314 The Bight Bev. The Lord Bishop of London [Feb. 5, 



of our oldest cathedrals. The crowd was so great that it had to be 

 addressed from various platforms, of which he occupied one. He 

 told me that he was led by his architectural surroundings to indulge 

 in a peroration in which he exhorted his hearers to act worthily of 

 their mighty past, and pointed to the splendid building as a perpetual 

 memorial of the great deeds and noble aspirations of their forefathers. 

 The allusion fell upon dull ears ; no cheer was raised ; the point was 

 entirely missed. My friend then strolled to the next platform, where 

 a longer- winded orator was indulging in a lengthier speech. He, too, 

 selected the cathedral to give local colour to his peroration. He 

 denounced the wrongs of the people, and shook his fist at the great 

 church as the symbol of oppression, the home of purse-proud prelates 

 who adorned themselves and their belongings at the expense of the 

 poor. But in this case also no cheer followed ; again a rhetorical 

 sally which owed its point to any feeling for the past was unheeded. 

 The working men cared neither for the good nor the evil of the past ; 

 their minds were set upon the present, and that was enough for them. 

 I think this indifference would not be shown nowadays. One view or 

 the other would raise a hearty cheer. There is nowadays a concep- 

 tion that things have grown, and that the way to mend them is to 

 get them to grow in the ri^ijht direction. This attitude of mind is 

 the abiding contribution which a knowledge of history will make to 

 social progress. Perhaps every branch of knowledge is more valu- 

 able for the temper which it creates, which can be shared by every one, 

 than by its direct contributions, which can be judged by only a 

 few. Again, I say, let us welcome the results of knowledge in any 

 and every form. 



It is not, however, my intention to-night to criticise the various 

 ways in which history has been written. It is enough to say that it 

 is not absolutely necessary to be dull in order to prove that you are 

 wise, or to repress all human emotion in order to show that you are 

 strictly impartial. On the other hand, the perpetual appeal to 

 sentiment grows tedious, and the steadfast desire to construct a 

 consistent character by disregarding uncomfortable facts, or explain- 

 ing them away, does not carry conviction. It is even more impossible 

 to write history with a purpose than it is to write fiction with a purpose. 

 Fiction can at least select its own limitations, and professedly excludes 

 all the events of the lives of its characters except what suits its imme- 

 diate purpose. We know that the state of the world's affairs could not 

 be set to suit a particular past, and that men cannot be read into the 

 expression of abstract principles. History is very impatient of direct 

 morals. Its teaching is to be found in large tendencies, which, it may 

 be, are very imperfectly traceable within particular limits. History 

 cannot be made picturesque by the skill of the writer. It must be 

 picturesque in itself if it is to be so at all. All that the writer can 

 claim is the artistic insight which discerns the elements of a forcible 

 composition in unexpected places, and reveals unknown beauties by 

 compelling attention to what might otherwise be overlooked. 



