The above sentence refers to the paralytic attack Mr. Keble had on November 30, 1864. Nevertheless, almost at that very time, he was writing thus:—
'Penzance: March 7, 1865.
'My dear and more than dear Bishop,—It would be vain for me to write to you, if I pretended to do more than just express my heart's wish that I could say something of the doings and sufferings which now for years past we of course associate with your name, so as to encourage and support you in your present manifold distress. But (especially for reasons known only to myself) I must leave that altogether to Him who helps His own to do and suffer. One thing only I would say, that to us at our great distance it looks as if the sanguis martyrum were being to you as the semen Ecclesiae, and you know how such things were hailed in the time of St. Cyprian. May it please God before long to give you some visible earnest of this sure blessing! but I suppose that if it tarry, it may be the greater when it comes. Our troubles as a Church, though of a different kind, are not small. The great point with me is, lest, if in our anxiety to keep things together, we should be sinfully conniving at what is done against the faith, and so bringing a judgment upon ourselves. I do not for a moment think that by anything which has yet been done or permitted our being as a Church is compromised (though things look alarmingly as if it might be before long), but I fear that her well-being is more and more being damaged by our entire and conscious surrender of the disciplinary part of our trust, and that if we are apathetic in such things we may forfeit our charter. There is no doubt, I fear, that personal unbelief is spreading; but I trust that a deeper faith is spreading also; it is (at Oxford, e.g.) Pusey and Moberly, &c., against the Rationalists and other tempters. As to the question of the Bible being (not only containing) the Word, I had no scruples in signing that Declaration. One thought which helped me was, the use made in the New Testament of the Old, which is such as to show that we are not competent judges as to what passages convey deep moral or religious meanings or no. Another, that in every instance where one had the means of ascertaining, so far as I have known, the Bible difficulty has come right: therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that so it would be in all the rest, if we knew the right reading and the right interpretation of the words. And as to what are called the Divine and Human Elements, I have seemed to help myself with the thought that the Divine adoption (if so be) of the human words warrants their truthfulness, as a man's signature makes a letter his own; but whether this is relevant, I doubt. My wife and I are both on the sick list, and I must now only add that we never forget you.
'Ever yours,
'J. K.
Nothing has hitherto been said of this term at St. Andrew's: so here is an extract from a letter to one of the cousinhood, who had proposed a plan which has since been carried out extensively and with good effect:—
'The difficulty about scholars appropriated to certain places or parishes is this: I cannot be sure of the same persons remaining with me. Some sickness in an island, some panic, some death of a relative, some war, or some inability on my part from bad weather or accident to visit an island, may at any time lose me a scholar. Perhaps he may be the very one that has been appropriated to some one, and what am I to say then?
'This year we have but thirty-eight Melanesians, we ought to have sixty. But after dear Edwin and Fisher's wounds, I could not delay, but hurried southwards, passing by islands with old scholars ready to come away. This was sad work, but what could I do?
'I will gladly assign, to the best of my power, scholars whom I think likely to remain with me to various places or persons; but pray make them understand that their scholar may not always be forthcoming. Anyhow, their alms would go to the support of some Melanesian, who would be their scholar as it were for the time being.
'You would perhaps feel interested in knowing that the Gospel of St. Luke has been printed in the Mota language, to a great extent by our scholars, and that George Sarawia is printing now the Acts, composing it, and doing press-work and all. Young Wogale (about thirteen) prints very fairly, and sent off 250 copies of a prayer, which the Bishop of Nelson wanted for distribution, of which everything was done by him entirely. They both began to learn about last November.