xviii MEMOIRS. 



scientific fact as scientific men see it, and not with 

 a mere outsider's interest ; and therefore, here too, 

 in the dealings of science with religion he could 

 do a friend's justice to both sides, and could speak 

 words to help their mutual intelligence, to disarm 

 prejudice, and to reassure anxiety. This task, to 

 which he was first almost accidentally turned, be- 

 came perhaps the most special vocation of his life. 

 He came to it partly through his eager love of 

 botany and flowers, by which so many remember 

 him. When he was on the Kentish coast two or 

 three years ago, staying only some three weeks, he 

 sent to the local paper when he left a list of the 

 local flora prepared by his own collecting, and 

 numbering about three hundred kinds. This love 

 of botany gave him an insight into science through 

 one familiar bit. A happy friendship with one of 

 our ablest young biologists, Mr. E. B. Poulton, in the 

 Keble Common Room, was a great help to him in 

 this respect, and the request to read a paper at the 

 Reading Church Congress on "Evolution" embarked 

 him on the course of serious and responsible utter- 

 ances on these matters, of which the Guardian 

 became the chief channel, and which, as has been 

 said, " lifted a heavy load from many hearts " which 

 had been oppressed by the sound of conflict between 

 God's books of revelation and nature. 



But the" significance of this piece of his work is 

 not seen unless we realize that it was done so well 



