Matthew Arnold proposed my name for election to the Athenæum Club. The usual mode is vote by ballot, which, on account of the number of candidates, occasions delay for many years. But the committee have power to choose annually nine members by special vote. I did not know fully until the secretary wrote to me, that I had been so elected—an honour to which I felt myself by no means entitled. The influence of Dr. Stanley, Mr. Matthew Arnold, and other kind friends, secured for me this great privilege, which has been a source of literary advantage and pleasure to me ever since. And I may here mention, from what occurred in the proceedings of the committee, as I was told, Nonconformity was, in my case, rather a help than hindrance; as the club, in a catholic spirit, desires to have representatives of different classes and opinions included on its rolls. On the same principle not long afterwards Dr. Martineau was introduced to the Athenæum.
I was surprised a few weeks after my election to receive an invitation to the Academy dinner, and was pleased to learn from one of the Academicians that this compliment, as well as the preceding, arose from the same spirit of catholic sociality. Nothing but presence at one of these banquets can give an adequate idea of their remarkable magnificence. A sudden burst of light, just before speeches commence, has a magical effect. Mr. Disraeli, then Prime Minister, delivered a highly finished oration, after sitting silent and sphinx-like for an hour before.
At an early part of the period to which this chapter belongs, the famous volume entitled “Ecce Homo” was published. It excited much controversy. I read it with interest and attention. It has long been my habit, in perusing works unfavourable to orthodoxy, to search in them for admitted principles which, by a fair application, may be employed in support of truths to which the author is regarded as being opposed. In the work just mentioned there is a chapter on what is called “Christ’s Royalty!” [197] Christ is represented as having established in the world a new theocracy in describing Himself as King of the kingdom of God; in other words, as a King representing the Majesty of the Invisible Ruler of a theocracy. He claimed the character of Founder, of Legislator, and, in a certain high and peculiar sense, “of Judge of a new and Divine society.” Whatever might be the views of the writer with regard to the nature of Jesus Christ, such a position as he reached, seems to me to involve Christ’s true and proper Divinity. In other words, it is tantamount to saying that “Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
I remember that at the time, whatever might be the tendency of the work on the whole, I thought there were in it admissions of such a nature as to afford a basis for convincing arguments in favour of Evangelical Christianity.
One evening, at that time, I met Lord Shaftesbury at a friend’s house, and had a conversation with him on the subject of the book. It is well known that, with the impetuosity which was so natural to that great and good man, he was swept along by a hurricane of indignation, which led him to pronounce “Ecce Homo” a work of most pernicious tendency. Of Lord Shaftesbury it might be said that he was like a cloud which moveth altogether, if it move at all. He could do or say nothing by halves; and however minds of a different order might judge of his acts and utterances, there can be no doubt that by the enthusiasm of his advocacy he carried beneficial measures which otherwise might not have succeeded. When I was talking with him after the manner just indicated and pointing out arguments which I conceived might be constructed out of some of the writer’s admissions, he was evidently very restless, and expressed his strong conviction, that the book deserved to be strongly reprehended, in order to warn people against being led away by its contents. In the course of conversation he manifested, that he had not read what he so severely condemned. This habit of condemning books without reading them, it is to be feared, is too common in the present day.
Here let me add Lord Shaftesbury’s manner was not always the same. At times he was gentle and exceedingly affable, of which I remember an amusing instance. We were travelling together from Peterborough, after a jubilee meeting of the British and Foreign Bible Society in that city. He was speaking of the profound ignorance of the upper classes respecting the character and habits of Nonconformists; and I ventured to relate to him, in illustration of what he had said himself, a story which I had heard respecting his father, who was Chairman of the Committee of the House of Lords. A solicitor waited upon him to confer respecting a Bill, which was coming before the Upper House, in reference to matters which affected the rights of Dissenters. The old Earl said to this gentleman, “I hear a good deal about these Dissenters, and some things very strange. I have been told they are people who go about without clothes.” The Earl laughed, and said, such a thing as I related was just like him.
CHAPTER X
1873
The sixth General Meeting of the Evangelical Alliance had been fixed for the year 1870, in New York; but, owing to the war between France and Germany, it was postponed to the autumn of 1873. Canon Leathes, Mr. Harrison, and myself, received invitations from the American committee, to attend the assembly; and, accordingly, we started for our destination in one of the Cunard steamers at the close of the month of August. With the exception of rough weather in the earlier part, we had a fine passage. Going out we touched on the Irish coast, and, it being Sunday, we landed and spent the day on shore. We were on the coast of Waterford, and found the country very pleasant. We attended church in the forenoon, and afterwards took walks in the neighbourhood. I had spent a week or more in Ireland some few years previously, and had then seen spots in the Green Isle, which created a desire to see more. The city of Limerick on the Shannon had given me delight. Dublin is a magnificent city, and the object of my visit there had been to preach on a special occasion in Dr. Urwick’s church. I saw at that time something of Irish society, and found controversy rife between Protestants and Papists. I took an opportunity of visiting the Killarney lakes, and found them all, and more than, I had imagined. Nor could I fail to be amused with the humour of carriage-drivers and other Irish people. Returning to our steamer on Sunday afternoon, we started for New York, and had, in the course of our voyage, rough weather and smooth. For some-time it was unfavourable—“four-fifths of a gale” somebody said; but in the latter part of our trip we had charming weather. Where the whistle at night had sounded like a wail of distress, it was now felt to be means of safety. Flag signals and rockets now and then relieved the tedium; so did the gambols of porpoises. Moonbeams in a mottled sky, were pleasant variations, as we steamed along at a rapid rate. The night before we landed in New York harbour, the sun went down like a ball of fire, the sea was intensely blue, whilst alive with little billows, like children at their sports; the bow of the steamer was crowded by passengers looking out for the pilot–a capital subject, I thought, for some clever pencil. The next morning when we reached Sandy Hook, I could not help comparing the coast scenery near us with some views I had seen on the Bosphorus.
“For the first time I am in America,” I said to a Yankee fellow-passenger.
“Yes,” he replied; “you are now, sir, in the land of the brave, the home of the free.”