3. I will make one remark more. I have spoken, first, of his high natural gifts, of his various advantages for starting in life, and of his secular prospects. Next, in contrast with this first view of him, I have insisted on his singular freedom from ambition, and have traced it to that religiousness of mind which was so specially his; to his intimate sense of the vanity of all secular distinction, and his supreme devotion to Him who alone is 'Faithful and True.' And now, when I am brought to the third special feature of his life, as it presents itself to me, I find myself close to a sacred subject, which I cannot even touch upon without great reverence and something of fear.
We might have been led to think that a man already severed in spirit, resolve, and acts from the world in which he lived, would have been granted by his Lord and Saviour to go forward in his course freely, without any unusual trials, such as are necessary in the case of common men for their perseverance in the narrow way of life. But those, for whom God has a love more than ordinary, He watches over with no ordinary jealousy; and if the world smiles on them, He sends them crosses and penances so much the more. He is not content that they should be by any common title His; and, because they are so dear and near to Him, He provides for them afflictions to bring them nearer still. I hope it is not presumptuous thus to speak of the inscrutable providences of God. I know that He has His own wise and special dealings with every one of us, and that what He determines for one is no rule for another. I am contemplating, and, if so be, interpreting, His loving ways and purposes only towards the very man before us.
Now, so it was, there was just one aspect of this lower world which he might innocently love; just one in which life had charms for a heart as affectionate as it was religious. I mean that assemblage of objects which are included under the dear name of Home. If there was rest and solace to be found on earth, he found it there. Is it not remarkable, then, that in this, his sole earthly sanctuary, He who loved him with so infinite a love met him, visited him, not once or twice, but again and again, with a stern rod of chastisement? Stroke after stroke, blow after blow, stab after stab, was dealt against his very heart. 'Great and wonderful are Thy works, O Lord God Almighty; just and true are Thy ways, O King of ages. Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord, and magnify Thy name? for Thou only art holy.' I may speak with more vivid knowledge of him here than in other respects, for I was one of the confidants of his extreme suffering under the succession of terrible inflictions which left wounds never to be healed. They ended only with his life; for the complaint, which eventually mastered him, was brought into activity by his final bereavement. Nay, I must not consider even that great bereavement his final one; his call to go hence was itself the final agony of that tender, loving heart. He who had in time past been left desolate by others, was now to leave others desolate. He was to be torn away, as if before his time, from those who, to speak humanly, needed him so exceedingly. He was called upon to surrender them in faith to Him who had given them. It was about two hours before his death, with this great sacrifice, as we may suppose, this solemn summons of his Supreme Lord confronting him, that he said, with a loud voice, 'Thy will be done;' adding his favourite prayer, so well known to us all: 'Fiat, laudetur, atque in æternum superexaltetur, sanctissima, altissima, amabilissima voluntas Dei in omnibus.' They were almost his last words.
We too must say, after him, 'Thy will be done.' Let us be sure that those whom God loves He takes away, each of them, one by one, at the very time best for their eternal interests. What can we, in sober earnest, wish, save that very will of God? Is He not wiser and more loving than we are? Could we wish him back whom we have lost? Who is there of us who loves him most but would feel the cruelty of recalling to this tumultuous life, with its spiritual perils and its dark future, a soul who is already rejoicing in the end and issue of his trial, in salvation secured, and heaven begun in him? Rather, who would not wish to have lived his life, and to have died his death? How well for him that he lived, not for man only, but for God! What are all the interests, pleasures, successes, glories of this world, when we come to die? What can irreligious virtue, what can innocent family affection do for us, when we are going before the Judge, whom to know and love is life eternal, whom not to know and not to love is eternal death?
O happy soul, who hast loved neither the world nor the things of the world apart from God! Happy soul, who, amid the world's toil, hast chosen the one thing needful, that better part which can never be taken away! Happy soul, who, being the counsellor and guide, the stay, the light and joy, the benefactor of so many, yet hast ever depended simply, as a little child, on the grace of God and the merits and strength of thy Redeemer! Happy soul, who hast so thrown thyself into the views and interests of other men, so prosecuted their ends, and associated thyself in their labours, as never to forget, there is one Holy Catholic Roman Church, one Fold of Christ and Ark of salvation, and never to neglect her ordinances or to trifle with her word! Happy soul, who, as we believe, by thy continual almsdeeds, offerings, and bounties, hast blotted out such remains of daily recurring sin and infirmity as the sacraments have not reached! Happy soul, who by thy assiduous preparation for death, and the long penance of sickness, weariness, and delay, hast, as we trust, discharged the debt that lay against thee, and art already passing from penal purification to the light and liberty of heaven above!
And so farewell, but not farewell for ever, dear James Robert Hope-Scott! He is gone from us, but only gone before us. We then must look forward, not backward. We shall meet him again, if we are worthy, in 'Mount Sion, and the heavenly Jerusalem,' in 'the company of many thousands of angels, the Church of the firstborn who are written in the heavens,' with 'God, the Judge of all, and the spirits of the just made perfect, and Jesus, the Mediator of the New Testament, and the blood which speaketh better things than that of Abel.'
J. H. N.
APPENDIX II.
Words spoken in the Chapel of the Ursulines of Jesus, St. Margaret's Convent, Edinburgh, on the 7th day of May, 1873, at the Funeral of James Robert Hope-Scott, Q.C. By the Rev. William J. Amherst, S.J.
My Dear Brethren,—In complying with the request which has been made to me, to say a few words on this solemn occasion about one who was so immeasurably my superior in everything, I feel as a child would when suddenly asked to give an opinion on some abstruse question which it could not comprehend. But when asked to address you, however sensible I might have been of my own inferiority, I could not, even in thought, entertain a reluctance; I could not show the slightest hesitation to speak the praises of one whom I admired so much, to ask your prayers for one whom I so much loved.