And again: 

“His father and mother seem to gather virtue and sweetness from looking at him and talking to him, though they fight hard against his unpractical and exploded Church views, and think his zeal misdirected....  And all the while his mother’s face gets brighter and kinder because she is looking at him.  Happy are the parents who, when they have reached that time of life in which the world is getting too strong and virtue is a thing of routine, are quickened by the bold, restless zeal of their sons and daughters, and so renew their youth.”

In 1866 he was induced by his friend Mr. Lane-Fox, afterwards Chancellor of the Primrose League, to join the English Church Union.

“At that time,” he writes, “I was much concerned with the affairs of the House of Charity in Soho and the Newport Market Refuge. 1866 was the cholera year, and I recollect coming straight back from Lorne’s[*] coming of age to London, where I saw Dr. Pusey, with the result that I set to work to help Miss Sellon with her temporary hospital in Commercial Street, Whitechapel.”

[Footnote *:  Afterwards Duke of Argyll.]

In this connexion it is proper to recall the devoted services which he rendered to the House of Mercy at Horbury, near Wakefield; and those who know what religious prejudice was in rural districts forty years ago will realize the value of the support accorded to an institution struggling against calumny and misrepresentation by the most popular and promising young man in the West Riding.  There lies before me as I write a letter written by an Evangelical mother—­Lady Charles Russell—­to her son, then just ordained to a curacy at Doncaster.

“I want to hear more about Lord and Lady Halifax.  I knew them pretty well as Sir Charles and Lady Mary Wood, but I have lived in retirement since before he was raised to the peerage.  His eldest son was not only very good-looking, but inclined to be very good, as I dare say Dr. Vaughan may have heard.  Do you know anything about him?”

That “very good” and “very good-looking” young man was now approaching what may be called the decisive event of his life.  In April, 1867, Mr. Colin Lindsay resigned the Presidency of the English Church Union, and Mr. Charles Lindley Wood was unanimously chosen to fill his place.  Eleven years later Dr. Pusey wrote:  “As to his being President of the E.C.U., he is the sense and moderation of it.”  He has administered its affairs and guided its policy through fifty anxious years.  Indeed, the President and the Union have been so completely identified that the history of the one has been the history of the other.  His action has been governed by a grand and simple consistency.  Alike in storms and in fair weather, at times of crisis and at times of reaction, he has been the unswerving and unsleeping champion of the spiritual claims of the English Church, and the alert, resourceful, and unsparing enemy of all attempts, from whatever quarter, to subject her doctrine and discipline to the control of the State and its secular tribunals.  The eager and fiery enthusiasm which pre-eminently marks his nature awakes a kindred flame in those who are reached by his influence; and, even when the reason is unconvinced, it is difficult to resist the leadership of so pure and passionate a temper.