Holland had what Tertullian calls the anima naturaliter Christiana, and it had been trained on the lines of the Tractarian Movement. When he went up to Oxford he destined himself for a diplomatic career, but he now realized his vocation to the priesthood, and was ordained deacon in 1872 and priest two years later. He instantly made his mark as a preacher. Some of the sermons preached in the parish churches of Oxford in the earliest years of his ministry stand out in my memory among his very best. He had all the preacher's gifts—a tall, active, and slender frame, graceful in movement, vigorous in action, abundant in gesture, a strong and melodious voice, and a breathless fluency of speech. Above all, he spoke with an energy of passionate conviction which drove every word straight home. He seemed a young apostle on fire with zeal for God and humanity. His fame as an exponent of metaphysic attracted many hearers who did not usually go much to church, and they were accustomed—then as later—to say that here was a Christian who knew enough about the problems of thought to make his testimony worth hearing. Others, who cared not a rap for Personality or Causation, Realism or Nominalism, were attracted by his grace, his eloquence, his literary charm. His style was entirely his own. He played strange tricks with the English language, heaped words upon words, strung adjective to adjective; mingled passages of Ruskinesque description with jerky fragments of modern slang. These mannerisms grew with his growth, but in the seventies they were not sufficiently marked to detract from the pure pleasure which we enjoyed when we listened to his preaching as to "a very lovely song."
Judged by the canons of strict art, Holland was perhaps greater as a speaker than as a preacher. He differed from most people in this—that whereas most of us can restrain ourselves better on paper than when we are speaking, his pen ran away with him when he, was writing a sermon, but on a platform he could keep his natural fluency in bounds. Even then he was fluent enough in all conscience; but he did not so overdo the ornaments, and the absence of a manuscript and a pulpit-desk gave ampler scope for oratorical movement.
I have mentioned Holland's intellectual and moral debt to T. H. Green. I fancy that, theologically and politically, he owed as much to Mr. Gladstone. The older and the younger man had a great deal in common. They both were "patriot citizens of the kingdom of God"; proud and thankful to be members of the Holy Church Universal, and absolutely satisfied with that portion of the Church in which their lot was cast; passionate adherents of the Sacramental theology; and yet, in their innermost devotion to the doctrine of the Cross, essentially Evangelical. In politics they both worshipped freedom; they both were content to appeal to the popular judgment; and they both were heart and soul for the Christian cause in the East of Europe. Holland had been brought up by Tories, but in all the great controversies of 1886 to 1894 he followed the Gladstonian flag with the loyalty of a good soldier and the faith of a loving son.
When in 1884 Gladstone appointed Holland to a Canonry at St. Paul's, the announcement was received with an amount of interest which is not often bestowed upon ecclesiastical promotions. Everyone felt that it was a daring experiment to place this exuberant prophet of the good time coming at what Bishop Lightfoot called "the centre of the world's concourse." Would his preaching attract or repel? Would the "philosophy of religion," which is the perennial interest of Oxford, appeal to the fashionable or business-like crowd which sits under the Dome? Would his personal influence reach beyond the precincts of the Cathedral into the civil and social and domestic life of London? Would the Mauritian gospel of human brotherhood and social service—in short, the programme of the Christian Social Union—win the workers to the side of orthodoxy? These questions were answered according to the idiosyncrasy or bias of those to whom they were addressed, and they were not settled when, twenty-seven years later, Holland returned from St. Paul's to Oxford. Indeed, several answers were possible. On one point only there was an absolute agreement among those who knew, and this was that the Church in London had been incalculably enriched by the presence of a genius and a saint.
In one respect, perhaps, Holland's saintliness interfered with the free action of his genius. His insight, unerring in a moral or intellectual problem, seemed to fail him when he came to estimate a human character. His own life had always been lived on the highest plane, and he was in an extraordinary degree "unspotted from the world." His tendency was to think—or at any rate to speak and act—as if everyone were as simply good as himself, as transparent, as conscientious, as free from all taint of self-seeking. This habit, it has been truly said, "disqualifies a man in some degree for the business of life, which requires for its conduct a certain degree of prejudice"; but it is pre-eminently characteristic of those elect and lovely souls
"Who, through the world's long day of strife,
Still chant their morning song."
III
LORD HALIFAX
There can scarcely be two more typically English names than Wood and Grey. In Yorkshire and Northumberland respectively, they have for centuries been held in honour, and it was a happy conjunction which united them in 1829. In that year, Charles Wood, elder son of Sir Francis Lindley Wood, married Lady Mary Grey, youngest daughter of Charles, second Earl Grey, the hero of the first Reform Bill. Mr. Wood succeeded his father in the baronetcy, in 1846, sat in Parliament as a Liberal for forty years, filled some of the highest offices of State in the Administrations of Lord Palmerston and Mr. Gladstone, and was raised to the peerage as Viscount Halifax in 1866.
Lord and Lady Halifax had seven children, of whom the eldest was Charles Lindley Wood—the subject of the present sketch—born in 1839; and the second, Emily Charlotte, wife of Hugo Meynell-Ingram, of Hoar Cross and Temple Newsam. I mention these two names together because Mrs. Meynell-Ingram (whose qualities of intellect and character made a deep impression on all those who were brought in contact with her) was one of the formative influences of her brother's life. The present Lord Halifax (who succeeded to his father's peerage in 1885) writes thus about his early days: