I
The Rev. S. J. Stone, M.A., was the author of two hymns that are known wherever the English tongue is spoken, one the beautiful Lenten litany of love, trust and repentance, “Weary of earth and laden with my sin”; the other that soul-stirring triumph-song, “The Church’s One Foundation,” which—set as it is to majestic battle-march music that fires the imagination—has become, as it were, the Marseillaise of the Church militant and victorious.
When Stone died, and where he wished to die, in the Charterhouse, the busy world learned that the Rector of a City Church, who had done memorable work in an East End parish, and was the author of some famous hymns, had passed away. Those who knew and loved him were aware that a great soul, a hero-heart, a rarely beautiful spirit, had gone to God.
In my little life, the years of which are fast approaching threescore, it has so happened that I have known, sometimes intimately, a number of so-called “eminent” women and men. I have known not a few who in intellectual power, in the brilliance of their gifts, their attainments and achievements, or in what is called “fame,” stood immeasurably higher than Stone. I have known none who, judged by the beauty, purity, and nobility of life and character, was half as great as he. I do not say this, be it noted, under the emotional stress which follows the death of a dearly-loved friend. In such an hour of bitter self-reproach when in retrospect we think of the kindly act which, had it been done (alas, that it was not done!) would have helped our friend through a time of trouble; the generous word which had it been spoken (alas, that it remained unspoken!) might have heartened him when we knew him to be most cast down—these and possibly our poignant sense of remorse, it may be for an actual wrong done, not infrequently cause us to lose our sense of proportion. For the time being at least we over-estimate what was good in him, and under-estimate what was indifferent, or worse.
It is not so that I write of S. J. Stone. Sixteen long years, in which life has never been, nor will be, quite the same, missing that loved presence, have passed away since he was laid to rest in Norwood Cemetery; and to-day with my own life’s end nearing I can say, not only for myself, but for many others who knew him, that so brave of heart was he as to make possible for us the courage of a Cœur de Lion, so knightly of nature as to make possible the honour of an Arthur or a Galahad, so nearly stainless in the standard he set himself, in the standard he attained, as to come, as near as human flesh and blood can come, almost to making possible the purity of the Christ.
I am not unaware what will be in the mind of many who read these words. Some will suspect me if not of insincerity, at least of the foolish use of superlative and hyperbole. Not a few will hold my last comparison as scarcely reverent. And all the while there will not be a single woman or man, with any intimate knowledge of Stone, who, reading what I have written, will not say, at least of what is wholly appreciative (many will resent what I have hereafter to say of his temperamental weaknesses and human defects), “All this is truth, sober and unexaggerated, and yet the man himself was in many respects infinitely greater than he is drawn.”