’Of old one thought that the sober standard of Church of England divinity was the rule to which all speculations should be reduced; and one thought that Pearson, Hooker, Waterland, Jeremy Taylor also, and Andrewes, and Bull, and Jackson, and Barrow, &c., stood for the idea of English divinity.  Now we are launched upon a wider sea.  Catholic usage and doctrine take the place of Church of England teaching and practice; rightly, I dare say, only it may be well to remember that men who can perhaps understand a good deal of the English divines, can hardly be supposed to be equally capable of understanding the far wider and more difficult range of ecclesiastical literature of all ages and all writers.

’Everyone knows and is struck by the fact that passages of old writers are continually quoted by men of quite different schools of thought in favour of their own (different) views.  Clearly they can’t both understand the mind and spirit of these writers; and the truth is, isn’t it, that only they who by very long study, and from a large share of the true historical imagination, sympathise with and really enter into the hearts and minds of these writers, are competent to deal with and decide upon such wide and weighty matters?

’It seems to me as if men who are in no sense divines, theologians, or well read, speak strongly and use expressions and teach doctrines which, indeed, only very few men should think of uttering or teaching.

’And yet, don’t think I wish to be only an exclusive Anglican, without sympathy for East or West; still less that I wish to ignore the Catholic Church of the truly primitive times; but I take the real, so to say, representative teaching of the Church of England to be the divinity of the truly primitive Church, to which our formularies and reformers appeal.  I know, moreover, that our dear Father accepted Jackson and Waterland; and I don’t feel disposed to disparage them, as it is the fashion to do nowadays.  Few men, in spite of occasional scholastic subtlety, go so deep in their search right down into principles as Jackson.  Few men so analyse, dissect, search out the precise, exact meaning of words and phrases, so carry you away from vague generalities to accurate defined meanings and doctrines.  He had an honest and clear brain of his own, though he was a tremendous book-worm; and I think he is a great authority, though I know about him and his antagonism to Rome.  I don’t fear to weary you by this kind of talk; but don’t I wish I could hear three or four of our very best men discuss these points thoroughly.  In all sincerity I believe that I should be continually convinced of error, shallow judgments, and ignorance.  But then I should most likely get real light on some points where I would fain have it.’

To this unconscious token of humility, another must be added, from the same letter, speaking of two New Zealand friends:—­’To me she has always been kindness itself, with her husband overrating me to such an amusing extent that I don’t think it hurt even my vanity.’