coerce Christian consciences by deprivation and imprisonment.  The story went that an Illustrious Personage said to his insurgent Groom of the Bedchamber:  “What’s this I hear?  I’m told you go about the country saying that the Queen is not the Head of the Church.  Of course, she’s the Head of the Church, just the same as the Pope is the Head of his Church, and the Sultan the Head of his Church.’” But this may only be a creation of that irresponsible romancist, Ben Trovato; and it is better to take Lord Halifax’s account of the transaction: 

“I remember certain remonstrances being made to me in regard to disobedience to the law and suchlike, and my saying at once that I thought it quite unreasonable that the Prince should be compromised by anyone in his household taking a line of which he himself did not approve; and that I honestly thought I had much better resign my place.  Nothing could have been nicer or kinder than the Prince was about it; and, if I resigned, I thought it much better for him on the one side, while, as regards myself, as you may suppose, I was not going to sacrifice my own liberty of saying and doing what I thought right.”

In those emphatic words speaks the true spirit of the man.  To “say and do what he thinks right,” without hesitation or compromise or regard to consequences, has been alike the principle and the practice of his life.  And here the reader has a right to ask, What manner of man is he whose career you have been trying to record?

First and foremost, it must be said—­truth demands it, and no conventional reticence must withhold it—­that the predominant feature of his character is his religiousness.  He belongs to a higher world than this.  His “citizenship is in Heaven.”  Never can I forget an address which, twenty years ago, he delivered, by request, in Stepney Meeting-House.  His subject was “Other-worldliness.”  The audience consisted almost exclusively of Nonconformists.  Many, I imagine, had come with itching ears, or moved by a natural curiosity to see the man whose bold discrimination between the things of Caesar and the things of God was just then attracting, general attention, and, in some quarters, wrathful dismay.  But gradually, as the high theme unfolded itself, and the lecturer showed the utter futility of all that this world has to offer when compared with the realities of the Supernatural Kingdom, curiosity was awed into reverence, and the address closed amid a silence more eloquent than any applause.”

  “That strain I heard was of a higher mood.”

As I listened, I recalled some words written by Dr. Pusey in 1879, about

“One whom I have known intimately for many years, who is one of singular moderation as well as wisdom, who can discriminate with singular sagacity what is essential from is not essential—­C.  Wood.”

The Doctor went on: 

“I do not think that I was ever more impressed than by a public address which I heard him deliver now many years ago, in which, without controversy or saying anything which could have offended anyone, he expressed his own faith on deep subjects with a precision which reminded me of Hooker’s wonderful enunciation of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and of the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ.”