STANLEY, AETHUR P. 



823 



was a favorite pupil and enjoyed the especial 

 friendship of Dr. Thomas Arnold a fact which 

 may, without doubt, be assumed to have had 

 close connection with the broadness and liber- 

 ality of his thought and doctrines as a clergy- 

 man of the Church of England. Later in life 

 Stanley manifested his love for his old master 

 in a " Life of Arnold," breathing in every chap- 

 ter the old Rugby spirit of protest against des- 

 potism, and deep sympathy with every phase 

 of progress and every movement to aid and 

 elevate mankind. In 1837, being at that time 

 no more than twenty-two years of age, he won 

 a first class in classics at Balliol College, Ox- 

 ford, having already gained the Newdegate 

 prize for an English poem on the subject of 

 the gypsies. He also carried off the Ireland 

 scholarship, and became a Fellow of University 

 College. Two years later he received the Latin 

 essay prize, and in 1840 the English essay 

 prize, and the theological prizes were also 

 showered upon him. Great as were these dis- 

 tinctions for so young a man, it seemed at that 

 time as if Stanley were to follow the course of 

 many a recluse scholar doomed to the studious 

 leisure and comparative obscurity of an ancient 

 seat of learning. Although Arthur Stanley con- 

 tinued for twelve years to act as a tutor in Uni- 

 versity College, nevertheless, in after-life he 

 became a man of society, and, in a certain 

 sense, of the world. He was appointed a 

 Select Preacher in 1845-'46, and Secretary of 

 the Oxford University Commission from 1850- 

 '52. Other honorable appointments followed 

 in the order named : Canon of Canterbury, 

 1851-'58; Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical 

 History at Oxford, 1856-'64; Canon of Christ 

 Church and Chaplain to the Bishop of London, 

 1858-'64; besides being Honorary Chaplain to 

 the Queen and the Prince of Wales, and Deputy 

 Clerk of the Closet. In 18G3 he declined the 

 appointment of Archbishop of Dublin, and 

 early in the following year was made Dean ot 

 Westminster, a position he occupied thoughout 

 the remainder of his life, his associate therein 

 being for a time the late Canon Kingsley. 

 The abbey and everything connected with it 

 became a passion with Stanley. He studied 

 its antiquities and dilated upon them, restored, 

 renovated, and in various ways beautified that 

 ancient building to the best of his great ability. 

 In 1872 he was a second time chosen Select 

 Preacher to the University, and in March, 1875, 

 he was installed Lord Rector of the University 

 of St. Andrews. His powerful and sympa- 

 thetic address delivered on that occasion was 

 one of his happiest efforts, and is still fresh in 

 the public recollection. In 1876 he met witli 

 the great sorrow of his life in the loss of his 

 wife, Lady Augusta Bruce, daughter of the Earl 

 of Elgin, to whom he was married in 1802. 

 She was an intimate friend of the Queen, and 

 her death was the occasion for extraordinary 

 manifestations of regard for her memory and 

 sympathy for her bereaved husband, both in 

 Great Britain and the United States. Never, 



perhaps, was any woman borne to her grave 

 amid such a prolusion of panegyric, and never 

 before did any man receive wider and more 

 sincere sympathy than was extended to the 

 afflicted Dean by all classes, from the Queen 

 down to the daily laborer. In 1878 he visited 

 the United States in search of health and rest, 

 and was greeted everywhere, not only with the 

 respect his genius commanded, but with warm 

 personal friendship. While in this country he 

 frequently preached in various pulpits, and he 

 was as intimate with Drs. Adams and Schaff, 

 as with the late Dr. Washburne and the Rev. 

 Phillips Brooks, of his own religious faith. 

 He addressed the students of the Union The- 

 ological Seminary in this city, and appeared 

 in the pulpits of Calvary, Grace, and Trinity 

 Churches. 



At the New York Century Club reception, 

 in response to the address of welcome by the 

 Rev. Dr. William Adams, Dean Stanley spoke 

 in part as follows, on his personal impressions 

 of the New World : 



There are two impressions which are fixed upon my 

 mind as to the leading characteristics of the people 

 among whom I have passed, as the almanac informs 

 me, but two short months. Everything seems to be 

 fermenting and crowing, and yet I have been no far- 

 ther West than Niagara. As I stood in the moonlight 

 at that great work and ceaseless labor of nature, and 

 saw it for the first time, it looked to me like the in- 

 cessant activity and tireless, restless, beating whirl- 

 pool of life and existence here. In the everlasting 

 tumult of the abyss I saw the undying push and ac- 

 tivity of America. In the mist-cloud that rose in the 

 moonlight I saw images somehow of American des- 

 tiny. In the silver column that rose silent into the 

 ni^ht I saw the watchful power that should be tho 

 pillar of light to the posterity of each nation. The 

 other impression I have had very strongly forced upon 

 me is the ev^r-present hopefulness ana buoyancy pi 

 the people. Keady ever to step forward and try again 

 what had been abandoned as beyond the grasp of the 

 older people of Europe, they work night and day to 

 supersede these progressions by new devices and new 

 methods. 



This will probably be my last visit to this Western 

 World, and I have likened it to Wordsworth's Yar- 

 row unvisited, Yarrow visited, and Yarrow revisited. 

 The third stage would not, in all probability, be a full 

 fruition ; but, if it was, I should come to a land of 

 kindly homes, where I had been treated as the best 

 and with the best. But even were it never to be my 

 pleasure to repeat this visit, I can recall it in the cor- 

 dial greetings of my American friends abroad. I have 

 a fervent hope and abiding belief that the bond which 

 fastens America to the mother-land will never bo 

 broken, but continue and grow even stronger. 



Near the shores of Lake George, the Loch Katrine 

 of America, I saw an oak and a maple so joined that 

 they seemed like one tree. I am reminded by this ot 

 the'old oak of England, with its gnarled and twisted 

 root, and the young shoot of America, with glorious 

 promise for the future. May the union of tho two 

 trees on one root be always typical of the union of 

 America and England ! 



The Dean, always cordial to Americans, was, 

 if possible, still more so after his visit to this 

 country. To the writer, who was in London 

 in the summer of 1870, he expressed his grati- 

 tude for the great kindness everywhere ex- 

 tended to him in the United States, and his 

 belief in the magnificent future of our country. 



