This young man, who died at the untimely age of thirty-one, while engaged in whole-hearted missionary work at Aden, was one of the most remarkable intellects and personalities of his day. The beauty of his character, the ardour of his missionary zeal, his great learning, formed a combination rarely equalled. His life was one of true nobility and unselfishness. In its harmonious beauty, and the rich variety of its aspects, it was unique. That this man and Frederick Charrington should have been more than brothers to each other, is one of the most interesting and touching episodes in the latter's life.
"I count all things but loss for Christ" was the essence of Keith-Falconer's career, and he found his truest inspiration, his greatest opportunity for doing good, in his friendship for Frederick Charrington. I have heard much of this association. Many things are almost too intimate to be recorded here. But with all the information placed at my disposal, and from the excellent Memorials of the Hon. Ion Keith-Falconer, published nearly thirty years ago by the Rev. Robert Sinker, D.D., librarian of Trinity College, Cambridge, I have been able to reconstruct much of a friendship passing the love of women, as firm, and true, as called forth from Lord Tennyson these noble words when Hallam died—
"Of those that, eye to eye, shall look
On knowledge; under whose command
Is Earth and Earth's, and in their hand
Is Nature like an open book;
No longer half akin to brute,
For all we thought and loved and did,
And hoped, and suffer'd, is but seed
Of what in them is flower and fruit.
Whereof the man, that with me trod
This planet, was a noble type
Appearing ere the times were ripe,
That friend of mine who lives in God.
That God, which ever lives and loves,
One God, one law, one element
And one far-off divine event,
To which the whole creation moves."
Ion Grant Neville Keith-Falconer was born at Edinburgh on the 5th July, 1856.
His earlier years were spent at Keith Hall, varied by long visits to Brighton and elsewhere. His childhood was quite uneventful, though, even in those early days, his mother afterwards spoke of his intense, and, as it were, innate truthfulness, and his unvarying thoughtfulness for others—not always prominent characteristics in children who may afterwards develop into the best of men.
At the age of eleven he was sent to the large preparatory school of Cheam in Surrey, where he gained a good many prizes, and seems to have been thoroughly happy.
In 1869, when thirteen years of age, Ion Keith-Falconer went to Harrow to compete for an Entrance Scholarship, which he was successful in obtaining.