Albert Joseph Edmunds (b. 1857) (The Living Past).
Mr. Edmunds, when this was written in 1880, was a young English poet and spiritualist, but has since settled in Philadelphia. He has written a number of works, the principal being Buddhist and Christian Gospels now First Compared from the Originals.
In 1883 he was cataloguing a library at Sunderland, and came across books on the Alps, etc., by a Rev. Leslie Stephen. He wrote to the publishers to find out if they were by the same writer as the Leslie Stephen who had written on Ethics. Sir (then Mr.) Leslie Stephen had just been appointed Clark Lecturer at Cambridge. He replied to Edmunds, “I am one person,” adding that he had given up holy orders. Edmunds replied:
To Mr. Leslie Stephen, Sir,
Confound your personality;
I did, and now must here, aver
Belief was not reality.
I hope my slip may be excused,
And doom this time decided not,