is bright with writers as able. There have been many men, of sterling principles, who have contrived to pass through the world without arousing the hostility, that, for a time, but, less and less year by year, did its best to wrest from him his greenest laurels. It is not every man, even in these days of freedom of thought and boldness of inquiry, who has made himself more unpopular by advocating views stigmatised, though unjustly, as unchristian, revolutionary, utopian.

Kingsley owed his fame to his sympathy for all classes, to his stern conscientiousness, to his easy and happy style, to his beautiful descriptions of nature, to his power of forcing even the indifferent to attend to and accept his opinions. After all, it is very doubtful whether anything Kingsley wrote was half so objectionable as prejudiced and distempered critics thought. Much of what he wrote and said bore the stamp of originality, and this would excite prejudice in some quarters; but, then what is strange and original is not necessarily untrue or ill-judged. Prejudice against him is dying away, and the fame and humanity of Kingsley are now almost freed from the thick cloud which, for a time, rested upon them.

As a

Kingsley was, in an age of novelists, a great novelist. novelist he will long hold a high place in history. But he was much more than a mere writer of fiction. He was a poet, an essayist, a divine, a man of science. In many ways he exerted an influence for good that was truly marvellous. As a social reformer, an advocate of more enlightened studies, more practical methods of education, he was a great power in the land. Long after his admiration and appreciation of science, his tender pity for the poor and degraded, are forgotten, and future generations remember him only as a novelist, his influence for good will still live. He gave an impulse to the life of the nation that cannot be over-estimated. In some respects he may be looked upon as the spokesman of the more advanced thinkers of the age. He pointed the way upwards, onwards, without actually being the leader.

We, who have just lost him, may not consider that he was a great naturalist, geologist, chemist, sanitarian, as we, in these days of deep and accurate learning, count greatness, and coming generations may think still less of his acquirements. But he had some knowledge of all these studies, and he understood their importance better than most people do. He forced the nation to recognise the value and usefulness of those sciences of which he knew only the elements. He compelled the enlightened and liberal to desert the old paths, to become the disciples of the great scientific leaders of the day, who, with all their greater knowledge, could not plead successfully their own cause. Kingsley's fame may depend princi

pally on his great novels, "Hypatia," "Two Years Ago," and "Westward Ho;" his usefulness was owing to his wonderful power of making his countrymen read aright the signs of the times, of forcing the thoughts and hopes of the nation into paths which his eagle eye saw surely led to happiness and prosperity.

Kingsley had a passionate love of the country. His descriptions of scenery are characterised by a luxuriance of language, a poetical fervour, a refined appreciation of the beautiful, hardly to be equalled. There was a vastness in nature which set every chord within him tingling. In a hundred passages he pours out his full heart in praise of glorious sunsets, far-reaching woods, great mountains, and fertile plains. He hated the smoke and the noise of towns; he only breathed freely where God in all His majesty reigned supreme. He was not bound down to Devonshire or the great fen country, both of which he ardently loved. He was equally at home in the tropics, on the continent, and anywhere that was beautiful, luxuriant, and fertile. One of his finest papers is an article "From the Ocean to the Sea," which appeared in " Good Words" for July, 1866. In it he describes a journey, in the early spring of 1864, from Biarritz to the Mediterranean. The Pyrenees, the ancient city of Narbonne, the Landes, the people, the natural productions, all come in for their share of his admiration. To the end of his life he preserved his love for nature, and perhaps his premature death may, in some degree, be owing to the exposure he went through while on his recent travels in America.

Next to his love for nature and for nature's God, comes his love for the poor. His was no sentimental admiration for boors and navvies because they are boors and navvies. He felt deeply for the ignorant and degraded. His great heart bled as he saw millions of his fellow-countrymen hopelessly toiling, all day long, living the lives of savages, dying the deaths of heathens. Perhaps he wrote a little nonsense, now and then-in "Alton Locke" and "Yeast," for instance. Perhaps some of his remedies were impracticable; perhaps he was not patient enough. But was there not good excuse for his strong language? It may not be true that the towns and villages of the land swarm with thousands of penniless wretches, as some people say they do-it may well be that the average wages are higher here than in many other parts of the world; but, still, the condition of many of the English poor is deplorable. Homes so squalid, surroundings so loathsome, a death so awful and hopeless, are the natural heritage of so many that his heart yearned to see things righted. He poured out wild ravings against the selfishness of the rich, the obstructiveness of the laws. He entreated the poor to rise, and then he upbraided

them for their apathy and sensuality. He is gone where poverty is unknown, where the wretchedness he so eloquently deplored will no longer harrow his soul.

How touching are a few lines in which he speaks of the simple, kind-hearted people of the South of France! "Poverty (though there is none of what we call poverty in Britain) fills the little walled court, before its cottage, with bay trees and its standard figs while wealth (though there is nothing here of what we call wealth in Britain) asserts itself uniformly by great standard magnolias and rich trailing roses, in full bloom here in April, instead of, as with us, in July.' No wonder he was so happy among the simple Eversley peasantry, whom he tried to cheer and raise up, and whose hard lot and cold nothern winter he did his best to lighten.

In these days of wide separation between classes-a separation that daily becomes greater-when the gentleman knows nothing of the tradesman, and the latter knows less of the peasant in the next village than of the Red Indian, it is hard to make people understand how good and simple are some of the humble village poor. Do not think Kingsley lavished his praise on the brutal rough, or on the corrupted town servant. He was thinking of labourers and mechanics, not ruined by the evil, hated companionship of heartless superiors and stern, cruel masters. He thought not of men goaded to madness by combinations of tyrannical colliery owners or broad-acred squires, and forced for their own protection into opposition and lawlessness. No! he had in mind the simple, contented poor; as they are sometimes to be seen, even now, as they might much more often be seen were this an easier world than it is.

Among the sweet-tempered, resigned peasants, whom it has been my lot to know and number among my friends, I think of one in particular, an aged village shoemaker, over whose snow-white head ninety years of poverty and trouble have passed, though they have not impaired the placid serenity of his temper, or shaken his holy faith in the sure mercies of God. Twenty years ago, when I was a little boy, only seven years, I first saw my venerable friend. He was then nearly seventy, still, and he continues so, upright and hale. His long white hair, surrounding his benign, smiling face, made him a pleasant object. For years I saw him almost daily; and, at last, the poor man came to look upon me almost as a son. He is very old, very poor now. He and his faithful wife, who for sixty years has been the loving partner of his joys and sorrows, live in the old cottage, where they have passed thirty years, in the neighbourhood of the one where they were born. He never had more than fifteen or sixteen shillings a week, and, now, of course,

his income is much smaller; but no word of repining ever falls from his lips. In his artless way he sometimes tells me of his trials and struggles, and yet he continues happy.

Once, for several years, I was away from the part of the country where he lives. One Saturday evening I called upon him. It was a gloomy spring evening; and, as I approached his open door, he was standing there, looking out into the fast-deepening darkness. When he caught sight of me he was so agitated that his emotion became quite painful. Last summer he walked with pain and difficulty nearly ten miles to bring me a little fruit. Whenever I leave him, the old man seizes my hand, and wrings it with a passionate fervour that I should seek in vain among the many acquaintances I have in my own sphere of life.

Kingsley, perhaps, had in mind such sweet, trusting poverty, as that of my honoured friend the Worcestershire shoemaker. He wished to see such simplicity, such peace, such piety, in every home in the land; but, of course, endowed with more worldly goods. But were it so, England would be a paradise, and it might not be, then, the best preparation for the higher life.

Next to his love of the poor comes Kingsley's love for all mankind. He was a true-hearted Englishman; and, withal, a citizen of the world. He loved the men of his own race tenderly, dearly; but he loved all kinds and conditions of men abroad as generously. On this point let me cite a single passage:-" And when the music is silent, and the people go off silently and soberly withal (for there are no drunkards in these parts) to their early beds, you stand and look up into the purple night (as Homer calls it), that southern sky intensely dark, and yet transparent withal, through which you seem to look beyond the stars into the infinite itself; and recollect that, beyond all that-and through all that likewise -there is an infinite good God, who cares for all these simple kindly folk; and that, by Him, all their hearts are as well known, and all their infirmities as mercifully weighed, as are (you trust) your own. And so you go to rest, content to say, with the wise American, It takes all sorts to make a world.""

6

It was natural that one, who so ardently loved the beautiful and stately, should delight in vigorous health, and place high that study which has as its object its preservation. Health of mind and body, well-developed limbs, a sound constitution; these were things the importance of which never lessened in his eyes. Two years before his death he delivered an address to the members of the Midland Institute, in Birmingham, which did much towards popularising the study of the laws of health. In his speech he spoke with deep feeling of the injury which war does to the physique of a nation by claiming, as its spoil, the finest men in

E E

the land, and leaving to the small and weak the continuance of the race. He deplored the bad sanitary arrangements of towns, the miserable quarters of artisans, the disastrous effects of overwork. "Learn something of the structure of your own bodies," was his earnest advice; "learn to value the glorious gift of health; seek happiness, not in luxury and sensual enjoyment, but in living naturally, in accordance with the great laws God has imposed for their good on His people."

Out-door sports, of course, he delighted in. How could such a lover of nature pass his spare time in the seclusion of his study? Out. upon the moors, galloping down the lanes, clearing hedges; fishing; visiting foreign lands; in his garden; on the sea-shore,his well-developed and spare, though powerful form, was in its element. So it came to pass that men spoke of him as the advocate of muscular Christianity, the man whose love of nature, whose passionate pursuit of good health, made him attach almost undue importance to a fine physique, to a robust and well-knit frame.

He was eminently a practical man, was Kingsley. Not the ornamental, but the useful, was his motto. No doubt he admired great classical scholars; but he perhaps thought still more of science and modern studies. Master Spanish, Italian, French, German, was his cry; baving first, of course, learnt Latin, the key to three of these languages at least. These, he would say, are useful, practical subjects. Then, too, learn science-chemistry, as it teaches the composition of all the substances we handle; physiology, as it shows the functions and uses of the body; geology, as it reveals the structure of the earth; botany and natural history, as they deal with the plants and animals the bounteous God has given His children. So much weight was attached to bis opinion that a few words from him induced the people of Birmingham to appoint a local teacher of Spanish.

He had strange views, so theologians said, of the origin of disease. God, said he, was free from caprice; He was love itself; He thought of the happiness of His children; He could not send disease and suffering just to cause them sorrow. No doubt, in a certain sense, affliction, as well as happiness, comes from Him; but, the latter is the normal condition of man; the former the abnormal. When disease comes, it comes not as a divine dispen. sation, an arbitrary expression of tremendous, irresponsible power; it comes to avenge outraged laws; it comes because man seeks it. In one of his sermons there is a sentence, which tells more of the causes of disease than all the articles that appear, in ten years, in the medical papers contrive to do. It is this:-"God punishes us, not by His caprice, but by His laws. He does not break His