, the final Court of
Appeal. " It would be a Court of the most primitive
character, from which appeal could be made to the Queen
in a secular court if wrong were done to the civil rights
or temporalities of her subjects."
Twice in Bishop Harold Browne's life, in 1868 and 1882,
he seemed likely to become Archbishop of Canterbury ;
and, in 1868 at any rate, he would have welcomed the
promotion, proud to be enrolled in the list of Primates.
In a letter to Prebendary Meyrick he says : —
" You refer to what occurred fourteen years ago (in 1 868).
I do not suppose I was so near the Primacy then, for
. . . was resolved on Tait ; but I came near enough to
be advertised and congratulated. . . . Such ' close shaves '
seldom happen to one man in relation to offices so
important They are all ordered by wisdom and love,
and form part of the trials and yet blessings of one's life."
There is a curious letter from one of the Bishop's
disappointed friends, who writes that talking to one of
the Cabinet Ministers, —
" I ventured to say that Bishops of London not unusually
succeeded [to the Primacy]. He said most positively,
'You may make yourself quite sure about him — he is
impossible.' He then said, ' It is quite incredible, the
number of letters I and others in the Cabinet have received
from every part of the country urging the nomination
of your friend the B — — p of E — y.' ' Well,' I said, ' he
is the vei-y man. He is liked by all classes, and would
be popular with all parties. He is a thorough gentleman,
which is not the case with every Bishop, and he has that
in him, both spiritually and intellectually, which would
ensure his rising to the height of any emergency.' His
eyes sparkled, and his face was suffused with smiles, and
he said, ' Well, we shall see — only, remember, I don't know
anything.' . . . Nothing more passed, till I saw the present
appointment I was furious at the thought of an Eras-

452 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
tian and champion of Colenso and patron of Stanley
being selected by a Conservative Premier on the eve of
a general election, and I told  that I looked on D 
as a humbug, that I would as soon see G  in his place
as not and that I should not vote to keep such an im
postor in office."
In 1882 the Bishop was again much spoken of for the
throne of Canterbury. Nothing, indeed, but his years and
growing infirmities stood between him and the Primacy.
Mrs. Harold Browne was consulted as to the state of the
Bishop's health, and her opinion asked as to whether
she thought he could stand the strain of the new duties
and of a change of work, considering his age, seventy-
one, and his state of health. Her necessarily cautious
and guarded reply may have left the impression that she
dreaded a change for her husband.
There was a general feeling that the Bishop of Win
chester would be a very safe appointment. There was
nothing but good wiH towards him from the highest down
wards. The dying Archbishop wished it. The Bishop of
Gibraltar, one of Archbishop Tait's most intimate friends,
writes that —

"In the summer before he died he said to me, 'Who
ought to be my successor ? ' At first I refused to answer ;
but when pressed I said, ' The Bishop of Winchester.' He
replied, ' Why, he is as old as I am, and as infirm ; give
me another answer.' I declined, and the subject dropped.
In the autumn, when he was very ill, he sent for me and
said, ' I want your advice. Ought I to resign ? ' My
reply was, ' No, not now ; the doctors give hope of recovery.
But if when spring returns and the work of the new year
begins, you find that your strength has not returned, I
think you ought to resign.' ' So do I,' said Tait ' and that
is the course I mean to take. Now I will ask you again
the question I asked you in the summer : who should be
my successor ? ' 'I give you the same answer I gave you

IV.] ADMINISTRATION AT WINCHESTER. 453
before,' I replied — ' the Bishop of Winchester.' ' Right' he
said, ' though he is old, yet in existing circumstances he is
the fittest for the office.'"
And again, in conversation with the present Bishop of
Rochester, the Archbishop went so far as to say : —
" I should be truly thankful to think it certain that
the Bishop of Winchester would succeed me at Lambeth.
He could do more than any other man to preserve the
Church in peace for its real work against sin. 1 pray
God he may be appointed, and may accept the caH."
Bishop Harold Browne's accounts of his last interview
with Archbishop Tait are too interesting to be omitted
here. The first is addressed to his old friend Prebendary
Meyrick, the other to his wife : — "November 2?,th, 1882.
" I went to Addington yesterday to bid a long farewell,
though at my age it may not be very long, as I trust we
may meet, by God's mercy in Christ in the Paradise of
God and in the presence of the Lamb. Most touching our
interview was. The strong man, with almost iron will,
gentle and humble as a child, full of patience and love. To
me he was very affectionate, and I knelt in prayer with him
at his own wish, and (as he said) to his great comfort It
seems presumptuous to pray, in words of blessing, for one
greater and better than oneself I feel sure of his true
Christian spirit though I have often differed with him in
times past. We have long been on terms of warm friend
ship, and a deathbed unites in faith and scatters all trifling
differences. " Most affectionately yours,
"E. H. Winton."

"Bossington House, Stockbridge,
"November 2'ith, 1882.
" It was a scene of sadness, but yet of comfort. He is
very weak, and was much affected. We mingled our

454 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
prayers and our tears. He was full of gentleness, patience,
and love ; spoke of his own faults as chief ruler, but of his
hopes for the Church as well as for himself ; sent his love
and blessing to all mine, spoke of his probable (as he
thought and hoped) succes.sor too much in the same
direction that you point. T fear some successor will be
soon. He is evidently sinking, but in this fine weather it
may be slowly. It is very striking and full of pathos to
see a strong man, with such a will as he had, so like a little
child going home to his Father. May the Father support
and guide and receive him, and supply his place (it will be
a large void) to the Church."
And a very few days later, on Advent Sunday, the
Bishop writes : —
" I have a telegram to say that the Archbishop died
peacefully at 7. 1 5 this morning. Mrs. Tait died on Advent
Sunday too, 1878. Very likely he will be buried on the
7th, which is the anniversary of her funeral. This is very
remarkable and touching. I have learned to love the
Archbishop as I never thought I could have done. When
you know him well, he is full of goodness. May God
direct all the future for His Church and the spread of His
Kingdom. The struggle is strong between good and evil
now. " Ever most affectionately yours,
"E. H. Winton."
There can be no doubt that, in spite of age and growing
infirmities. Bishop Harold Browne felt a certain disap
pointment when he found a much younger man preferred
before him. The opportunity of exercising his powers in
the direction of peace, moderation, and union with other
communities would have been very dear to him ; as it was,
he was too good and noble of nature to feel any bitterness, or
even to express much regret He neither fretted over it
nor allowed it to interfere with his regular work in the
diocese. Before it was settled he writes thus to Bishop
McDougaH :--

IV.] ADMINISTRATION AT WINCHESTER. 455
"Farnham Castle, December i/^th, 1882.
" It will probably be settled in a day or two ; offered
(I believe) either to me or to the Bishop of Truro. It
would be certainly to me, but from doubt of my age and
health. If it should be offered to me, do you think I
ought to take it ? I am on the road to seventy-two. It
would relieve me of so many confirmations and so much
travelling ; but it would bring fresh and greater anxieties,
more frequent public meetings, etc., etc., and larger cor
respondence (for which two secretaries would be absolutely
indispensable)." Then, on December 19th, he writes to the Bishop : —
" I hear no more of the person to whom Canterbury is
to be offered. ... If it were not for the many confirmations
in the Channel Islands, I should prefer Winton to Cantuar,
especially with all my friends around me ; only there
seemed a bright vision of hope that I might be permitted
to work for the Church of God, having a locus standi which
gives more purchase and power."
And then, again, a little later, when he knew it was not
to be : —
" I thank you with all my heart for all you say of and
to me, most undeserving of all such good sayings as I am.
The Primacy has been so pressed on me by those not in
authority, so many said it must be offered to me, and so
many that it was my duty to take it, that I had nearly
made up my mind that it would be so, much as I felt my
want of qualifications for the post. So when Gladstone
wrote to me that I was too old, I felt rather a blank. I
had begun plans for mending matters, if possible, and their
faH brought some disappointment But I am thankful
that God has so ordered it. I am (or at least soon shall
be) too old for any great struggle, and no one knows what
is impending. Benson's shoulders are broader and his
strength unbroken. Fourteen years ago I was more con
fidently advertised and congratulated on the Primacy than
I was just now. I have been spared much trouble,
doubtless, in both cases. " Ever most affectionately yours,
" E. H. Winton."

456 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
In another letter he refers with pardonable pride to an
autograph communication which at this moment he received
from the Queen, by whose most gracious permission it
appears in these pages. "Osborne, December 2\th, 1882.
" The Queen has been much touched by the very kind
letter from the Bishop of Winchester to Lady Ely, and
wishes herself to thank him for it, and for all the kind
expressions towards herself which it contains. No one
could more worthily have filled the position of Primate
than the Bishop, and the Queen would have sincerely
rejoiced to see him succeed our dear and ever-lamented
Archbishop Tait But she feels it would be wrong to ask
him to enter on new and arduous duties, which now more
than ever tax the health and strength of him who has to
undertake them, at his age, which, as the Bishop himself
says, is the same as that of our dear late friend.
" The Queen thanks the Bishop of Winchester for saying
that he will give the new Primate all the support he can,
which will be of inestimable value.
"She cannot conclude without offering him and his
family the best wishes and blessings of the season."
Of Mr. Gladstone's letter he gives a brief summary in
a note to Bishop McDougall, dated December 22nd, 1882 : —
" On Wednesday night I got a long and very kind letter
from Gladstone, saying that (referring to some qualities
which my friends are too kind in seeing) if the Primacy
had fallen a few years ago, I must unquestionably have
been ' ordered to accept the succession to that great See.'
Then he speaks of the 'newness of the duties of the
English, or rather Anglican or British Primacy, to a
Diocesan Bishop, however able and experienced ' ; the pre
cedents, viz., that no Bishop .since Juxon (1660)— -a very
exceptional case — ' has assumed the Primacy after seventy;'

IV.] ADMINISTRATION AT WINCHESTER. 457
says 'how pleasant it would have been for him to have
marked his respect and affection for me by making the
proposal,' and adds, ' What is more important is that I
am authorised by Her Majesty to state that this has been
the single impediment to her conferring the honour and
imposing the burden upon you of such an offer.' "
After a few days he recurs to the subject in his almost
daily letter to Bishop McDougall : —
" Farnham, December 2()th, 1882.
" My DEAR Brother, — * * * * I believe that Benson
will make an excellent Archbishop. I like him very much.
He is vigorous, able, modest, and warm-hearted, a strong
Churchman, but with large sympathies. Gladstone was
quite right to pass by an antiquity like myself for the youth
and vigour of Benson. It is perhaps a little mortifying to
see in all papers so much about one's advanced age and
growing infirmities, when, thank God, I feel stronger and
better than I have been for years. Gladstone, I learned
both from himself and others, searched into all precedents,
from the Commonwealth to the present day, for a Primate
who began his work at seventy, and found none but
Juxon. Curiously, I have been reading that he himself
prompted by Bishop Wilberforce, wanted Palmerston to
appoint Sumner (of Winchester) when he was seventy-two.
It was when they feared that they could not get Longley
(who was sixty-eight)."
In the end his calm and unselfish judgment enabled him
to say : —
" If the Primacy had been offered me the dying words
of the late Primate, the urgency of the Archbishop of
York and my brother Bishops and of others, might have
led me to accept ; and in a year or two I might have failed.
I thought that I might find the new work easier than the
present, which is very heavy ; and the new stimulus might
have given me fresh life. But clearly. Bishop Benson
is far fitter for care and responsibility than I am, who
am eighteen years older. The great kindness of the
Queen's letter to me, and of every one, especially of my

4S8 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
brother Bishops and my diocese, ought to make me
thankful and, still more, humble, as sensible of my great
unworthiness." From this time onward we can see that it was becoming
for the Bishop a growing struggle against failing strength.
On the one side was his love of work, and determined
power of will, which drove him, often against his better
judgment to undertake exhausting duties and to fulfil
even unnecessary engagements ; on the other side was
the steady advance of years, the slow development of that
feebleness of frame which is ever a sore trial to the active-
minded man. Very soon after the Lambeth matter was
over he began to think about another Suffragan in the
place of Bishop Utterton.
"I am always feeling," he writes, 17th March, 1883,
"that it may soon come to my resigning, or having a
regular Suffragan, which would be much more expensive.
My perpetual liability to cold, often turning to fever, gives
warning of this. Resignation would be best for my pocket,
and perhaps for myself and family ; for episcopacy is a
very expensive luxury."
A little later, July 9th, 1883, he discusses the topic of a
Bishop of Southampton and the Channel Islands.
" The doubts," he says, " I felt at the first moment were :
" I, Whether the Bishop of London would dislike such a
proposal, " 2. Whether much additional responsibility would be
thrown on me, as I am growing older.
" 3. Whether, if I were to need a Suffragan, of which I
have often thought it would prevent me from getting one
and yet not supply the place of one to me.
" I have still (though I have lost South London) the
largest country diocese in England ; by ' country ' I mean
excluding London and the manufacturing districts. My
population is still as large as Lincoln, which has a Suffragan
and yet clamours for subdivision. I have nearly a thousand
clergy. My area lis from the Thames to Normandy. I

IV.] ADMINISTRATION AT WINCHESTER. 459
think, however, that both for the public good and for that
of my own diocese I should be glad to come into the
scheme, if it should approve itself to others."
The " Suffragan for the Continent " was a plan by which
it was proposed, at the instance of the Anglo-Continental
Society, to appoint a Bishop of Southampton, whose
business it should be to watch over the Channel Islands,
and the English congregations on the Continent, and also to
be a link connecting the English Church with the reform
movements in France and Spain. The Islands rose at once
in fierce revolt. They resented bitterly any attempt to
sever them, even partially, from the diocese of Winchester
and from the English connexion, and thought that they
were going to be handed over to a kind of Bagman Bishop
who would nominally be theirs, while really he was moving
from place to place on the Continent. Their opposition
was so strong that the Bishop gave way before it, and the
whole scheme fell through.
A little later he thinks of inviting retired Colonial
Bishops to settle in the diocese, and to give him aid
when needful, as, for example, in confirmation times ; in
this way he had for some time the help of Bishop Cramer
Roberts. About the same period there was some talk of
the probable resignation of one of the strongest and
best of our English prelates. Bishop P'"raser of Manchester.
The good living of Old Alresford was likely to be vacant,
and his plan was to invite the Bishop of Manchester to
settle there as his helper. In this he was checked by
somewhat small and narrow objections raised by one of his
most trusted counsellors : —
" A., to whom I hinted it, says it would be very unpopular
with Churchmen in the diocese. I doubt this, as Eraser is
a very pleasant man, though unfortunately led into a party
fight. He is certainly not a Low Churchman."

460 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

Still, with his marked deference for the opinions of others,
the Bishop paused ; and the diocese, which has too often
been unable to keep its men of ability, lost the chance of
being reinforced by a really strong man. The question as to
a Suffragan slumbered till 1888, when Mr. George Sumner
was appointed Bishop of Guildford.
In this year, 1883, the Bishop took active part in pro
moting the " Children's Charter," the Bill for the Protection
of Women and Children, and saw with thankfulness its
passage into law. The welfare of the little ones was always
very dear to him ; their childishness woke all the child-
nature in him, and always secured his willing help. He
was also devoted to animals, and braved the anger of the
medical world this year by taking the chair at an anti-
vivisection meeting for the protection of God's dumb
creatures. He, also, about this time, in 1882 and 1883, had the
great pleasure of taking part in the marriages of his three
clerical sons, Barrington, Thirlwall, and Robert. Barring
ton, whose first wife, Helen, daughter of Dr. Jackson,
Bishop of London, after a brief and happy wedded life,
had died of decline at Madeira, was now married to
Louisa, daughter of the Bishop of Guildford, his father's
trusted friend and helper. Thirlwall was married to Rose,
daughter of Mr. Anderson of Waverley Abbey ; and
Robert to Agnes, Lord Rollo's eldest daughter. Robert
was at the time his father's chaplain, as his elder brothers
had been before him ; so that the young couple spent the
first seven years of their wedded life at Farnham, where
three of their children were born. It was a fresh be
ginning of life for the affectionate old man ; his little
grandchildren were ever a source of the deepest and
purest delight to him.
In the autumn he took a charming holiday in the

IV.] ADMINISTRATION AT WINCHESTER. 46 1
Scottish Highlands, and while there wrote his well-known
Congress Sermon on Antichrist, which he preached at St
Laurence's Church, Reading, in the following October. It
is tinged with a sense of apprehension ; there is the gloom
of one who seems to see the forces of evil gathering
round the citadel of the Church, and listens intently for
the signal of attack. The hindering power, which has
kept Antichrist at bay, is the Holy Roman Empire in its
earlier or later developments, and its principle of Roman
law combined with religion. This, he urges, was "taken
out of the way " by the French Revolution, with the fall
of the older world ; the new world, then born, has slowly
shaken itself free from the bonds of Order ; " the fabric
is rapidly loosening," he says : the next century may " see
the world bereft of that power of social order and of iron
law tempered by Christian faith," and "a spirit growing
up, silently gaining strength and ascendency, which has
well-nigh every mark of St. Paul's Man of Sin and of St
John's Antichrist " ; and so next century will see a death-
struggle between the Church and the world. How this
view can be reconciled with the doleful state of religion in
past days, when " Law and Order " reigned supreme, is not
ours to say : it may at least as well be argued that the
liberties of our time are more, not less, favourable to the true
advance of religion. Still, the sermon was received with
great approval by all whose minds had been alarmed by
the swift advances of these later days, and by changes
which, as they sweep away the ancient barriers, compel
new thoughts and ways of appealing to the souls and
consciences of men.
Among the many letters called forth by this sermon
is one from Mr. Gladstone, who was clearly much
interested in the subject.
" I must now send thanks more than formal," he writes

462 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
from Downing Street, in the midst of the cares of office.
" It seems to put into a practical and pastoral form the
matter of a learned and careful dissertation. ... It has, I
think, much cleared my ideas, and I thank your Lordship
very much for such assistance ; especially in regard to your
exposition of ' he that letteth.' I understand this to be in
your view the strong hand of law, embodied as well as
represented in the Roman Empire, on and after which was
modelled the Roman State. And this State, not allowing
free opinion, repressed licence as well as liberty, and
prevented the profession and extension of atheism in its
now multitudinous forms.
" I have no doubt we have among us an idolatry of
' Church and State ' ; and the idolaters, or some of them,
would not scruple to say that whatever is barbarously
termed ' voluntaryism,' which is making progress in the
world, was Antichrist Yet I suppose it to be incredible
that Apostles who were teaching Christianity as (in this
sense) a private opinion, against or in fear of the State,
could have meant to describe as Antichrist a full and free
permission by the State to teach. . . .
"|It is now, I think, over forty-five years since Manning
was the first to point out to me that the Church was
pushing back into the condition which it held before
Constantine, " It all shows us a vast, overpowering, and bewildering
drama : but not without a key to its plan and meaning,"
With this courteous and very able criticism of the
sermon we may pass on. The bulk of the acknowledg
ments were those of friends who sympathised with the
Bishop's gloomier view of things, while they also joined
him in refusing to fasten on the Roman Church the stigma
of being Antichrist.
It was in 1883 that England woke to the fact that she
possessed a real Christian hero in General Gordon. At
this time he was much drawn to our Bishop, and studied
eageriy the " Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles," a
book which, one might have thought would have repelled
a man of action, untrained in theology. It was exactly

IV.] ADMINISTRATION AT WINCHESTER. 463
the contrary. His eager, devout spirit was attracted by
the piety and learning of the Bishop, and he at this time
wrote him one or two interesting letters on " the first and
second eating," — that is, on the loss of God's presence at
the Fall, and the recovery of it at the Holy Communion,
through the sacrifice of the Cross.
"In 1 88 1, I wrote to your Chaplain about your work on
the Thirty-Nine Articles, with regard to original sin ; and
then I sent your Lordship a small paper on the ' two
eatings,' the first in Eden, the second in the Lord's Supper ;
since which time I have thought much on these two Com
munions, and it was a true pleasure to me, when we both
were ill from our mutual first eating, to meet you at the
antidotal (if there is such a word) eating at St. Luke's,
Southampton. ... As the first eating made us partakers
of Satan, so the second eating makes us partakers of
Christ." His letter ends with a very characteristic passage on
the Jews : —
" It may be that some of your clergymen will be inclined
to take up this view of the Jews, as typical of the wailing
Christians. It is not accidental that this typical nation are
so distinguished for usury, for collecting old clothes, filthy
rags of righteousness. They are the same as ever they
were. Mr. Friedlander came back from England, and many
hundred Jews met him, hoping he had got funds for a
Colony, where they would have house, etc., etc. They
greeted him with the title of Messiah ! That is their view,
to get back their carnal things, and then they will act even
as they did before to Jehovah."
It is touching to us, seeing what is past thus to get a
glimpse into the mind of this pious mystic, whose soul was
ever striving to win its way into the true presence of God,
and who felt by instinct that the Bishop would understand
and sympathise.
" Your writings," says Prebendary Barnes, " have led him
to read ' Pearson on the Creed ' and the Bishop of Lincoln's
(Wordsworth's) Commentary ; and in order to study

464 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
Scripture he has lived almost as a hermit in Jerusalem or
Jaffa for this year. . . Though his ideas, as expressed to
you, may seem half-incoherent, yet my long correspondence
makes me sure that he has clear and coherent thought,
and sees much which other men usually do not,"
For the General was as one of the prophets of old time ;
and men misunderstood him accordingly, or thought him
mad. Inspiration carries a man beyond the bounds by
which our poor finite minds measure all things, whether in
heaven or earth.
Soon after this time General Gordon, called to Brussels
by the King of the Belgians in order that he might head
the anti-slavery campaign in Africa, returned to England.
Early in the year 1884, Prebendary Barnes wrote to our
Bishop to arrange that he and the General should meet
before the latter started for Africa. The visit, however,
never took place. Mr. Barnes's next letter describes his de
parture for his last heroic effort, as he set forth with noble
and far-reaching aims, eager to lead the crusade against
Arab slavery. For this he gladly laid down his life. The
work to which his strong faith in Christian liberty thus
allured him a decade ago is still undone, though there are
signs on the political horizon that the ultimate struggle
will not long be delayed. Once more, let us hope, England
and Belgium will lead in the battle for the liberties of the
children of Ham.
On February i8th, 1884, Mr. Barnes writes thus to the
Bishop : " I have a telegram dated this afternoon, saying
that he had been summoned to London, and adding, ' I go
to the Soudan to-night : if He goes with me, aH will be
well' "
One letter only has to be added, ere we bid fareweH to
the most interesting and noble figure of modern Enghsh
history ; it was written a year later, after the whole drama

IV] ADMINISTRATION AT WINCHESTER. 465

had been played out to the end, and England's head was
bowed low with sorrow and even with remorse. It is from
his devoted sister, stiH hoping against hope: —
" 5, Rockstone Place, Southampton,
"February 19M, 1885.
" My Lord, — Thank you sincerely for your kind letter
of sympathy in this terrible trial. I cling still to the hope
he may be a prisoner, but my hope is all but dead. His
kindness and help to me at all times no one can know but
myself and I feel in future this must be a weary life. God
alone can take away my rebellious will. He warned me
from Khartoum, March nth, to 'remember our Lord did
not promise success or peace in this life. He promised
tribulation, so if things do not go well after the flesh. He
still is faithful ; He will do all in love and mercy to me ;
my part is to submit to His will, however dark it may be.
Every judgment we pass is impugning His Godhead, and
is paganism.'
" My brother often spoke to me of you, and would like
much to have met you, as he valued your opinions ; but it
was not to be in this world. He longed for and truly
desired to depart, and now he has his wish. He so often
said, ' I would so like to have a peep over the hedge and
see this New Jerusalem.'
" A. Gordon."
In this year, 1884, on the occasion of the three-hundredth
anniversary of the foundation of his College at Cambridge,
the Bishop was elected Honorary Fellow of Emmanuel,
and was present at the commemoration, preaching in the
College Chapel on " Sowing and Seeding." He dealt with
the fact that his College had been founded on Puritan hues,
full of the force of the then rising ideas. " In those early
days it seems to have attracted great numbers, for more
than three hundred undergraduates at once are recorded
to have studied here. Four of the translators of the
Bible were Emmanuel men ; during the Commonwealth
it gave Heads to no fewer than eleven Colleges." After
30

466 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

the Restoration, Sancroft was made master, that he
might purge out the Puritan leaven, and succeeded so
thoroughly that the College shrank to half its size,
under the influence of High Church theology and the
Tory politics of the time. The Bishop's graphic picture of
the strength and weakness of Puritanism make " Sowing
and Seeding" one of his happiest utterances. At the
luncheon which foHowed next day, he touched on his
ancient connexion with the College. " I came up as a boy
to Emmanuel, and for fifty-six years have been one of her
sons. I lived here twelve years as a Scholar, ten as a
resident Professor, and ten as Bishop of Ely, in all that
time enjoying the closest connexion with the College."
It was a year of commemorations. Hardly was the
first over, when he came to Winchester to honour the seven-
hundredth anniversary of the Mayoralty and civic con
stitution of the city, and at the banquet claimed for Church
and clergy that they " had ever been on the side of liberty."
A few weeks later, as Senior Steward, he presided over the
yearly festival of the Natives' Society, which had been
established in the time of Charles II. to succour the orphans
of those who perished at Winchester in the Plague of 1666.
He took the opportunity of disclaiming all party feelings.
" I have a great horror of politics," he said, " and often wish
there were no such thing in existence. . . . Party politics
ruin friendships, and I have dear friends on both sides.
It is not so bad now as in the days of the Reform Bill,
when, at a Northamptonshire ball, the Whigs took one side
of the room and the Tories the other, and a Whig lady
would not dance with a Tory gentleman, or a Tory lady
with a Whig,"
From the Church Congress at Carlisle, where he read a
paper on the " Advantages of an Established Church," and
urged his hearers to pursue the noblest form of " Church

IV] ADMINISTRATION AT WINCHESTER. Afiy

defence," the form of devotion to the cause of the gospel
among the neglected masses of our fellow-countrymen, he
passed into Scotland. There he was present at the most
interesting anniversary of all, the centenary of the con
secration of the first American Bishop, Dr. Seabury,
(November 14th, 1784). The occasion appealed to his
very heart. He saw in it the germ of unity among the
many branches, English, Scottish, American, Colonial, of
the Anglican Church. In his speech on the occasion he
again urged the double duty of our Church, to be the
Church of the poor and suffering, and also to be the
mother of united Churches and bearer of a message of
peace and fraternal love to other bodies of Christians.
Looking back on this period of activity he writes : —
" Carlisle was hard work ; so was Aberdeen, at which
I had to represent the English Episcopate ; for Carlisle
[Harvey Goodwin] was only there one day, and I was the
senior Bishop. So I had plenty of speeches to make,
besides one special address. It was very interesting : five
American Bishops, six Scotch (all but the good old Primus),
Gibraltar and Maritzburg for the Colonies. The functions
and the speaking were very interesting, the congregations
and other assemblies crowded and large."
The Episcopal Church in America has great promise of
the future ; it is " High " Anglican in usage, fresh and
liberal in opinion ; it shews how well the Episcopal system
can fit the untrammelled freedom of a republic ; it is, too,
a wholesome link between the old country and the new,
and a proof that establishment has nothing to do with
the essence of a Church's life ; it encourages us if we are
gloomy as to the future ; it helps us to bring the religion
of past days into harmony with the aspirations of the new
era ; it speaks successfully to an independent and self-reliant
people ; and while it may well be destined to modify some
of our stiffer and more traditional notions, also influences

468 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

in a really conservative spirit some of the cruder tendencies
of the modern American life.
In this very busy year, which taxed all his powers so
severely, the Bishop still found time to take part in many
movements which, had he so been minded, he might have
left on one side. One such effort, which he warmly sup
ported, was the '' White Cross League," of which Lord
Mount-Temple and Canon George Butler, with his noble
wife, were the chief supporters. The Bishop asked to be
made President of this League, and thus shewed his sym
pathy with all efforts on behalf of social purity and the
protection and elevation of suffering womankind. In this,
it need scarcely be said, he was most warmly seconded by
Mrs. Harold Browne, who has ever been a true friend and
champion of her sex. At the close of the year, the Bishop
suffered a very severe loss in the death of Archdeacon
Jacob, who had held in his hands many of the threads of
diocesan work for nearly half a century, and had grown
in power and breadth of views all that time, — a man of
remarkable character, humorous, affectionate, strong, who
by a long life of hard work and rigid uprightness and
justice had endeared himself to the whole diocese The
Bishop, writing to Bishop McDougall, thus describes the
shadow of approaching death : —
" Farnham Castle, December loth, 1884.
" Mv DEAR Brother,— . . I had plenty of work in
Winchester On Sunday I preached (necessarily rather
a long sermon) to a very large congregation, and there
were many communicants. After church I sat and prayed
with the dear old Archdeacon [Jacob], and after the after
noon service I confirmed some boys who had been on the
sick-list when I held my confirmation in the College. . . .
On Monday morning I administered Holy Communion to
the Archdeacon. He is very feeble ; but his pulse is firm
and fairly strong, and his hands are warm. He is full of

IV.] ADMINISTRATION AT WINCHESTER. 469

goodness and faith as ever. I had rather a tiring day
yesterday, having to go down to Southampton to con
secrate Northam Church. The weather was very wet and
unpleasant This is a very heavy week, for to-morrow I
have to open Kingsvvorthy Church ; on Friday S. P. G.;
two meetings at Southampton, where temperance and
other novelties have shelved old societies and old work ;
and on Sunday I have to preach at Peper-Harow for the
opening of a new organ. I generally avoid organs, if I
can ; but Lord Midleton is a very kind neighbour, and
was Barry's patron, and I did not like to refuse. But this
is a bad preparation for next week, the Ordination
Examination." Archdeacon Jacob died on December 21st, 1884; and
the Bishop took his funeral at Crawley, in the midst of
a crowd of old friends and parishioners.
Next year, on April 30th, Bishop Harold Browne saw
the close of one of the most anxious of all his tasks. In
the Jerusalem Chamber at Westminster the Old Testament
Revisers met that day to present copies of their completed
work to the President of the Upper and the Prolocutor of
the Lower Houses of Convocation. The Bishop, as chair
man of the Revising Committee, gave a brief address on the
course of their labours. They had begun on May 6th, 1 870,
sitting without a serious break for nearly fifteen years. Of
the sixteen original members, only six saw the completion
of the task. They had been authorised to invite the help
of any, of whatever nation or religious body, who were
learned in the Scriptures ; they had done so with great
advantage. They had hoped in vain for the aid of Cardinal
Newman ; but the Roman Church could not take part.
Bishop Thirlwall had been their first chairman, and when
he was taken away, Bishop Harold Browne had succeeded
him (with exception of a period of ill-health) down to the
end. He had been brought back to the work at the urgent
request of the Bishop of Peterborough, in order that he

470

EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

might have the chief hand in drawing up the important
preface to the new version. The Bishop writes thus early
in July 1884 : —
" I took the chair for the last time. We finished the
preface, putting the final touch to the whole work. We
gave God thanks, and I finally dismissed the company,
which has worked now for fourteen years, with the blessing.
I feel it a great privilege to be accepted as the Chairman
of so learned a body, engaged on so great a work ; though
of late I have been able to do so little of it. I think we
shall come before the Church with a much more conserva
tive dress than the New Testament company. Our work
has necessarily been of a different character from theirs, and
we have been less daring."
The result of their eighty-five sessions, each of which
usually lasted nine days, has been in the main a great gain.
The beauty of the Authorised Version has been kept ; altera
tions are judicious and conservative ; the power of adverse
criticism is greatly lessened. It is a formidable thing to
criticise on a basis of Hebrew, in face of some of the best
Hebraists in Europe ; consequently, the Old Testament
Revised Version has been treated with far greater respect
than fell to the share of the New Testament, of which
every one who knew a little classical Greek deemed him
self to be a competent judge. The Old Testament
Revision is a great and valuable help towards the under
standing of the Bible in English.
In this year, his tender feeling for the afflicted made
him listen to the appeals of the deaf and dumb in his
diocese ; and he ordained as Deacon Mr. R. A. Pearce, a
deaf mute, who for some years had been a lay-agent among
his afflicted brethren. The Deaf and Dumb Mission has
throughout thanks largely to the energy of Canon Mans
field Owen, been one of the most interesting and successful
of the spiritual agencies of the Hampshire Diocesan Society.

IV.] ADMINISTRATION AT WINCHESTER. ^yi

The Bishop also threw himself warmly into the efforts being
made for the education of what are sometimes called the
middle classes : he had supported Canon Sapte's successful
scheme for a boys' school at Cranleigh, and in June 1885
took the lead in the establishment of a similar school for
girls at Bramley, also in Surrey. He saw the great import
ance of wholesome education for girls, and that it would
be vain to bar the way to their eager ambition for know
ledge ; in ever-swelling numbers they are finding out that
there are ends in life higher than the ball-room, and that
knowledge is better company than society. He aimed
at so directing this eagerness, one of the most beautiful
and hopeful characteristics of this age, that the gospel of
Jesus Christ might not be left out of court in education.
He deemed it needful for the truest and highest develop
ment of the human character.
" It is of vital consequence," he writes, " to future genera
tions that education should be conducted on the highest
principles of refinement, morality, and religion. . . . The
women of a nation are its earliest and most effective
teachers, and they specially need to be well taught"
And this led him also warmly to support the plans
which, a little later, Mrs. Sumner laid before him for a
" Mothers' Union." He drew up a circular, which was
sent to every clergyman in his diocese.
" I believe the Union," he says, " to be a real help in
producing a moral and religious tone in the family life of
our people. Pure and Christian homes, which depend
much on the mother, are the greatest strength of our
nation. . . I hope," he adds, at the time of his withdrawal
from public life, " I shall never cease to remember the
good work the society is doing, and to pray for a blessing
upon it."
This Union, which was made diocesan only in 1887, has

472 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
spread with most amazing rapidity all over the kingdom,
until now it numbers over seventy thousand members, of
all ranks and classes, banded together to uphold the
sanctity of marriage, to arouse in parents more sense of
their duty to their children, and a greater personal zeal
for purity and holiness of life. The President appeals to
all mothers to help forward so good a work, and so " to
make England's future better than her past." The old
prelate's blessing has surely done much to strengthen and
expand this wholesome attempt to encourage the Christian
bringing up of our children even from the knee.
It was in this year 1885 that Bishop Harold Browne
presided over the Church Congress, at Portsmouth, and
gave us an account of the first beginning of Convocation,
and of these yearly meetings.
" I am the only living prelate," he says, " I am one of
but three or four of the clergy now living, who sat and
took part in the Convocation of 1852, after its voice had
been silent for a century and a quarter. I can well say,
that wc who then met together in small numbers at the
Jerusalem Chamber rejoiced with trembling. Parliament
was hostile to us ; pubhc opinion unfavourable ; Church
and even clerical opinion divided. By 1 860, however. Con
vocation had nearly established its constitutional right to
meet and debate. Still, there was an anxious questioning
whether there ought not to be a lay element Difficulties
were in the way, perhaps happily. Then this expedient
of Church Congresses was devised. We met first in King's
College Hall, at Cambridge. The numbers were small ;
the Bishop of the diocese [Turton] too old and feeble to
preside ; no member of the home-episcopate was with us.
My old and revered tutor at Eton, Bishop Chapman, alone
represented the living Bishops. Still, the meeting was a
success, and was repeated the next year at Oxford. There
Bishop Wilberforce gave it his presence and encourage
ment, and it has since gone on growing and advancing."
He also addressed the working men at this Congress,

IV.] ADMINISTRATION AT WINCHESTER. 473

and showed a surprising knowledge of scientific subjects.
His characteristic defence of final causes, and of a personal
Providence, made much impression on his audience.
On other burning questions he kept an even mind.
Though not a Home Ruler, he regarded Irish matters
with sympathy and coolness of judgment, and was very
unlike those wild opponents of everything Irish whose
voices are heard among us. He saw the difficulties of his
fellow-countrymen, and was all for remedial measures.
"Imperial affairs," he writes in 1886, "are sad indeed.
I think Lord Salisbury has acted unwisely in declaring
coercion for Ireland with no measure of healing. England
has for five hundred and fifty years sinned so heavily
against Ireland that fifty years of partial repentance cannot
undo the evil. We have sown the wind and reap the
whirlwind." And again : " I am not a bigoted politician.
if Gladstone had proposed what I think a possible Bill,
I should probably be a Home Ruler now. Even now I
should probably not vote against a measure of his for
Ireland." On the exciting subject of Disestablishment he could
also speak very calmly. He studied the processes by
which an independent Church might organise itself so as
to face the difficulty. " There is no open vision," he cries,
" yet there are some very cheering symptoms ; " and he
points to the figures of contributions for Church purposes,
then lately issued, as showing that " the people would
provide for their churches and clergy, were we despoiled
of our goods."
In the summer of 1887 the aged prelate took part in the
Winchester festivities at the Queen's Jubilee. In a speech
he then made we see again his love of the middle course,
and the measure of his hopefulness for his country. Lord
Tennyson's pessimist poem, he said, had been answered
by the speech of an optimist Prime Minister ; and " I am

474 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

inclined to take a somewhat middle line between the two."
He thankfully reviews the moral and social gains of the
half-century — duelling stamped out ; less drunkenness,
especially in the upper classes; oaths, which in 1837 had
been plentiful and part of a gentleman's furniture of
speech, were now rarely heard in society ; less jobbery
in public life ; less crime and violence. Still, it could be
shewn that in some other matters we were not better
than our fathers. Above all, he thought the Church
evidently stronger and purer than she had been in 1837.
Near the end of 1887 the Bishop was an honoured guest
at the consecration of Truro Cathedral, and revisited the
scenes of his clerical life at Kenwyn. Many old friends
of those days welcomed him and Mrs. Harold Browne
warmly, and revived sweet memories of the happy hard
working days of forty years before. We feel, however,
that the thought of failing strength with growing work was
on him ; he let fall hints that he was willing to stand aside,
though the entreaties of his many friends had stayed his
hand. Then, early in 1888, the subject of the severance
of West Surrey from Winchester came up again ; and he
told his friends that he was quite willing to withdraw, if
by so doing he could clear the way for good. As to an
actual subdivision of the diocese, he spoke strongly against
a diocese of Southwark ; he thought the Channel Island
bishopric, in spite of its great unpopularity among the
islanders, would be the best solution. This, however, was
felt to be impossible, and the subject dropped.
The Bishop, shortly after this, was called on to deal with
a matter which offered many points of interest to him.
In the spring of 1888 application had been made to him
in the matter of the marriage of Prince Oscar of Sweden,
In February the Swedish Ambassador, Count Piper, had
consulted the Archbishop of Canterbury, Prince Oscar,

IV,] ADMINISTRATION AT WINCHESTER. 475
deeply attached to Miss Ebba Munck, maid of honour to
the Crown Princess of Sweden, was willing to give up his
claim to the succession to the Swedish throne, for the sake
of marrying her ; and as the Queen of Sweden was win
tering that year at Bournemouth, they were all most
anxious that the wedding should take place there. It
must, however, be solemnised after the Swedish, not the
English rite, to secure the validity of the marriage in
Sweden, And here the difficulty arose. The first idea
was that it might take place in Holy Trinity Church,
Bournemouth. This, however, was found to be illegal,
" But if a church not consecrated, and not licensed for
marriages, could be found, there would be no legal impedi
ment. Only in this case the registrar must attend the
ceremony, and it would be, according to English law, a
proper civil marriage ; it would also, no doubt, if performed
with Swedish rites, be a proper religious marriage so far
as the Church of Sweden is concerned."
Nor would any special license be needed. Now St.
Stephen's, Bournemouth, was just in this position, neither
consecrated nor licensed for marriages ; and was, with
permission of the incumbent, available. The Archbishop
suggested that the assent of the Bishop of the diocese
ought to be obtained. The Bishop, on being asked, at
once replied, readily assenting.
" It will give me great pleasure," he writes, " to sanction
the use of St. Stephen's Church, Bournemouth, for the
marriage. . . I am very glad that the legal difficulties
can thus be overcome. I will communicate with the
incumbent of St Stephen's, who, I trust, will offer no
objection." Mr. Bennett, the vicar, made no difficulty about it ; and
the wedding took place there in due time.
The Bishop rejoiced in it, as significant of a brotherly

476 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
reunion between the S^^•edish and English Churches, and
as a step forward in one branch of the work in which
the Anglo-Continental Society was so patiently engaged.
And so it was generally regarded. One High Churchman
wrote to the Bishop thus : —
" Your Lordship has done much, very much, to help
forward that reunion of Christians for which our blessed
Lord so earnestly prayed; and I think that, supposing the
Swedish orders are not precisely the same with our own
and those of the rest of the Catholic Church, they, as a
National Church, are far more likely to seek to obtain
' regularity ' from friendly prelates like your Lordship — a
consummation devoutly to be wished — than from those
who fail to discriminate between ' validity ' and 'regularity.'"
The Lambeth Conference of 1888 saw a gathering of
one hundred and forty-five Anglican Bishops ; and Bishop
Harold Browne, as the senior prelate present, had great
influence over its deliberations. He was also named
Chairman of two important Committees, on his favourite
subjects — the one, on the relations of the Anglican Com
munion to Scandinavian and other reformed Episcopal
bodies, and to other non-Episcopal Churches ; the other, on
the relations between the English and the Eastern Churches.
These committees met at Farnham Castle soon after
wards. The first of these bodies heard a very interesting
argument on the validity of the Moravian Episcopate.
And in the Diocesan Conference at Winchester that
October, the Bishop referred to the proceedings at Farn
ham. He told his hearers that neither Committee had
touched the subject of reunion with Rome, nor had they
dealt with the Ritualistic movement ; and he once more
protested against the Papal claim that every Bishop must
be a Vicar, not of Christ, but of the See of Rome.
The gradual diminution of the Bishop's strength, and

IV.] ADMINISTRATION AT WINCHESTER. ^yy

the warnings of his physician against railway travelling,
induced him to apply again to Government for permission
to have a Suffragan. On the 30th of November, 1888,
Archdeacon George Sumner, most unselfish and energetic
of men, was consecrated as Bishop of Guildford. All were
pleased ; the new Bishop was much beloved, and all were
thankful that the aged prelate would now be helped in his
work, and might the longer be spared to rule over us.
And the happy choice seemed at once to revive his
strength. At a large meeting, in the following February,
on behalf of the Diocesan Society, he spoke with as much
life and power as he had ever shewn. No one would
have thought that he had had more than one serious
shock to his constitution, and that he would soon be
eighty years of age.
" Every one," says one of those present, " was glad to see
the Bishop in the chair again, looking well, and proving by
his admirable address that he had lost nothing of the fair
ness, the clear-sightedness, and sweet reasonableness by
which his episcopal rule had been marked."
And now there came a fresh call on his powers. Early
in 1889 the Archbishop of Canterbury summoned him, as
one of the comprovincial Bishops, to sit as assessor at the
memorable trial of the saintly Bishop of Lincoln. The
strange perversity of the Church Association had singled
Bishop King out for a test case on ritual usages. It was
as if they had been careful to select the most unfavour
able case they could find. He was no mere trifler, but
a devoted hard-working prelate, who loved Christ well
enough to pick up the outcast in the street, and who
cared little about ceremonies, so that Christ's work was
faithfully done. Happily, the general feeling of Churchmen
was outraged by this attempt to punish a man who had in
him so much of his Master's spirit.

478 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

The trial was a triumph for the Primate's sagacity and
power ; yet at the outset our Bishop was full of anxieties.
The Archbishop was claiming to sit in judgment on one of
his comprovincial Bishops, who, in Bishop Harold Browne's
eyes, was, within his own diocese, of equal authority with
the Primate ; he feared an attack on the episcopal authority.
Yet he felt that here was a purely ecclesiastical tribunal, to
which the accused could conscientiously submit ; this court
might solve many of the difficulties which clustered round
this and simHar cases of semi-legal, semi-ecclesiastical
dispute. He doubted whether the Primate could have
safely summoned any other tribunal ; he thinks that aH
Churchmen should loyally accept its decisions. So he took
his seat under a deep sense of responsibility, which shewed
itself in his bearing.
"Harold Browne's face," says an eye-witness, "was full
of solemn, earnest, eager sympathy ; he was reverent and
anxious, and apparently keenly sensitive to the occasion,
and overwhelmed with its magnitude and import."
He said himself that " the issue of this trial was of less
importance than the permanent relation of the Archbishop
to the Church," a point on which he was ever sensitive.
Before the trial was over his health compelled him to
withdraw, and the Archbishop summoned to fill his place
the able prelate destined ere long to succeed him also
at Winchester, Dr. Thorold, then Bishop of Rochester.
He has left, in a reply to Canon Lucas and others, who
had presented an address to him, the substance of his
views on the subject.
" I consented to act with the Archbishop," he writes,
" in the beginning of the whole affair. I was not indeed,
allowed a voice in the judgment which he has given as
to the constitution of the Court ; but I had an opportunity
of expressing to him my opinion as to some of his argu-

IV.] ADMINISTRATION AT WINCHESTER. 4yg

ments, before he delivered the judgment. . . Since that,
illness obliged me to decline to act as an assessor in future.
I am not sure that the Archbishop is quite happy at all
this action and cessation to act on my part. I think,
therefore, it is my duty to be very guarded in what I now
do or say. . . .
" I think all this is reason why I should not take any
steps or give any counsel until the address is presented
to me. I shall then feel at liberty to reply ; but I should
not wish it to be known that I was even consulted."
And then, after receiving the address, he replies as
follows. It will be seen that he wrote a private letter to
his friend Canon Lucas, and also enclosed with it a full
statement of his own views on the subject
" Farnham Castle, Feb. Zth, 1890.
" My dear Canon Lucas,— May I send you the enclosed
as an answer to yourself and others about the Court of
the Archbishop ? I am satisfied that there was no such
Court in primitive times — none strictly analogous to it in
mediaeval times ; but it was the policy of the Tudor princes
and others after them to play off the Archbishop against
the Pope on the one hand, and against the Bishops and
clergy on the other ; and I am satisfied that the Court
now summoned by the Archbishop is a Court acknow
ledged by this Church and realm since the time of the
Revolution. . . ."
With this came his formal answer to the signatories of
the address : — " Farnham Castle, Feb. 8th, 1890.
" My dear Canon Lucas, — I have received through
you an address from a large number of the clergy of this
diocese expressing great anxiety in consequence of the
decision of the Archbishop of Canterbury to try the case
of the Bishop of Lincoln in a Court presided over by
himself with the aid of assessors only. I do not think
I can enter fully into this very important question ; but
I should like to say, first of all, that I doubt if the Arch
bishop could, in the present state of the law, have

480 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

summoned any other tribunal. The only clear precedents
of the last three hundred and fifty years have been those
of Lucy V. the Bishop of St. David's and the cases subse
quent to that, which were dealt with on the same principles.
The proceedings of Archbishop Tenison in the case of
Bishop Watson of St. David's were sanctioned and con
firmed by all the Courts, civil and ecclesiastical, and they
have formed a precedent from that time to this.
" Our own Archbishop at first declined to proceed,
doubting whether he had any jurisdiction ; but the Privy
Council decided that he had jurisdiction, and that he
must proceed.
" Had he devised any other Court it is very doubtful
whether he would have satisfied the requirements of the
law. Since the thirteenth century we have had no Pro
vincial Synod but Convocation, which, not consisting only
of Bishops, would not be a Court for trying Bishops
according to either primitive or media;val practice or
precedent. A Court consisting only of Bishops ^vould have
corresponded with primitive practice ; but I fear that it
would have wanted authority from Anglican usage, and
would probably not have been accepted as constitutional.
The Court which has been summoned has at all events
these advantages. It is a purely spiritual Court, yet it
cannot but be recognised by the civil power. It is com
posed of elements to which no reasonable man can take
exception ; and the members are able, thoughtful, learned,
and evenly balanced in religious opinions.
" There can be no doubt that the Archbishop is actuated
by an earnest desire to act fairly towards all parties, and,
if possible, to still the angry passions which are threaten
ing not only to turn the Church militant into a Church
litigant, but to bury all Church life and work in a confused
chaos of malice and ungodliness.
" It is therefore surely our duty to pray earnestly and
constantly for guidance and blessing on the Court, now that
no other Court is possible, or could have been in the
present instance devised.
" Notwithstanding the very able arguments of the Arch
bishop, I may say, with the utmost respect, that I am
unable to foHow His Grace in the opinion that the Court of
a Metropolitan other than the Synod of the Province, or
a body of Bishops presided over by but independent of all
control from the Metropolitan, was legal or possible in the

IV.] ADMINISTRATION AT WINCHESTER. 48 1

early ages of the Church. I agree with you also in holding
that the primitive practice should always rule the pro
ceedings of the Church of England. Though I think this
tribunal now sitting should be accepted and loyally obeyed
by all Churchmen in this present distress, yet I concur in
the opinion expressed by the Ecclesiastical Courts Com
mission in 1883, that 'in the early Christian Church are
to be found both principles and precedent for a provision
that such charges and complaints should be tried by a
tribunal of comprovincial Bishops.'
" I hope that hereafter this opinion of the Commissioners,
which exactly coincides with that expressed by the suc
cessive Lambeth Conferences of 1867 and 1878, will one
day be embodied in a law, which will clear up all difficulties
in the way of the constitutional and satisfactory trial of
Bishops. " I am, my dear Canon Lucas,
" Ever most truly yours,
" E. H. Winton.
" Rev. Canon Lucas."
And with this we may leave the subject of this famous
trial, as it no farther affected our Bishop's life.
It was while judgment in it had not yet been given that
he had one more opportunity of shewing how deeply he
sympathised with all efforts to bring the Church and the
people into harmony together, at the consecration of the
new St Mary's at Portsea. Thanks to the wise energy
and power of Canon Jacob, and the munificence of Mr.
W. H. Smith, M.P., that fine building was ready for con
secration in October 1889. It is a noble structure, which can
easily hold two thousand worshippers, and is equally well
adapted for prayer, or praise, or teaching.
In the following year took place a scene which can never
be forgotten by any of those who were present. The
aged Bishop, still making brave front against growing
infirmities, completed the fiftieth year of his married life,
and celebrated his golden wedding on Waterloo Day, 1890.
The whole diocese, knowing well that we should not have
31

482 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
him long, eagerly seized on this opportunity of bearing
witness to the deep affection and respect felt for him.
With the proceeds of a general subscription a goblet duly
inscribed, an illuminated address, and a purse with the
balance, £']'2.y, were presented to the Bishop on July 15th,
1890. The day should have been June i8th, but an attack
of illness had put off" the reception. When we met him he
was so far restored that he met the large crowd of friends,
and made them a long speech of singular vigour and
clearness. He spoke pleasantly on the old topic of a
celibate or a married clergy ; glanced at the connection of
St. Swithun (it was his day) with Farnham and Winchester,
claiming him as builder of the original Castle ; he also paid
a passing tribute to William of Wykeham. On the same
day he received an affectionate address from his old friends
of the Anglo-Continental Society. Her Majesty was
pleased to send him a message, received with deep emotion
by the aged and loyal prelate —
" Pray accept as well as Mrs. Harold Browne, my best
wishes for this eventful day, and for your health and
happiness. V.R."
Among other incidents of the day was the tea-party given
to the old people of Farnham, at which he said a few words
with a pleasing and gentie note of sadness in them, on the
fifty years of his happy wedded life : —
" You may have thought" he said, " that my dear wife
and I have had no troubles, while you have been struggling
hard for existence. It is not so : during the first seventeen
or eighteen years of our married life we had sorrow after
sorrow. Child after child whom we loved was taken from
us. After that, we have had the great blessing of seeing
our children grow up in health and strength ; ' we have
seen our children's children and peace upon Israel.' "
The sum presented to the Bishop was dedicated, as

IV.] ADMINISTRATION AT WINCHESTER. 483

people generally thought it might be, to the Deaconess'
Home at Portsmouth, for the erection of a Refectory,
with rooms for a chaplain and others, as well as dor
mitories. The block was to be called " the Harold Browne
Building," to perpetuate the honoured name. For the
good Deaconesses occupied much of his thoughts to the
end. In the Church Congress of 1890 he moved two
resolutions on Sisterhoods and Deaconesses ; and in his
farewell address, a little later, at the Diocesan Conference,
he once more spoke very warmly in their favour, express
ing great regret that deaconesses had been in both west
and east gradually superseded by sisterhoods. One of
his last prayers to his friends was that they would not
let this primitive institution fall into neglect
After the strain of the golden wedding receptions and
festivities the Bishop withdrew for a while, and spent a
tranquil month at Black more Vicarage, near Petersfield,
where he had the privilege of frequent visits from his old
and valued friend. Lord Selborne, with whom he held
long talks on many subjects of common interest both in
Church and State, and rested tranquilly before the final
leave-taking.

CHAPTER V.
resignation and death.
WHILE the Bishop of Winchester, at his golden
wedding, was speaking at considerable length, I
noticed, that, almost in front of him, a gentleman was
watching him with much interest and some anxiety.
Struck by his look, I inquired who it was, and learnt
that it was the physician in charge of the Bishop's health.
I therefore took the opportunity, a Httle later, of introduc
ing myself to him, and said that no doubt he had felt
somewhat relieved when the whole ceremony and speech
were over. " Yes," he replied, " I well might be, for his
Lordship might have fallen down dead at any moment."
The whole machinery of his tall frame was completely
worn out, and the hearts sound action could no longer
be depended on.
He had long been lamenting the gradual loss of his
more active powers. " I don't feel," he writes from Buxton
in 1875, "as if I have much more work in me." And in
1880, " Sloman somewhat encouraged serious reflexions,
as he looked very grave, and spoke of an escape from
serious consequences. Of course, I should never be sur
prised at things going wrong with me, when I want but
four months of seventy ; and if I had all the faith I desire,
I should feel no great wish to live on too long, if it were
not for those around me, whom I fear I love too well."
484

CH.V.J RESIGNATION AND DEATH. 485

A little later he complained of gouty troubles ; and in
January 1883 he suffered from a sharp attack of fever,
which much weakened him, and made him say, " These
things tell us plainly enough that the veil is thin between
time and eternity.''
And yet when Sir Andrew Clark examined him care
fully in the summer of 1884 he ended by declaring that
he knew but one man of his years with so sound a con
stitution. " I cannot see," he said, " the chink through
which his soul will escape." The other man was Mr.
Gladstone. In 1885, while spending November at the " Eagle Tower,"
Southsea, the Bishop was troubled with much bleeding
at the nose, and was ordered to keep perfectly quiet,
and to do nothing for three months. " I must either," he
says, " think of resignation or of handing over a considerable
share of my work to a stronger man." Then it was that
he was much distressed by " Winton's " strong remarks on
the neglected state of the diocese ; and his son, Mr.
Barrington G. Browne, wrote in reply : —
"In the thirty- two years during which he has been a
Bishop he has given himself very little holiday, and only
when much needed for his health, as all who know him
best can testify. Several times he has taken no holiday
for a whole year."
The correspondence resulted in a warm and spontaneous
movement of indignation, which took the form of an
address from about six hundred of his clergy. Still it
was clear that his bodily powers were slowly fafling. One
illness after another shook him. In June 1886 he could
not address his candidates for Orders ; in Scotland, three
months later, he was laid up at Edinburgh. We see some
thing of the struggle in a letter from Dr. Burton, whom
he ordained in iS

486 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
" I shall never forget that day, the quiet church at
Farnham, and the good Bishop, so ill that he could hardly
kneel throughout the length of the service: from the
constant moving of his feet and legs you could see that
it was pain to him ; and yet I shall never forget the
interview with him in his study when all was over; his
calling for the Greek Testament he had given me, and
the legend, Tavra fieXera- iv tovtoi'; tado.
And in a letter to Dr. Burton he touches on one of
his health difficulties. If he went to the Highlands, which
suited him best, Mrs. Harold Browne ran a serious risk,
being liable to throat-troubles in damp air ; whereas if
he followed her to the climates which suited her, he was
very liable to be the worse for it.
" I came here," he says, " for Mrs. Harold Browne's
health. The sea is about death to me : I bear it better
at Bournemouth than elsewhere."
The zealous help ungrudgingly given by the Bishop of
Guildford carried him on for a time ; yet we all saw that
the end could not be very far off; and at his golden
wedding day, no one would have been surprised had he
announced his resignation of the See. A month after that
day he took the requisite steps, and in the diocesan Con
ference in the October following made public reference to
it. He then reviewed the work done during his episcopate ;
a list of practical matters. He names the Girls' Friendly
Society, the Mothers' Union, the Great Town's Mission
at Portsea, the Young Men's Friendly Society, the Guild
of St. George, the efforts on behalf of St. Thomas'
Home, the establishment of Connaught House for neglected
girls, the " Watchers and Workers," the Aldershot Ladies'
Society. The emotion of the Conference and the speeches
which followed the announcement shewed the Bishop how
warm was the feeling throughout the diocese. It brought

v.] RESIGNATION AND DEATH. 487

out the touching and simple humility of his character.
Writing soon after to the Dean he says : —
" Especially I want to tell you how deeply I was touched
by your words concerning myself at the Conference. I
could bear the others, for I am not conscious of any
intentional neglect of duty to my diocese, or of kindness
to my friends. God has helped me so far. But you
attributed to me faithfulness not to man only, but to my
great Master, and I could feel only ashamed and con
founded, when my conscience told me how I had neglected
His calling, been deaf (how often !) to His teachings, and
especially had been ungrateful for His love. You did not
mean to abash me, and I am very grateful for your
friendship." Very soon after this, on October nth, 1890, the news
papers announced that Dr. Thorold, Bishop of Rochester,
was to be his successor. The knowledge that an active
prelate, of well-tried experience in every branch of Church
work, skilled in the organisation of a diocese, moderate
and tolerant, and a man of real depth of spiritual life,
would take his place, must have been a real comfort to
the aged Bishop as he laid down the burden he had borne
so long. And yet his heart was full of longings and
regrets. Nothing but a high sense of duty would have
made him resign the crozier, and pass away to a quiet life.

"I am expecting," he writes on November 24th, i^
" to be transplanted from this place, in which I had taken
deep root, in little less than a fortnight I can work no
more for my flock. I trust I may still be able to pray.
I do not believe in ' well-earned retirement.' I would
work on, if I could."
The last and most fitting public act of the Bishop was
the Ordination in Winchester Cathedral, on St Thomas'
Day, 1890. Next day, at Canon Warburton's house in the
Close, he received two farewell addresses from his clergy.

488 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

and in spite of manifest feebleness, responded briefly, and
so humbly and touchingly that tears were not far from
the eyes of all who heard him.
Other tokens of regret and affection were not wanting ;
one of these was especially grateful to him, as indeed it well
might be, for it indicated the way in which he was regarded
by the very highest in the realm. Her Majesty the Queen
was graciously pleased to mark her kind feeling towards
the aged Prelate of her Order of the Garter, by sending
to him a beautiful reproduction of the jewel he, as
Prelate, had worn on all important occasions. On March
27th, 1 89 1, he acknowledged this gracious token of Her
Majesty's favour in these terms : —
" Bishop Harold Browne presents his dutiful respects
to your Majesty, and desires to express his most grateful
acknowledgment of your Majesty's most kind and thought
ful remembrance of him in his retirement in sending him
the beautiful jewel of the Garter, in imitation of that
formerly worn by him as Prelate of the Order, and in
permitting and commanding him to wear it.
" He can only assure your Majesty that he values it most
highly, and that he will ever prize it so long as he lives,
in memory of the illustrious Sovereign whom he has been
permitted to serve and love, and who never forgets to do
acts of kindness and speak words of sympathy to all who
need them."
To this Her Majesty was pleased to send a reply in her
own handwriting, the grace and kindness of which is very
touching : — " Balmoral Castle.
"The Queen thanks Bishop Harold Browne very much
for his extremely kind letter, and rejoices to hear that he
is pleased with the little souvenir she has sent him of the
office he held as Prelate of the Order of the Garter. The
Queen much regrets that his health no longer permitted

V.J RESIGNATION AND DEATH. 489
his remaining at Winchester, but she hopes that the rest
and quiet he so much needed have been beneficial to him.
" The Bishop will have grieved at the untoward illness
of the Bishop of Rochester, which obliges him to abstain
from all work for so long a time."
Many other leave-takings sweetened and made more
touching the farewell to the diocese. Perhaps none was
more pleasing to the Bishop than the gift of a beautiful
set of silver furnishings for a writing-table from the in
habitants of Farnham, among whom he had lived so long
and happily.
At last, the bitter-sweet of parting over, the venerable
prelate took possession of his new home. Shales, near
Bitterne, a pleasant country-house a few miles out of
Southampton. Here in comfort and quiet, among the
pleasant woods which clothe the gravel-hills, and on
a delightful rising ground, whence, on clear days, he
had a distant view of Winchester, the last year of the
Bishop's long and active life was spent Here from time
to time he saw one or another of his old friends, and
occupied himself with books and letters, and enjoyed the
constant presence of his beloved wife and daughter, and
also of his aged sister, who accompanied him thither
from Farnham.
It was not till June 17th, 1891, a month after the Bishop
reached Shales, that the Bishopric of Winchester was
formally declared vacant, and the arrangements for the
succession of Bishop Thorold to the See could be begun.
A little later again, on February 3rd, Convocation met
as usual at Westminster, and all felt the silent eloquence
of the vacant chair on the left hand of the Archbishop
of Canterbury, which had been so long and so well
filled by the late Bishop of Winchester. The Upper

490

EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

House paused a moment to bid farewell to the venerable
prelate. The Bishop of London moved a resolution in a
fine speech, filled with a deep sense of the beauty and
lovableness of his character. The resolution ran thus :—
" That this House desires to record its sense of the great
loss sustained not only by the House but by the whole
Church in the resignation of the Bishop of Winchester,
who.se great learning, devout spirit, wise counsels, invariable
courtesy and gentleness, have endeared him to all who
knew him, and caused his episcopate to make a permanent
impression upon the Church at large."
And very happy are the words with which Bishop
Temple closed his speech : —
" He always gave the impression of a man who was full
to overflowing of gentleness and love, ready to accept all,
and ready to bestow on all the tenderness of his own
nature. And to that should be added the impression that
he constantly made on all who held converse with him,
that his was a spirit more than ordinarily devout, that he
was one who lived in prayer, one to whom the thought
of his Saviour and his God was ever present, one who to
me seemed more nearly to approach the character of a
great saint than almost any other man."
The resolution was seconded in an admirable speech by
Bishop Thorold, his successor in the See of Winchester,
and he too dwelt on his indomitable love of work, his
affectionate, sympathetic character, deep learning, innate
modesty and gentleness of bearing ; he emphasised also
his singular dignity and high breeding. The Bishop of
Bath and Wells, his old fellow-worker, followed next, and
finally came the Bishop of Oxford, who seemed to say the
truest thing of all.
" He was a man in whose presence it was impossible to
say an ill-natured thing of any one. From him there was
a sort of effluence of kindness and goodness, taken in con
junction with his great learning, most accurate, careful, and

v.] . RESIGNATION AND DEATH. 49 1
loving judgment, which made one feel, every time he had
any talk or intercourse even by letter with him, how great
and good a man he was."
With these words our Bishop's public career came to an
end, and the greater world saw him no more. For a year,
almost to a day, he lived in "tranquil calm decay," like
Keble's November leaves, at Shales, tended by the loving
and unwearied care of those around him. The Bishop
was able for awhile to walk hither and thither about his
grounds, interesting himself in their beauty, and standing
often to gaze northward to the point where Winchester lay
between her sheltering hills. Over all brooded a sense of
peace and thankfulness. Those who loved him were
grateful for this time of still relief and ministered to his
wants with watchful affection. From time to time one or
another of his sons would come and visit him for a while,
cheering him greatly, even by the sight of them ; Mr.
Thirlwall Gore Browne, Rector of Farnham, was within easy
reach, and could frequently go over on his bicycle to spend
an hour at Shales, and renew the freshness of his love and
gratitude to a father so wise, so consistent, so affectionate,
A few letters to be written every day, some favourite book
to read again, to listen to the faint echoes of a distant
world — here were his occupations and amusements ; and,
beneath all, as the fit foundation of his life, lay the daily,
hourly communing with his Heavenly Master, the daily
offering of prayer and thanksgiving to the Saviour whom
he had loved and served throughout his lengthened life.
So peaceful, so dignified an old age comes to the lot of
few ; so well-deserved a time of peace is rarely won ; an
end free from suffering, save from the weariness of failing
powers, was the fitting and merciful close to that long and
honoured life.
For all this — the loss of life-worn dignities, the absence of

492 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

interesting and sometimes ail-engrossing work, the conscious
ness that his voice could no longer be raised on high for
the gospel and the Church, — these things were still a trial
to the aged Bishop, and threw a sadness over these last
months. One day, the first time that I had been able to
visit him after his retirement, he talked to me with all his
old interest and graceful urbanity, as he shewed me his
new home. Presently he carried me into his library ; there
I made some commonplace remark about his old friends
the books, which never grew weary of him or left him.
To this, with a sad resigned smile, he replied that he spent
many hours in that room among them, laboriose nihil agendo,
as he added with a sigh. For the spirit of active work was
still strong in him, and he never was reconciled to the stern
necessity which had bidden him withdraw from it. On
another occasion, after I had sent him a copy of a book on
the Cathedral Screen, he wrote : —
" Once my Cathedral Church, — alas ! no longer mine. I
no longer belong to it, except that I must stiU be on the
bede-roU of its Bishops, from Birinus through Swithun,
Wykeham, Andrewes, and Morley, the patron of Ken.
Though I am buried, I am alive enough to be sensible of
the privilege of having my unworthy name written for all
time in that illustrious roll."
Just a month before his death in December, 1891, he had
written a few words to Bishop Maclagan, on his translation
to the Archbishopric of York ; and in reply to the Arch
bishop's acknowledgment, he sent him the following, which
was one of the very last letters that he wrote : —
" Shales, near Bitterne, Hants,
" November 20th, 1891.
"My dear Lord Archbishop, — You did write and
most kindly in answer to my letter hailing your appoint
ment to the Archbishopric. Your letter just received is only

v.] RESIGNATION AND DEATH. 493

the more welcome to me, though a work of supererogation
in you, I can well understand the heavy burden of your
twofold, or rather manifold, work. I pray that you may be
more and more .supplied with the strength which only can
sustain human weakness.
" The reports about my health to which you kindly refer
have been very busy of late. Three months ago I had a
third paralytic attack, which confined me to bed for a
fortnight or so. By God's mercy I have gradually recovered
a good deal of strength, and can move in a bath chair
about my garden, and sometimes walk two or three hundred
yards. Of course, I feel that at any time I may be called
to meet my God, who is happily my Saviour too. But at
my age I might expect this without warnings, though my
sister still lives at ninety-four, clear in mind as beautiful
in soul and body, though apparently just passing through
the dark valley to, I trust, a bright and blessed awakening
beyond. All this about myself you will forgive, as you
asked for it You asked my prayers too, which you always
have. I should be very thankful for a corner in yours.
Few men need them more than those who have had so
long a life, so responsible an office, and so much of sin and
infirmity to deplore.
" My wife joins me in very kind regards.
" Always, very affectionately yours,
" Harold Bro-wne, Bishop."
It was about this time that, worn out by the three
successive seizures, he wrote the following letter to a
friend : " I have been very feeble lately, but now manage
to get round my garden in a bath chair, hoping that I may
yet be so far restored as to reach church again." This wish,
born of his longing once more to taste the joy of an English
Church service, was never granted. Instead of it came
that far better and higher call to the Church of God in
Paradise. Without suffering, in simple confidence on his
Redeemer's love, he yielded up his soul in the early
morning of December i8th, 1891. His sister, his life's
comrade and friend, survived him but nine days, and
passed peacefully away in her ninety-fifth year. They lie

494 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

side by side in the cemetery of Westend parish, awaiting
the Great Day. Even more than the pair whom David
sang, this brother and sister " were lovely and pleasant in
their lives, and in their deaths they were not divided."
As the glooms of night rise on us, we turn our faces
westward, to watch the last message of the day. There,
in the subtle changes of form and colour, in the silence
of sundown, we seem to see well-known figures passing
through the golden light into another clime, in which God's
waiting saints are at rest. We have had a glimpse of the
light from heaven's gate ; and, sorrowful yet rejoicing, can
discern that our faces have caught something of the glow,
dimly reflecting the brightness of a good man's life.
Thus passed away the eighty-third in the direct succes
sion of the Bishops of Wessex and Winchester, We may
never know how far the Church owes her safe passage
through more than one serious crisis to Bishop Harold
Browne's wise and temperate counsels and example.
True, he was no party-leader, and, as the Times newspaper
wrote, " lent his name to no heroic measures, and recognised
no short cut to a spiritual Millennium," and consequently
his episcopate lacked " prominent or emphatic features " ;
still, he was a happy link between parties, not least though
he knew it not, between the vigorous and advancing section
of High Churchmen and the more thoughtful and earnest
of the Broad. His keen feeling about social wrongs made
him an unconscious ally of the modern school of Church
thought ; the dislike of badges, the refusal to crush out
opinions he did not like, made him the forerunner of that
coalition; of Church parties which seems to mark our day.
He felt, as we feel, that in face of a thousand social and
religious problems. Christians have no call to quarrel. If
the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the true evangelic message, does
ever touch the labouring world of our day, it will partly

v.] RESIGNATION AND DEATH. 495

be due to Harold Browne's sympathies : his love for justice
and right was stronger than either his creed or his scheme
of Church order. One of the newspapers said, at the time
of his death, that the Church of England was losing one
of those men who are almost peculiar to her communion.
Though his political leanings were mainly conservative,
he never shewed any partisanship, save when he thought
" the Church in danger." He never said, as many did,
that in a clergyman conservative politics alone could be
respectable. In a word, as one of the journals phrased it,
" he was highly valued by all parties in the Church who
deprecated the falsehood of extremes," and who, we may
add, also shrank from the driving-power of enthusiasm and
strong convictions.
" He was for many the exemplary instance of the
' safe ' ecclesiastic. His mind was essentially contemplative,
satisfied with calm and dispassionate reasoning, and willing
to hear both sides of a question."
Perhaps he hardly recognised the deep truth in wise
Verulam's saying that " there is no excellent beauty that
hath not some strangeness in the proportion " ; for he
loved to have all things to fit in with his clear-cut theory
of the English Church, and shrank from any divergence
from it, to the right hand or the left.
Yet there was nothing of indifference about him.
" There Js a danger," he writes, " that the English Church
should die of respectability. I confess to having a lingering
love for respectability. I should choose for myself a
gentleman-clergy, sober and solemn yet warm and hearty
services, and sermons full of thought and wisdom, though
earnest and home-thrusting and spirit-stirring. But we
want mission-work of all kinds in our towns and alleys, on
our heaths and hills. Mission chapels, open-air services
suited to untrained tastes, sermons that tell on the feelings
without offending the intellect ; above all, the enlisting

496 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

of a much larger army of workers from every class, rich
and poor, high, middle, and low, to work as subdeacons,
lay readers, district visitors, deaconesses, mission-women.
There is nothing in the National Church unfavourable to
all this, though there may be in the prejudices of her
members." What could be fairer ? The pressing problems of the
faith of the masses of our people, and the best ways of
influencing them, were rarely out of his thoughts. He
describes his relations with the three chief Church parties
in his opening address at the Diocesan Conference of 1889,
when he said : —
" I have lived a long life, and have seen and known
leaders of all these parties. In my youth it was my
privilege to know Simeon, a leader of one section at that
time ; I knew Keble, who led another section ; and I knew
F. D. Maurice ; and I can say that I agreed in the main
points with every one of these great and good men, and
honoured and loved them. ... I could heartily subscribe
to the chief tenet of Simeon's school, that Christ is the
only way of salvation, and that no creature, earthly or
heavenly, can intervene between the soul of the sinner
and his Saviour. I can subscribe to Keble's faith in the
assured presence of Christ in His Sacraments, the commu
nion of the individual with his Saviour, the indwelling of
the Holy Spirit, and the Communion of Saints. I can join
heartily in the teaching of Maurice that the Eternal Father
regards with all-embracing love those He has created and
redeemed. Nay, I doubt not, in the Kingdom of our
Father we shall see each of these men, unless indeed (as
Whitfield said of Wesley) they are too near the eternal
brightness for us to be able to discern them."
And a month later, referring to some controversy which
had sprung up on these noble words, he says : —
" The assertion that I am a High Sacerdotalist is abso
lutely untrue. I am quite as much an Evangehcal as I
am a High Churchman, . , I can find no party name by
which to call myself"

V,] RESIGNATION AND DEATH. 497

In these manly utterances he never speaks of himself as
touched with Broad Church qualities, though they were in
him just as much as the others. He kept them back
through fear of those extremer utterances which had
alarmed him in earlier life.
His eminent fairness of mind led his friends to put
implicit confidence in him. It is very striking to read
among his letters one from Lord Beaconsfield, then Mr.
Disraeli, asking him to suggest a vicar for Hughenden
parish. " 'Tis a vicarage approaching ;£^400 a year, with the
prettiest house in the world in the park. The duties are
ample without being excessive. He must be a gentleman,
accustomed to country life, and married. If his Church
views resemble your Lordship's, they will represent mine :
pace the Record."
At another time he asked the Bishop to send him a list
of a dozen names of Cambridge men fit for bishoprics,
deaneries, canonries ; again, he consulted him as to Welsh
Bishops, saying : —
" I am examining anxiously the question whether I
can find a Welshman proper, who, being not greatly
deficient in other requisites of a Bishop, would have that
most essential one, an access to the hearts of the people
through the free and effective use for pastoral purposes of
their own tongue."
And it is interesting to note that a little later, in 1876,
Mr. Gladstone also wrote to him, craving his advice and
assistance in the matter of the appointment to another
Welsh bishopric ; so that both heads of parties trusted to
him alike, and looked to him for^ sound advice.
In literary matters, also, many appealed to him for help
or information. He was a frequent referee for the Societ)-
:for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, and often gave
32

498 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.
them sound advice ; though the task sometimes puzzled
him. In criticising some book submitted to him he
writes : — " It is difficult to get really able writers to contri
bute to the Society's publications, if their hands are too much
tied. The unutterable dulness of past times almost ruined the
Society." On one occasion Mr. Gladstone asked him to
read the proofs of an Article in reply to Reville, who had
accused the Prime Minister of believing in a primitive
revelation. " You will tell me," he writes, " whether in this
portion of my subject I commit myself egregiously to any
thing false or foolish." In which we can admire equally the
modesty of the great man and his absolute confidence in
the Bishop's honesty and fearlessness of judgment
Though the Bishop's funeral in the bare new cemetery
of Westend parish was kept very quiet, those who were
there on that bright winter's day felt that one of the best
of men had passed away. The ceremony shewed the same
beautiful union of true dignity with simplicity which had
marked the Bishop's character throughout "AvBpaatv
iTTi^avoK Traa-a yrj rac^o? : and though one might have
wished to treasure our much-loved Bishop's remains under
the shadow of the Cathedral Church over which he had
ruled so well, still it was not amiss that he should make his
grave among his people, and lie at rest beneath the open
vault of heaven.
And as we watched the sad group round the grave, there
came the thought that this was truly a happy man, whose
greatness and dignity might pass away, while his essential
goodness was enshrined for ever in the hearts of that family
circle devoted to him in life or death. Never was any man
endowed with more beautiful natural gifts and qualities ;
never did the grace of God and the love of the Saviour do
more to heighten and give free play to those natural
qualities. " The greatest of these is charity," the greatest

v.] RESIGNATION AND DEATH.

499

and most lasting ; and this was true of him throughout. As
an old friend said of him, " I cordially agree with you as to
the marvellous attraction of the Bishop's character, which
seems to have resulted from his intense and universal love
of all mankind, combined with the spotlessness of his moral
character.'' Great was his indifference to wealth ; he had
no happiness so great as that of ministering to the wants
of those who depended on him, or indeed of any who made
suit to him. He was the friend and champion of the weak
and down-trodden ; a warm lover of children, and one who
did his best for their protection ; they seemed to him to be
the special charge laid by Christ on His stronger servants.
He was also devoted to animals, and they to him. There is
a delightful letter from him to Mrs. Josephine Butler, written
on the occasion of the death of a favourite dog belonging
to the Canon her husband ; for he entered with all his
heart into the friendships between man and beast. He
used to say that the fidelity, the gleams of a moral sense,
the power of amendment and improvement, and the gift
of being able to look up to a master and take orders
obediently from him, all indicated possibilities of a future
life in the dog-world. And he told with great interest
and sympathy the story of one of his own dogs which, as
he used to say, became " a converted character." It was
a creature of bad disposition, with many evil tricks and
ways. This animal was nursed by an old servant of the
house through a bad illness with the utmost care and
affection ; and when the creature recovered, it was found,
to the surprise of all, to have " turned over a new leaf " ; it
had become perfectly sweet-tempered, had forgotten or laid
aside all tiresome tricks and ways, and was, as they said,
"altogether another dog." After the animal's death, the
servant who had been so kind to it seemed inconsolable,
and Mrs. Harold Browne, by way of cheering her, said to

500 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

her, " But, you know, the Bishop thinks there may be
another life for animals as well as for men, so that perhaps
you will see him again '' ; and the poor woman, with tears in
her eyes, replied, " I knew it, ma'am, I did ; but I didn't
think it was right to say so ; but now if the Bishop thinks
so too, I know it is all right with the poor beast." And
Mr. Carlyon tells a charming story about the Bishop's
tenderness of heart : —
" Coming out of church at Thorney Abbey after a
confirmation, I was immediately behind the Bishop, as his
Chaplain, in a sufpliced procession of clergy, when a
sudden halt brought us all to a standstill. It was only that
the Bishop saw an earthworm crossing the path, and in
fear of its being trampled under foot, stooped down, picked
it up, and laid it tenderly on the grass beside the path ; "
and not till this had been done could the astonished
procession move on again.
It need hardly be said after this, that the Bishop, with
his excellent power of conversation, drawn from a thousand
varied sources, his invariable courtesy, and gentleness, and
high breeding, was an eminently " clubbable ' man ; and
when he had the leisure for it, enjoyed to the full the
social pleasures of club-life. He was a member of " No
body's Club," a very select body, originaUy founded by
William Stevens in 1800. It was a gathering of friends,
who met to dine together thrice a year, in order to
support " the principles of Religion and Polity which
guided the Founder's conduct in times of spiritual apathy
and lukewarmness, and of public restlessness and anarchy."
This club was in fact a form of reaction against those
movements, which sprang out of the enlargement of
the world's eyesight by the French Revolution. The
Bishop's warnings as to the too rapid advances of his day,
his fears for the stability of institutions, his despondent

V. I RESIGNATION AND DEATH. SOI

views as to the religious and political outlook, were doubt
less in part due to the influences of this club. He was also
a member of the Athenaeum, which he visited from time
to time. A sarcastic onlooker speaking of him there
says : —
" Nothing ever gave me so vivid an impression of the
power and beauty of Christianity in moulding life and
conduct, as the sight of Bishop Harold Browne at the
Athenaeum, ' a light shining in a dark place.' "
Surely, rather hard on that distinguished literary body !
This taste for club life was in the Bishop compatible
with the simplest and sweetest home life.
" I always felt," writes one of the distinguished daughters
of the late Bishop of Carlisle, " that the Bishop's wonder
fully happy marriage had much to do with making him
the man he was. I began to know and love Mrs. Browne
when I was five years old, and have always had the same
feeling about her. The Bishop was naturally rather
delicate, and always worked up to the very extreme of his
strength, and did not naturally take a very rose-coloured
view of things ; but Mrs. Browne always made sunshine
wherever she was. I have often seen him come home so
weary and fagged, and look quite dejected ; and then her
lovely thoughtful sunny nature just brought him into
her sunshine. She always took a hopeful view of things,
and by entering into his work, not professionally, so
to speak (as is rather the plan now), but just from her
sweet wifely sympathy, constantly smoothed rough places
for him. No one who has stayed for weeks together with
them, as I have done, can forget the picture of domestic
peace and concord hallowed by love. And then her spirit
of fun was so exactly what he needed. When we were
children, in the Cambridge days, he would take part, as
well as his wife, in the games that went on in the evenings,
even to his latter days ; and I have always felt that, great
and beloved as he was, he would not have been anything
like the complete man that he was had it not been for her.
He acknowledged this. Every intonation of his voice shewed

502 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, DD. [Ch.

his loving appreciation and tender feeling for his wife ;
and I remember, in one of his parting speeches at leaving
Ely, he was so moved as he finished by letting his hand
just rest on his wife's — ' I can only say my greatest help
has always been at home : ' and every one knew he was
speaking just the truth,"
And this purity of affection, this crown of Christian
charity, made itself felt far and wide ; all his friends, even
his merest acquaintances, confessed the charm of it, and
knew that here was a true and transparent rendering of
the Divine influences of the Gospel, What could be
better than the following letter to Archdeacon Jacob,
who was a very zealous total abstainer, a man of strong
convictions, with a plentiful courage to support them ?
"Farnham Castle, Oct 2%th, 1883,
" My dear Archdeacon, — I must write one line to-day,
though I said something about it yesterday, I have thought
much of you on this your eightieth birthday. I have not
drunk your health ; I feared you might think health-drink
ing to be vetitum nefas ; but I have asked God's blessing
on you and yours, specially at that which I hope is an
acceptable time, in God's House and at the hour of Holy
Communion, My unworthy prayers may, I hope, be offered
for me by Him who is all-worthy, and in whom the Father
is well pleased. I must ever be grateful to you for all
your loving help to me during the past ten years of my
Winton episcopate. Having served for nearly half a cen
tury with my predecessors, you might have looked on me
as an upstart, and looked coldly upon me. But I have
ever found you the kindest and truest of friends. May it
please God to preserve you yet to us as long as it can be
a blessing to you to wait. And when waiting is over, may
we meet where we need neither wait nor watch,
" Your ever most affectionate,
"E, H. Winton."
Or, taken at hazard, and at very different points of his
life, what could serve better than the following to shew the

v.] RESIGNATION AND DEATH. 503

care he took not to involve his clergy in needless outlay ?
At the first Ely Diocesan Conference the overflow clergy
had to be biHeted out, some in private houses, some in
the inns. One rector, from the wilds of Cambridgeshire,
arriving cold and wet at his hotel, called for "a brandy-
and-water hot," and, when he asked for his bill the next
evening, was told there was no bill, and that the Bishop
defrayed all charges. Thereupon he was struck with terror
What if his Bishop's eye were to fall on that " brandy-and-
water hot " ? So he begged the landlord to let him pay
for the extra, and wipe it out of the account
And what could better describe the kindliness and
simplicity of his behaviour towards his clergy than the
following, which I have from the clergyman to whom it
occurred, the Rev. Telford Macdonough ? After having
been disestablished in Ireland, that gentleman undertook
sole charge work in England. In one case the rector,
a very old man, non-resident, demanded from him fifty
pounds for some worn-out furniture in the house. Mr.
Macdonough, however, had furniture enough of his own,
and demurred to the charge, declining to buy what he did
not want. To protect himself he appealed to his Bishop,
asking him to hear the case and advise him. Thereupon
Bishop Harold Browne made an appointment to see him
at a convenient point, in a clergyman's house, at which
he was staying for some episcopal work. It was a bitterly
cold day, and the Bishop, feeling the cold, as he always
did, " sat in the fire," and insisted that the curate should
also draw his chair close to the blaze ; and there they sat
with their feet on the fender while Mr. Macdonough told
his tale, and received in return some very good and kind
words, with sensible advice.
"When I rose to take leave, the Bishop expressed his
regret that the matter would have to end by my taking

504 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

Other work. I was just two years younger than his Lord
ship, and said in reply that I had private means, and
might very soon, being so well advanced in years, retire
altogether from work. To this the Bishop replied, ' Oh !
do not ! If you cry out for rest, what ought wc Bishops
to do?'
" It was striking to see that, when the interview was over,
instead of ringing the bell for the servant, the Bishop rose
\\ith me, accompanied me to the front door, and stood
bidding me farewell in the cold breeze, — doing it no doubt
both to spare trouble to the servants in another man's
house, and perhaps also as an act of kindly feeling and
generous sympathy towards an old curate in a moment of
anxiety." This lovely gift of sympathy pervaded all the Bishop's
life, and gave it strength and weakness at once. It made
his patronage a great trouble to him. He said once that
he did not value his patronage in the least degree, except
for the opportunity it afforded him of sometimes advancing
a good man. Nay, his patronage was perhaps the heaviest
burden he had to bear. He took great pains over it, and
consulted those immediately around him, shewing himself
very sensitive as to their opinion.
The same sensitiveness made him feel the reality of
another world : coincidences, omens, dreams, ghosts, ever
seemed to him substantive and true. When he had tidings
in 1879 of the death of his daughter-in-law, Mrs. Barrington
Browne, he writes : —
" It was very remarkable that about two hours after
her death we were reading in our chapel service in the
lesson for the day, ' The damsel is not dead, but sleepeth,'
and next morning we received the telegram, ' Helen fell
asleep last evening.' A similar coincidence happened to
me twenty-two years ago, when my eldest daughter died
at the age of sixteen. I had to read next morning in our
family prayers, 'Weep not, she is not dead, but sleepeth.'
The words are engraved on her coped coffin-tomb in
Trumpington Churchyard."

v.] RESIGNATION AND DEATH. 505

He was an admirable teller of a ghost story, just because
he had so much belief in it all, and had a fellow-feeling
with the ghost and felt that in his own case the bound
aries between this present life and the larger world around
might at any moment be overstepped. He delighted in
the respectable ghosts attached to Farnham Castle.
" When strolling over the Castle," Mr. H. D. Cole writes,
" the Bishop, pointing up to some winding stairs, said,
' This is the place where the ghost goes up and down ;
but we have never seen it, though that room (pointing to one
door) is my son's bedroom. But then he is a lawyer, and
is not a bit afraid of it; for ghosts don't like lawyers,
because they always want to argue the point out with
them, and a ghost's brains are rather weak ; nor indeed
do they like curates, because they are sure to ask for
subscriptions to the parish charities, and that puts a poor
ghost at a sad disadvantage."
This was the good Bishop in his more playful and
domestic life. And in his more public life also the same
qualities were ever discernible. It was not by a masterful
will that he governed. " He ruled," says Dr. Millard, " and
ruled effectually, by the power of men's reverence and
affection ; " and still more, as Dr. MHlard notes in the same
letter, by his eminent straightforwardness and simplicity of
aim and character.
" I always regarded him as without exception the most
fearless man I knew, simply by virtue of his singleness
of heart He could not see more than two courses, a right
and a wrong, and never supposed the latter possible."
This was perhaps sometimes modified by his deference
to the opinions of others, " whether," as Dr. Millard adds,
" country squires or hereditary ecclesiastics," in which his
Christian humility led him often to defer to the opinions
of men far beneath him in power of judgment.
But the time has come for us to bid fareweH to this noble

506 EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. [Ch.

example of what a Christian gentleman and prelate ought
to be. Nor do I think it can be done better than in the
words of that veteran among lawyers and statesmen, the
Earl of Selborne, who knew the Bishop intimately well,
and felt for him a deep regard and affection.
" His conversation," says Lord Selborne, " was not so
much about persons as about things which were of common
interest to us ; and, about these, was seldom or never
controversial. We both had definite opinions, and some
times strong feelings, about some of those religious and
political questions by which men's minds are in our time
divided ; and I think that there was not much difference
between his views of those questions and my own. But
neither of us was inclined to speak much or freely in con
demnation even of what we could not approve, or to
exaggerate evils which we did not see our way to cure or
effectually counteract. Hence, what was said between us
on such subjects was rather by occasional allusion to them,
with a feeling that wc understood each other, and that
there was an overruling as to all these things to which we
might safely commit them, than in the way of discussion.
" What was most impressive in the Bishop at that time
was his gentle wisdom, and the calm, charitable, and
equable moderation of his judgments, and, although there
might be some difference between the public manifestation
of these qualities and the way in which they came out in
his private and more intimate conversation, it was hardly
such as to admit of being expressed in any definite form.
In truth, his character was so modest and sincere, and so
thoroughly real, that he was always consistent with himself ;
and private intimacy did but confirm the impression which
must have been made upon all men by his manner of per
forming his public duties. The man in any high position
most like him, of those I have known well, was Archbishop
Howley." With these appreciative words from one who felt the
true beauty of the Bishop's character let us bring this
sketch to an end. To have known Bishop Harold Browne
has been to get an insight into the possible develop
ments and capacities for good of our poor human nature.

v.] RESIGNATION AND DEATH. 507

when it is breathed on by the Spirit of God. For when
that influence passes over the sympathetic chords of a
good man's life, it wakens strange harmonies and strains
of a more than earthly sweetness. To these, by some
mysterious affinity, our souls respond ; and with hushed
breath we listen and seem to hear the whisperings of
^Eolian memories from another world.

INDEX.

Aberdeen, American Bishops at,
467
Abergwili, visits to, 88
Abraham, first Bishop of WelUng-
ton. New Zealand, 9
Act of Uniformity, 435
Addington, visit to, 453
Additional Curates Society, 261
.Address from si.x hundred clergy
of Winchester diocese, 485
" Aids to Faith,'' essay on Inspira
tion in, 209, 211, 212, 213, 243
.'Mry, Professor, 27
Aitkenite movement, 122
Albury, i5, 17, 46
Aldershot Ladies' Association, 486
Allen, Joseph, Bishop of Ely, 44
American Episcopal Church, 467
Anderson, Rose, daughter of Mr., of
Waverley Abbey, 460
Andrewes, Lancelot, Bishop of Ely
and of Winchester, 258, 286, 369,
388
Anglican Bishops, gathering of, 445,
476
 Church in Ireland, 378, 380, 384
 Orders, 412
Anglo-Continental Society, 182, 228,
229, 231, 407, 409. 413. 415. 445.
459. 476, 482
Angouleme, Duchess of, 7

Animals, devotion to, 499
" -Antichrist," a sermon, 156, 446, 461
Apostolical succession, 58, 386
Archbishop, Court of, for the Lin
coln trial, 479, 480, 481
Archdall, Dr., Master of Emmanuel,
37, 165
Archdeaconry of Exeter, 233, 234
Archdeacons of the Diocese of Ely,
letters to the, on Dr. Temple's
appointment, 324
Archdeacons, the four in the Diocese
of Ely, 269
Arches, Court of, 370, 371
Armstrong, Bishop of Grahamstown,
160
Arnold, Dr., headmaster of Rugby,
8, 38, 39, 286, 448
"Articles, Thirty-Nine, Exposition
of," 81, 85, 462
Athenaeum Club, 501
Atkinson, Archdeacon, 449
Aylesbury, sermons at, 196, 363
 the Prebendal House, birth at,
3. 4, 6
Baden Powell, Mr., 209
Baldhu, Incumbent of, 122
Barnard, Hebrew teacher, 29
Barnes, Mr. Ralph, Chapter clerk
of Exeter, 186, 237

509

5IO

INDEX.

Barnes Rev. Reginald, 127, 224, 235,
463. 464
Barrington, Bishop of Durham, 4
 Honourable Mrs., Colonel
Browne's first wife, 4
Bath and Wells, Bishop of. Sec
Hervey, Lord Arthur
Baynes, Rev. Hamilton, consecrated
Bishop of Natal and Zululand,
318
Beaconsfield, Earl of, 497
Bedford, archdeaconry of, farewell
address from, 387
— conference at, 274
 parochial mission, 364
Bennett, Rev. A., Vicar of St.
Stephen's, Bournemouth, 475
— Mr., Vicar of St. Peter's,
Bournemouth, 372, 447
Benson, Bishop of Truro, after
wards Archbishop, 455, 457, 489
Bcrkely, Rev. Sackville H., present
Vicar of Heavitree, 192
Bishops and Cathedrals, letter on,
354
Blackmoor Vicarage, 483
Blunt, Professor, 169, 228
Bonn, conference of Old Catholics
at, 409
Bow Church, confirmation at, 397
Bramley, girls' school at, 471
Bramston, Dean of Winchester, 449
Brianites, 121, 157
Brigstock of Blaenpant, 88
Browne, Edward Harold, birth and
parentage, 3,4, 5 ; marriage
of, 62
 John, great-grandfather of the
Bishop, 3
 John William Barrington,
brother of the Bishop, 5, 36,
410
 Louisa, sister of the Bishop, 4
 Maria, sister of the Bishop, 5,
493
 of the Neale, 3

Browne Harold C. Gore, Chancellor
of the Diocese, 225, 226
 Rev. Barrington Gore, 460,
485
 Rev. Thirlwall Gore, 460, 491
 Rev. Robert Gore, 460
 Colonel Robert, father of the
Bishop, 4
 Sarah Dorothea, mother of the
Bishop, 36 ; letter from, 42 ;
death of, 42
 Sir Anthony, standard bearer
and executor of King Henry
VIII., 3
 Thomas Gore (afterwards
Governor of New Zealand),
brother of the Bishop, 5
 Thomas, grandfather of the
Bishop, 3
Buckingham, Duke of, 7
 Marquis of, 4
 Palace, royal scene, 144
Buckley, Rev. Joseph, 32
Bull, Dr. John, Canon of Exeter, 237
Burgess, Bishop of St. David's, 76
Burgon, Dean of Chichester, 332,
333. 334
Burnand, Mr., author of " Happy
Thoughts," 177
Burton, Dr., 485
Bury St. Edmunds, conference at,
274
Butler, Dr., Master of Trinity, 177
 George, Canon, 468
 Mrs. Josephine, 499
 Rev. W. J., Vicar of Wantage,
afterwards Dean of Lincoln,
317
Cabrera, Signer, 415
Calcutta, Bishop's College, 65
 offer of headship, 65
Cambridge, first impressions of,
167, 168
 Rural Deanery, 260
 speech at, 414

INDEX.

5"

Canons of Winchester, appointment
of, 356
Canterbury, Archbishop of. See
Sumner, Tait, Benson
 Archbishopric of, 451, 452
Cape Town, Bishop of. See Gray.
Carlisle, Bishop of. See Goodwin.
 Congress, 446
Carlyon, Dr., Mrs. Harold Browne's
father, 62
 Elizabeth, marriage of Harold
Browne to, 62
 General, of Tregrehan, 64
 Rev. PhiHp, 26, 32, 33, 500
Carus, Rev. W., 47
Cathedral Chapters, Bishop Henry
of Exeter on, 194
 commission, 266
 patronage, 353, 356
 reform, address on, 354
 the, central point of the dio
cese, 350
 position of the Dean in, 351
Cathedrals, old and new founda
tions, 352
Chairmen of committees, 476.
Channel Islands, 421, 443, 455, 474.
Chapman, Bishop of Colombo,
Harold Browne's tutor at Eton,
10, II, 472
Chapters, 444
Charge, primary, 280, 281
 opinions of the Press on, 280
Charges, 338, 364, 444, 445
Chester, Jacobson, Bishop of, 153
"Children's Charter," 460
Christian Evidence Society, Bourne
mouth, 450
Church Association, 477
 defence, 337, 385
 Defence Association, member
of, 180
 education, 374
 of England, organisation of,
182
 Missionary Society, 405

Claughton, T. L., Bishop of Roches
ter and of St. Albans, 39, 283,
366
Clark, Sir Andrew, 485
Cole, Mr., letters to, 505
Colenso, Bishop of Natal, 160, 200^
201, 204, 216, 217, 218, 290, 291,
295, 296, 297, 300, 302
Coleridge, S. T., 211
Cologne, conference of Old Catholics
at, 409
'' Commentary, Speaker's," writers
in, 221-24
Concurrent endowment. Bishop
votes for, 375
Conferences, Diocesan, 273, 274,
276, 277, 379, 443, 445, 476,
486, 496
 came into being, 259
Conference Address, 1871, evils of
intemperance, 339
Confession, letter to a lady on, 431
Confirmations, 443
Congresses, Church, 370, 375, 379,
443, 445, 446, 466, 472
Connecticut, Bishop Williams of,
250
Consecration of Bishops, West
minster Abbey, 254
Constantinople, consecration of
church at, 184
Convocation and Old Testament
revisers, 469
 farewell speeches in, 489,
490
 influence of, 146, 147
 heretical books, 292
 proctor in, 142, 193, 339
 revival of address to the Queen
from, 143, 144
Cook, Canon of Exeter, 307, 220,
321, 333
Cookson, Dr., Vice-Chancellor of
Cambridge, on losing the Bishop
from the University, 389
Cornwall, Assistant Bishop, 197

512

INDEX.

Court of Appeal, Archbishop's, 450
Cranleigh, boys' school at, 471
Cuddesdon, Theological College,
195
Davidson, R., Bishop of Rochester,
489
Davies, Esther, marriage of, 86
Deaconesses, 358-63
 Home, Portsmouth, 483
Deaf and Dumb Mission, 470
Dean and Chapter, 265
Degrees, B.A., 28; M.A., 36
Denison, Archdeacon, 143, 291,
292
" Diaconate and Lay Agency,
Thoughts on Extension of," 159
Diocesan conferences. See Confer
ence.
 life, scheme of, 264
 Society, meeting of," 477
Diocese, size of the Winchester, 458
Disestablishment " a deplorable
ft\\\" 287
- and disendowment, 376, 377,
378, 385
Di-strict visitors, 121
Dollinger, Dr. Von, 408, 409, 410,
413,414
Douglas, Canon, J. J., B.D., 83
Downall, Archdeacon, 197
Downing College, Cambridge, Fel
low and Tutor of, 37, 40
Dublin, Archbishop of. Lord Plun-
ket, 415
Dundas, Canon, 20
Durham, Bishop of, 344. See Light
foot and Westcott.
Durst, Canon, Warden of Dea
coness' Home, Portsmouth, 362
East Anghan Bishops, yearly
meeting of, 382, 283
Eastern Bishops, 183
 Churches, 184, 476
 Patriarchs, 365

Ecclesiastical Courts Commission,
450, 481
Edge, Rev. William John, 40
Education, Diocesan Board of, 375
Elementary Education Act of 1870,
374
Ellicott, C. J., Dean of Exeter,
afterwards Bishop of Gloucester
and Bristol, 221, 232
Elsdale, Rev. D., 442, 447
Ely, Bishop of, Harold Browne, 222
 Bishopric of, 247
 Dean of. See Goodwin
 Diocesan Conference, anecdote
of, 503
 farewell to, 387, 390, 502
 ten years' work at, 258, 264
Emery, Archdeacon of Ely, 180, 340,
389
Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 22,
23. 24, 35, 37, 39. 60, 464, 465,
466
" English Church, Position and
Parties of the," a Pastoral, 424,
425, 427
 Church Union, 437
Enthronement at Winchester, 397
Enys, Mrs., of Enys, visit to, 191
Episcopal Churches, 407
" Essays and Reviews," 196, 200,
205, 320, 321, 324, 336
Established Church, advantages of
an, 466
Eton, 3, 8, 10, 14, 182
Evans, Prebendary, 85
Exeter, Canonry of, 234, 333
 Deanery of, 199
 H. PhilpoUs, Bishop of. See
Philpotts
 Salutary Place, 69
 St. James', Perpetual Curacy,
69
 St. Sidwell's, 6g
Faithful, Master of Warfield
School, 7

INDEX.

513

Farnham, present from, 489 ^
Farnham Castle, alterations made,
402
 as a residence, 400
 conference of Old Catholics
and other Bishops, 413-15
 ghosts at, 505
 golden wedding celebrated at,
482
 meetings at, 476
Farquhar, Sir Walter, 404
Father Felix, conversion of, 430
Federation of Churches, 419
Fellowship, Magdalen College, Ox
ford, 34, 35
Fen Ditton, first sermon, 59
Eraser, Bishop of Manchester, 459
Fust, Sir Herbert Jenner, 135
Garter, Prelate of the Order of, 488
Ghost stories, 505
Gibraltar, C. Sandford, Bishop of,
452, 453, 454, 467
Girls' Friendly Society, 486
Gladstone, W. E., Right Hon., M.P.,
8. 139, 347. 348, 379, 383, 429.
455, 456, 457, 461, 485, 497, 498
Gloucester and Bristol, Bishop of.
See Ellicott
Golden wedding, celebration of,
482
Goodford, Dr., afterwards head
master of Eton, 9
Goodwin, Harvey, Dean of Ely,
afterwards Bishop of Carlisle,
250, 267, 268, 269, 292, 335, 467
Gordon, General Charles, 462, 463,
464, 465
 Miss, sister of General Gor
don, 465
Gorham, the case of. Vicar of Bram-
ford Speke, 135, 136, 137
Gostick, Mr., Wesleyan minister,
189
Goulburn, Dean of Norwich, 267,
352, 354, 355

Graham, Dr., Master of Christ's
College, 26
Grahamstown, bishopric of, 160
Grandchildren, 460
Grant, Archdeacon, 183
Graves, Hon. Henry, portrait by,
107
Gray, Bishop of Cape Town, 160,
2i6, 396, 297, 298, 299, 308, 310.
Greek Churches, 409
Green, Mr., formerly M.P. for Bury
St. Edmunds, letter to, 257
Grote, Professor John, 26, 30
Guernsey and Jersey, first visit to,
400
Guest, Dr., Master of Caius, Vice-
Chancellor, 170, 171
Guiana, Bishop of, 415
Guildford, Bishop of. See Utterton
and Sumner
Hale, Rev. Matthew, Bishop of
Perth, Western Australia, 32, 66
195
Hales, Rev. W., St. John's, Hey
wood, 153
Hampden, Bishop of Hereford, 206
Hampshire Diocesan .Society, 470
Hardie, Rev. John, 113, 114, 359
Hardwick, Rev. C, Fellow of St.
Catherine's, candidate for Norris
ian Professorship, 165
Harrison, Archdeacon, 145
Haslam, Rev. William, 137, 129
Hatherley, Lord Chancellor, 379,
382
Hayne, Rev. R. J., Vicar of Buckland,
359
Heavitree, 185, 187, 192, 233, 336,
237
Hebrew Professorship, 91
 Tyrwhitt Scholarship, 26, 29
Heidelberg, illness at, 1835, 30, 34,
35
Henry de Blois, Farnham Castle
built by, 403 33

514

INDEX.

Hervey, Lord Arthur, late Bishop
of Bath and Wells, 9, 283, 320,
324, 328, 490
Herzog, Dr. Edouard, first Bishop
of the Swiss Christian Catholic
Church, 413, 414, 415
Higgins, C. Longuett, presents pas
toral staff, 349
Hogg, Rev. Lewis, 183, 409
Holt, Rev. Robert, tutor at Postford,
15, 17.
Hooker, Richard, born at Heavitree,
49, 52, 192
Hort, Dr., 180
Howley, Archbishop of Canterbury,
506
Howson, Dean of Chester, 359
Hughenden, Vicar for, 497
Huntingdon, Conference at, 269
Hyacinthe, Pere, 409, 414, 415
Ilfracombe, reading party at, 1834,
30, 34
Indian bishoprics, 403
Inverary, reading party, 1833, 30
Irish Church disestablished, 287
Isle of Wight, College, 448
Jackson, John, Bishop of Lincoln
and of London, 300
 Rev. Frederick, Rector of
Stanmore, 132, 156
Jacob, Archdeacon, 468, 469, 502
 Canon Edgar, 404, 406, 446,
447, 481
Jacobson, Bishop of Chester, 221
James, Rev. Walter, curate of
Kenwyn, letter to, 122, 124
Jayne, Dr., Principal of St. David's
College, afterwards Bishop of
Chester, 108
Jeremie, Professor, 221, 254
Jerusalem Chamber, Ritual Com
mission sits in, 367, 469, 472
Jones, Enoch, letter from Lampeter,
87

Jowett, B., Master of Balliol, 209
Jubilee of H. M. the Queen at
Winchester, 473
Judicial Committee, judgment of,
on the Colenso controversy, 293,
294
Kaiserwerth, Deaconess' Home,
359
Kaye, Dr., Bishop of Lincoln, 42
Kean, Charles, 9, 10, 12, 13, 48
Keate, Dr., Headmaster of Eton,
14, 15
Keble, Rev. John, 496
Kenwyn, 96, 102, in, 112, 113, 187,
188, 189, 191, 235, 474
 and Kea, institution to, in, 112
King, Bishop of Lincoln, 477, 478,
480
King's College, Cambridge, 472
Kingsley, Rev. Charles, 396
Kitchin, Dean of Winchester, 192,
403, 487, 492
Lahore, Bishopric of, 404
Lambeth Conferences, 182, 301,416,
476, 481
Lampeter, St. David's College, 36,
76, 77, 79, 81, 83, 94, 97, 106, 108,
252
Laymen, House of, 147
Lay readers, 357
Lee, Dr. Samuel, Regius Professor
of Hebrew, 34
Leighton, Archbishop, 286
Lewellin, Dr., Dean of St. David's,
Principal of .St. David's College,
79. 94. 97, 108
Liddon, Canon, 415, 438
Lightfoot, Professor, afterwards
Bishop of Durham, 180, 222, 250,
281, 397
Lincoln, Bishop of. See Words
worth and King
Littledale, Dr., letter from, 314
Llandewi Velfrey, 90

INDEX.

515

Llandovery school, 92
London, Bishop of. See Tait, Jack-
sou, and Temple
Long versus Bishop of Cape Town,
297
Longley, Bishop of Ripon, after
wards Archbishop of Canterbury,
247
Louis XVIII. at Hartwell, 6, 7
Lowe, Dean of Exeter, 152, 185,
237
Lucas, Canon, 478, 479, 481
Lycurgus, Archbishop of Syra, 27
Macdonough, Rev. Telford, 503
Mackenzie, Bishop, 318
Maclagan, Archbishop of York, 178,
492
Macrorie, Rev. W. R., Vicar of Ac-
rington, 317
 consecrated bishop in Natal
and Zululand, 318
Magee, Bishop of Peterborough,
283, 399, 400, 433, 469
Manchester, Bishop of. See Eraser.
Mar Gregorius, 415
Maritzburg, Bishop of, 467
 Dean of, 299, 317
Marriott, Charles, of Oriel, 180
Martin, Chancellor of Exeter, 186
Maurice, Rev. F. D., 211, 496
McCaul, Dr., 222
McColl, Canon, 429
McDougall, Bishop, 7, 288, 318,
346, 393, 394. 395, 396, 446. 447,
454, 456
McNeile, Rev. Hugh, Rector of Al
bury, 17, 18, 19, 20
Medley, John, Bishop of Frederic-
ton, New Brunswick, 73
Melbourne, Bishop of, 410
Melvill, Canon of St. David's, 106
Merivale, Dean of Ely, 354
Merriman, Dr., on lectures, 179
Meyrick, Rev. Frederick, Fellow of
Trinity College, Oxford, now

Rector of Blickling, Norfolk, 230,
415,453
Meyrick, James, Fellow of Queen's
College, Oxford, 230
Midleton, Lord, 469
Millard, Dr., Rector of Basingstoke,
39. 422, 438. 439. 505
Missionary bishops, 405
" Mission, Book of the," by the
Cowley Fathers, 429
 Great Towns, 486
 parochial, at Bedford, 364
Missions, foreign, work in St. Sid
well's, Exeter, 133
Modern School, Winchester, 449
Moravian Orders, 416
 Episcopate, 476
Morell's, Mr., " Philosophy of Reli
gion," 212
Mortlock, Mr. Charles, at Emman
uel, 39, 40
Morton House, near Buckingham,
residence of Colonel Browne, 36
Morton Shaw, Rev., Rector of
Rougham, 335
Mothers' Union, 471, 472, 486
Mowbray, Right Hon. Sir John,
Bart, M.P., 70
Munck, Miss Ebba, 475
Murray, Mr. J., 221, 222
Napoleon Bonaparte, 5, 6
Natal. See Colenso
Newcastle, Bishop of. See Wilber
force
New College, Oxford, 447
Newman, Dr., afterwards Cardinal,
50, 469
Newnham Cottage, Cambridge, 167
New Testament Revision, 470
New Zealand, Bishop of See
Selwyn.
 Sir Thomas Gore Browne,
Governor of, 196
Nobody's Club, 500
Norrisian prize essay, 29

516

INDEX.

Norrisian Professorship, 102, 165,
166, 224
North, Archdeacon of Cardigan, 82,
106
Norwich, Bishop of See Pelham
 Dean of See Goulburn

(Ecumenical Council, 287
Old Catholics, 408, 410, 411, 412,
416
 Conference of, 409
 Kea, 116
 Testament Revisers, 469, 470
Ollivant, Daniel, factotum, 86
 Dr., V.-P. of St. David's College,
afterwards Bishop of Llandaff, 78
Ordination, First, 261, 446
 last in Winchester Cathedral,
487
Owen, Rev. L. M., 433
 Canon Mansfield, 470
Oxford, Bishop of 6'i;^ Wilberforce
and Stubbs
 teaching, 118
 writers, 51, 54
Palmerston, Lord, 248, 249, 457
Pan- Anglican Synod, Lambeth, 304,
445
Papal aggression, sermon on, 1 54
Pares, Mr. John, 435
Parish Councils, 279, 280
Parker, J. W., publisher, 157
Pastoral of 1875, 422, 427, 429
 staff, presented by C. Longuet
Higgins, Esq., 348-50
Peacock, Dean of Ely, Prolocutor,
145
Pearce, Mr. R. A., ordained Deacon
for deaf and dumb, 470
Pelham, Bishop of Norwich, 282
Pembroke College, Dr. Carlyon
Fellow of, 62
Pentateuch and Elohistic Psalms,
five lectures on, 217, 319

Pentateuch, the, and Book of
Joshua, lectures on, 216, 242
Perowne, J. J. Stewart, 222
Peterborough, Bishop of Sec
Magee
Phillimore, Sir R., 371, 429
Phillips, Sir Thomas, 90, 93
Philpotts, Henry, Bishop of Exeter,
71, 102, 103, 136, 255, 321
 Rev. T., old schoolfellow, 191
Piper, Count, Swedish Ambassador,
474
Plate, curious church, l6th Century,
at Kea, 113
Plymouth, Congress, 446
Portsea, St. Mary's, consecration of,
481
Portsmouth Congress, 446, 472
Postford House, school, 16, 46
Pretoria, Bishop of, 415
Primacy, the, 456
Privy Council, Judicial Committee,
370, 372
Professor, Norrisian, elected, 166
 lectures of, 166
Professorship, Lady Margaret, 170,
173, 175
Public Worship Act, 399, 443, 445
Pupil teachers, " Harold Browne "
prizes for, 389
Purchas and Ridsdale cases, 370,
371, 436
Pusey, Dr., 51, 212, 438
Quarterly Review, 242
Queen, Her Majesty the, 456, 457,
482, 488, 489
Rangoon, bishopric of, founded,
404, 406
Reading Congress, 446
Rebecca riots, Lampeter, 80
Reinkens, Bishop, Old Catholic, 413
Reservation of the Elements, letters
on, 432

INDEX.

S17

Resignation of the See of Win
chester, 486
Revision of the Old Testament,
chairman of committee of, 347,
348, 469, 470
Ripon, See of, 247
Ritual Commission, 367
 conference on, 432
Roberts, Bishop Cramer, 459
Rochester, Bishop of See Claugh
ton, Thorold, and Davidson
RoUo, Agnes, daughter of Lord, 460
Romilly, Lord, Master of the Rolls,
293, 294
Rose, Rev. H. J., Archdeacon of
Bedford, 170, 328, 329, 330, 331
Rugby, Examiner at, 38, 39
Rural deans, 269, 270
Rushden Hall, near Higham Ferrers,
36
"Sacrifice, Altar, Priest,'' six let-
ters to a friend, 367, 368
Sadlerian lectureship, 37
St. Albans, Bishop of See Claugh
ton
St. Athanasius' Paschal Epistles,
translation from the Syriac, 181
St. David's, Bishop of See Thirlwall
 Cathedral, Prebend in, 90
St. Etheldreda, twelve hundredth
anniversary at Ely, 387
St. George, Guild of, 486
St. John's College, Cambridge, 169,
170
St. Mary Overy as the Cathedral
Church for South London, 424
St. Peter's, Bournemouth, 447
St. Stephen's, Bournemouth, mar
riage of Prince Oscar in, 475
St. Swithun, 482
Salisbury, Bishop of, on the Old
Cathohcs; 414
 Marquis of, 405
Salmon, Professor, 409
Sapte, Archdeacon, 471

Scandinavian and Anglican commu
nion, 476
Scholarships : Emmanuel, Crosse,
Tyrwhitt, 38, 29, 43
School Board system, 374, 375
Schools, public, 225, 227, 240
Scottish bishops, 317
Screen in Winchester Cathedral,
492
Scrivener, Dr., collation of Greek
manuscripts, 167
Seabury, Dr., first American bishop,
centenary of consecration, 467
Sedgwick, Professor, 26, 168
Selborne, Earl of, 379, 435, 437,
440, 483, 506
Select preacher, Cambridge, 241
Selwyn, G. A., Bishop of New
Zealand, afterwards of Lich
field, 9, 37, 228, 305
 Professor William, Canon of
Ely, 170, 222, 268
Senate, Grace of Cambridge Uni
versity, 175
Sewell, William, 118
Shaftesbury, Lord, 366
Shales, near Southampton, 489, 491,
492
Sharp, Rev. John, 24
Simeon, Rev. C, 47, 496
Sister Emma, head deaconess of
Portsmouth House, 362
Smith, W. H., Right Honourable,
M.P,, 481
Southampton and the Channel Is
lands, 458, 459
Southampton Mission, 429
Southey, Robert, on the revival of
Deaconesses, 359
Southsea, Eagle Tower, 485
Southwark, Diocese of, 474
Sparke, Dr., Bishop of Ely, 41, 43, 44
" Speaker's Commentary," 242
 Harold Browne asked to take
part in, 220
S. P. G, 180, 404

5i8

INDEX.

Stanley, Dean, 218, 288, 312, 314,
316, 317
Steward, G., M.P., of Nottington,
grandfather of the Bishop, 4
Steward, Sarah Dorothea, mother
of the Bishop, 4, 13, 31, 36
Stowe, visit to, 7
Stroud, Holy Trinity district,
Gloucestershire, 66, 68
Stubbs, Bishop of Oxford, 490
Suffragan Bishops, 345, 347, 458,
459. 477
Sumner, Archbishop, 144, 304
 Archdeacon, afterwards Bishop
of Guildford, 449, 477, 480,
486
 Bishop of Guildford, Louisa,
daughter of, 460
 Bishop of Winchester, 396,
400, 457
 Chancellor, 435
 Mrs., 471
Surplice question, the, at Exeter, 73
Surrey, West, 474
Swansea Congress, 446
Sweden, H. M. the Queen of, 475
 marriage of Prince Oscar of,
474
Swedish Church, 416, 476
Switzerland — 1835, 30
Synod held by Henry, Bishop of
Exeter, 138
Synods, diocesan, 271, 275, 276, 434,
435, 438, 440
Syra, Archbishop Lycurgus of, 27,
408, 413
Tait, A. C, Archbishop of Canter
bury, 201, 288, 300, 303, 304, 305,
396, 451, 453, 454
Taunton, Archdeacon of. See Deni
son
Temple, Cowper, Mr., 434; after
wards Lord Mount Temple, 468
Temple, Dr., Headmaster of Rugby,
afterwards Bishop of Exeter and

of London, 320, 321, 322, 323, 324,
325, 329, 490
Tennessee, Bishop of letters to, on
the Natal Question, 305
Tennyson, Lord, 25, 473
Theological College, Exeter, 185,
232
Thirlwall, C, Bishop of St. David's,
83, 93. 105. 137, 151, 213, 304,
305- 469
" Thirty-Nine Articles, Exposition
of the," 81, 148, 149, 150
Thomson, Archbishop of York, 209,
319
Thorold, A., Bishop of Rochester
and Winchester, 478, 487, 489
Thorp, Archdeacon, Rector of
Kemerton, 252
Tindal, Mr. Acton, Aylesbury, 363
Tozer, Bishop, 318
"Tracts for the Times," 50, 117
Training College, Chelsea, offer of
headship, 65
 for Welsh clergy, 93
Tregavethan, hamlet in parish of
Kenwyn, ill, 112, 132
Tregrehan, Cornwall, 62
Trench, Dean, afterwards Arch
bishop of Dublin, 168, 221
Trevor, Canon, letter on the pastoral
of 1875, 428
Trinity, Master of 29
Tripos, classical, 26, 28
 mathematical, 26, 28
Trower, Bishop, 184, 250
Trumpington churchyard, 504
Truro, Bishop of. See Benson
 Cathedral, consecration of,
191, 474
Tupper, Martin, 16, 20, 21
Turton, Bishop of Ely, 247, 472
University for Wales, 93
 Press, 167
 reform, 447
University Students' Guide, 241

INDEX.

5'9

Utterton, Bishop Suffragan of
Guildford, 398, 448, 458
Visitation, cathedral, 444
 charge, 262, 340, 444
Walpole, Spencer, Home Secre
tary, 139
Waltham Abbey Church, sermon
preached at, 196
Warburton, Canon, 487
Warfield, first school, 7
" Watchers and Workers," 486
Watts, F.R.A., portrait by, 389
X^'ebley Parry, Miss, 88
W^ellington, first Bishop of See
Abraham
Wesley, John, 286
Wesleyans at Kenwyn, 287
Wessex and Winchester, eighty-third
Bishop of 494
Westbury, Lord, 297
Westcott, B. F., Bishop of Durham,
344
West End Cemetery, 494, 498
Western New York, Bishop of, 415
Westminster Abbey, consecration
in, 254
Whately, Bishop, afterwards Arch
bishop of Dublin, 286
Whewell, Dr., Master of Trinity,
168, 171
White Cross League, 468
Whitfield and Wesley, 496
Wilberforce, E., Bishop of Newcastle,
422

Wilberforce, S., Bishop of Oxford
and of Winchester, 142, 195, 206,
255. 299, 379- 421, 422, 472, 305
Williams, Archdeacon of Llandovery,
95
 Bishop of Connecticut, 250
 Rev. George, Fellow of King's,
9
 Rev. Rowland, Vice-Principal
of St. David's College, 109,
136, 204
Winchester, appointment to, 393
 Bishop of See Sumner, Wil
berforce, Thorold
 Bishopric vacant, 489
 Dean of. See Kitchin
 Diocese, 422
 House, London, suggested sale
of, 401
 Natives' Society, 466
 Mayoralty, 700th Anniversary,
466
 See of, accepted, 387
Wolvesey Palace, Winchester, as a
residence, 402
Women's work in the Church, 358
Wordsworth, Christopher, Bishop of
Lincoln, 183, 220, 283, 366, 415
Working men, addresses to, 472
Wykeham, William of, 448, 482
York, Maclagan, Archbishop of 418
 Thomson, Archbishop of, 209,
319,457
Young Men's Friendly Society, 486

Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.

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