The same writer says of him in another letter: 'His extreme fairness and toleration, which at first seemed to me to reduce half one's cherished beliefs to open questions, was of the greatest value in dispelling ignorance and prejudice, and in promoting true charity and a more intelligent faith. He delighted to call attention to the fact that our Lord found something commendable and exemplary in the serpent. And so, in dealing with those with whom he most disagreed, he tried to fix attention on that portion of truth which lay behind their opinions, or on those real difficulties, to be slighted only by the superficial, with which they were grappling. Tertullian, with his love of scoring off opponents, fared badly at his hands, and he used to treat Clement of Alexandria more sympathetically than Irenaeus.
'It was striking to find a mind so evenly balanced and philosophical become fired with enthusiasm as he spoke in simplest language, in chapel or elsewhere, of great Christian truths or the victories of faith. His sermons influenced, I believe, many of the naturally careless. Simple, impartial, earnest and sympathetic, he won, I know, the deepest affection and respect of many.'
Another writes: 'Bright, pure, and strong—this was the impression he gave me … Many men will be very sorry that he is not here any more, but every one who knew him will be very thankful that he was here, and that they had an opportunity of hearing him "think" sometimes. I recall him most in his own rooms, beginning to talk on some small matter, and gradually lifting us higher and still higher, until we all silently listened, following as best we, with our muddier minds, could; and even when he got beyond us there were still inspiration and strength to be got from his flashing eyes and on-rushing earnestness; but if some smaller mind broke in, in a moment he was down at the level of that mind, half bantering and wholly sympathising. Nevertheless, some of us have never forgotten the things he showed us as he led us up, and the possibility of soaring very high without losing touch with those whose levels are pathetically human.… I do know that he helped me much, and that many things he said I shall never forget, and thank God for still.'
A Cambridge and international athlete, an intimate friend of Forbes, writes: 'Though I have lost your brother Forbes, and life will be for ever poorer to me, I can't thank God enough that I ever knew him and loved him, and that he called himself my friend. He was so dear to me—my greatest friend in the world. His goodness and his help to me in my Cambridge days were wonderful. He altered my life. God has called him home and to the blessed rest of the children of God, and we are rich still with his memory and the influence of his beautiful, patient, Christlike life.'
In another letter he writes: 'The death, or, as I like to think of it, the passing of Forbes into the Great Beyond has been such a grief to me. You have no idea what he was to me—a real man "sent from God" into my life. I could do nothing when I heard the sad, and to me utterly unexpected, news, but kneel down by my bedside, and weep till I could weep no more for my beloved friend. I feel so rich and proud to have had him for my friend, and to have had his love; and so do many Cambridge men. Oh, but I did so love him! and my prayer now is that the memory of him with me always may strengthen my weak and feeble life, and help me to live somewhat more as he lived, very near the Master.'
He obtained but little help from self-introspection or self-examination. Thus he writes in one of the letters given later on: 'I am not sure that we cannot learn more about others than we can about ourselves. I never think it is profitable to study oneself too closely. I never could meditate with any profit on my sins. But there, I dare say I differ from many others.'
To very intimate friends he would in rare instances admit that the secret of any influence which he possessed over men was the outcome of his efforts to pray for them. One who had known him intimately at Christ's writes in 1904:
'About eighteen months ago I had the privilege of spending a night with him, and then for the first time I realised how much of his spiritual power was the outcome of prayer. He told me that in his younger days he had taken every opportunity of personally appealing to men to come to Christ. "But," he went on, "as I grow older I become more diffident, and now often, when I desire to see the Truth come home to any man, I say to myself, 'If I have him here he will spend half an hour with me. Instead, I will spend that half-hour in prayer for him.'" Later on, when I had retired for the night, he came to me again and said, "W——, what I have said to you is in the strictest confidence: don't mention it to any one." And this revelation of his inner life is my last memory of him.'
On another occasion he said to one with whom he was staying, when speaking of the little that men could do for each other, 'I think that I should go mad were it not for prayer.'
As an instance of his common sense in a matter in which as a bachelor he could have had no personal experience, he strongly urged a married man, before deciding to accept a curacy which had been offered to him, to let his wife see the vicar's wife or women-folk. 'She will know intuitively,' he said, 'whether she can get on with them and they with her, and it will make all the difference to your work and happiness.' The man to whom this advice was offered writes: 'The advice was given seriously, but with that bright twinkle of his; and I owe much to it, for we have been here since … and I don't want to go.'