REMINISCENCES. Ixiii 



Reprinted from " The Christian" October 3rc?, 1895, 



Professor Charles Cardale Babington, M.A., F.R.S., was the son 

 of Dr. Joseph Babington. From earliest childhood he was sur- 

 rounded by healthful stimulating influences, receiving from the lips 

 of parents and relatives that sound teaching, both in doctrine and 

 practice, which can only come by careful obedience to the one infal- 

 lible guide — the Word of God. Through the long life which lately 

 closed, that faith was never shadowed, but, with the simple trust of 

 a child, the great student of Nature, the keen observer, the profound 

 admirer of every detail in God's wonderful world, "kept the faith." 

 " The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have 

 pleasure therein " — this was a verse he loved, and he longed that 

 his own keen delight in the minutest outcome of the Creator's power 

 might be widely enjoyed by others. 



Many a young man attending his lectures as Professor of Botany 

 at Cambridge, must recollect how carefully he ever sought to remind 

 his class that in no study could the mind be more led to contemplate 

 with wonder and adoration the God of Power and Love. And in 

 these days of excitement and rush for pleasure, would it not be well 

 if time were given, even during a busy period of the year, and far 

 more during a vacation, for the quiet pursuit of some study in 

 Natural Science, which not only furnishes opportunities for the 

 awakening and strengthening of the observing powers, but which 

 aids the heart in looking up and entering more fully into the words 

 of the Psalmist : "Thou, Lord, hast made me glad through thy work" ? 



Professor Babington was a man of many-sided sympathies. The 

 Irish Church Missions Society commended itself to him through 

 personal knowledge gained when visiting Ireland botanically and 

 archaeologically ; and his deep interest led him to visit the missions 

 in Dublin and Connemara, and also that in the Achill Islands. 



The C.M.S. had in him a warm and true friend, and few of its 

 supporters could be found more keenly interested in the perusal of 

 its monthly Intelligencer. The work in Uganda had a large share 

 of interest for him, but his warmest sympathies with the C.M.S. 

 were in connexion with the beloved and honoured Eev. Jani Alii 

 and the work he carried on amongst the Mohammedans in Calcutta. 

 This name recalls the large numbers of University men who gathered 

 from time to time in the home at Brookside, either for social inter- 

 course amongst a very few at a time, or in crowded audiences to 

 hear some chosen speaker on missions, or for a Bible-reading. For 

 the latter, none was ever more warmly welcomed than the beloved 

 Sir Arthur Blackwood, whose last Bible-reading in that Brookside 

 home was given on Nov. 23, 1890, the eighty -second birthday of 

 the Professor. Among the audience was a member of the Brahmo 

 Somaj, who had expressed a desire to attend, and who afterwards 

 said he would carry back to India the memory of the words he 

 heard on that day. 



