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STANLEY 



Abbey (1886), Essays on Church ami .sV<i/c (1870), 

 Lecture* on the Scottish Church (1872), Addreuet 

 and Sermon* delivered at St Andrew* (1877), Ser- 

 mons and Addrette* ( 1878), Memorial* of Edward 

 and Catherine Stanley (1879), and Christian Institu- 

 tion* ( 1881 ). The outstanding events in Stanley's 

 personal history, after his public life had begun, 

 were his travels in K^vpt and Palestine in 1852-53, 

 which sug^Mcd liis Stniii ami Palestine, and those 

 in Russia in 1857, during which he collected tho 

 materials for the vivid pictures of the ecclesiastical 

 life and history of Russia which occupy the last 

 four lectures of tas Eastern Church : his accompany- 

 ing the Prince of Wales on his Eastern tour in 1862; 

 his marriage in 1863 to Lady Augusta Bruce ( 1822- 

 76), of the Elgin family ; a second visit to Russia 

 in 1874, when he celebrated the English marriage 

 of the Dnke and Duchess of Edinburgh ; and his 

 visit to America in 1878. 



Stanley had a keen sense of humour ; his talk 

 was bright and abundant, passing easily from 

 grave to gay, wholly free from affectation, gossip, 

 or ill-natured or ill-informed chatter of any sort. 

 Few men, if any, of his generation bad a wider 

 and more diversified circle of friends and acquaint- 

 ances. His large tolerance, charity, and sympathy 

 drew round him, by an irresistible attraction, all 

 but the extreme bigots of ecclesiastical parties. 

 To these he was the object of special aversion. 

 High Church Anglicans in particular could never 

 forgive him for championing Colenso, for preach- 

 ing in Scottish Presbyterian pulpits, and for ad- 

 ministering the holy sacrament in Henry VII. 's 

 chapel to the revisers of the authorised version 

 one of them being a Unitarian, and several Presby- 

 terians. This action, however, was in perfect 

 accordance with the principle on which he invented 

 the Abbey, recognising it as a great Valhalla, 

 above all 'sectarian jealousies and divisions, to be 

 used in the interests of religious concord and liberty. 

 Among his last words were these : ' I am humbly 

 trustful that I have sustained before the mind of 

 the nation the extraordinary value of the Abbey, 

 as a religious, national, and lil>eral institution.' 

 It was his pride to add to its treasures, to enrich 

 and multiply its services, and to throw it freely 

 open to the people, multitudes of whom he, week 

 after week, would conduct through it, explaining 

 to them its history and contents. In his character 

 as a churchman Stanley was pre-eminently repre- 

 sentative of the highest culture and the broadest 

 theology of the Church of England. He had 

 inherited from his father the bishop, and had 

 imbibed from Arnold his master, just and literal 

 ideas as to what a national church should lie 

 comprehensive, intellectually free, charitable, and 

 not aggressive in its relations to nonconformity. 

 The Church of England, he maintained, ' by the 

 very condition of its )>eing, was not high or low, 

 but broad.' Of this breadth he held the connec- 

 tion with the state to be the safeguard. The 

 supremacy of the crown was simply the supremacy 

 of the law, the removal of which would expose the 

 just freedom of theological thought and of clerical 

 action to the dominion of individuals or courts 

 none the less likely to ! oppressive because they 

 would claim to wield, by divine right, a purely 

 spiritual power. In the current sense of the terms, 

 Stanley was both Ernstian and Latitudinarian ; 

 but only because of his love of liberty, which he 

 felt endangered by the pretensions of sacerdotalism 

 on the one hand and of orthodox dogmatism on the 

 other. Christianity to him was sacred because of 

 its moral and spiritual elements, and the divinely 

 perfect life which embodied these ; but for the 

 systematic theology which had grown up around 

 tne evangelic records and the apostolic teaching 

 he had little reverence ; and he had none at all for 



the pretensions and 'mysteries' of the pri.-tli. >...!. 

 The controversies about attitudes, lights, vest- 

 ments, and the like, which agitated the Anglican 

 Church, could not be lifted, in his opinion, out of 

 the region of 'the infinitely little,' even by the 

 doctrinal relations which exalted them in the eyes 

 of the ritualistic party. The relish with which 

 he traced details of ecclesiastical dress and usage 

 Kick to their often homely and simple historical 

 origins was as exasperating to the ritualist as tin* 

 energy with which he threw himself into the 

 defence of the theological position of Maurice, of 

 the writers of Essays and licvietrs, and of Bishop 

 Colenso was to the ordinary i'Miii;. r ''lic:il. While 

 the evangelicals deplored his lack of the 'root i>f 

 the matter,' the ritualists sneered at him as 'the 

 honorary member of all religions,' and 'the chief 

 Nonconformist in the Church of England.' But 

 Stanley held on his way, urged not only hy his 

 love of freedom, but by an innate chivalry of spirit 

 which responded to the appeal of every vilified 

 name, or struggling cause, or forlorn hope, but 

 which was repelled by the self-assertion of the 

 prosperous, the arrogance of the powerful, and the 

 dull self-satisfaction of the conservative tradition- 

 alist. Thus, while he refused to let the Pan- 

 Anglican Synod shelter its congress under the 

 great name of the Abbey, he asked Colenso to 

 preach there while under the ban of Convocation ; 

 and when Pere Hyacinthe broke with the Roman 

 hierarchy, and encountered the ecclesiastical ainl 

 social ostracism which visited his marriage, he 

 found refuge and countenance for himself and his 

 wife beneath Stanley's roof. 



Naturally Stanley's literary work does not entitle 

 him to rank among doctors of dogmatic theology. 

 His one purely theological book was that on the 

 Epistles to the Corinthians ; but in it he led the 

 way to that application of fresh and open criticism 

 and of vivid historical illustration to the sacred 

 text in which he has been followed by all the best 

 English exegetes of the present day. He was most 

 at home in historical delineation and exposition. 

 Probably in all his works exact dogmatists might 

 mark here and there a vagueness of definition, and 

 keen critics detect a hasty induction or a histori- 

 cal inaccuracy ; but no one could fail to admire 

 the faculty of living reproduction of the past, of 

 picturesquely apposite illustration, of adaptation 

 of every collateral aid and association in producing 

 the one perfect impression he wished to stamp on 

 the memory ; or to sympathise with the lofty ideal 

 of human life the firm faith in the divine 

 righteousness, the scorn of baseness, the love of 

 truth, that brightened every page. 



As a preacher from the pulpit of the A hbey Stanley 

 wielded a wide influence. His oongnMaOn there 

 was the great multitude that thronged the church 

 whenever it was known he was to preach ; and his 

 sermons always conveyed a message of high reli- 

 gious purtiose, of peace and reconciliation, and at 

 any public crisis, or after any national loss, en- 

 forced, with perfect grace and wise moderation, 

 the proper lesson, or paid the lilting tribute, or 

 pointed the essential moral. Availing himself of 

 the independent position which was his as successor 

 to the A I. lints of Westminster, and which laid him 

 under no episcopal jurisdiction, he used to invite 

 friends from the ranks of English nonconformity 

 and of the Scottish Church, and even such an illus- 

 trious layman as Max-Muller, to address the con- 

 gregation that filled the nave at evening service : 

 thus, and by every means in his power, seeking to 

 show his catholicity and his desire to break down 

 walls of separation. 



Stanley's position in society was unique. Hia 

 ancient lineage, his independent and exalted eccle- 

 siastical office, his personal popularity, his alliance 



