REMOVAL TO BELVEDERE. 27 



the first occasion, serious mischief had been averted by 

 the timely use of the Turkish bath ; but on the second, 

 an obstinate and painful gathering had formed on the 

 left hand, which did not show signs of healing until a 

 visit had been paid to Margate, supplemented by a 

 further, but shorter, trip to the New Forest. It was 

 evident enough that city life suited neither ; and so, in 

 1862, just six years after coming to the hospital, he 

 sent in his resignation, and at midsummer migrated to 

 Belvedere, near Woolwich, where he remained for 

 rather more than fifteen years. 



Soon after his arrival, he became acquainted with 

 the clergyman who was acting as locum tenens to the 

 vicar of the neighbouring parish of Erith, the Venerable 

 C. J. Smith ; the vicar himself, who had formerly been 

 Archdeacon of Jamaica, being awa} T from home for an 

 indefinite period. A kind of tacit agreement was 

 quickly entered into, in virtue of which my father 

 began to act as a kind of honorary curate, the parish 

 being a large one, and the duty somewhat too onerous 

 to be successfully undertaken by one individual. Not, 

 of course, that the ordinary week-day duties of a curate 

 fell to his lot : for those he had no time. But he 

 assisted in the Sunday and week-day services until the 

 return of the vicar in 1863, and then continued to do so 

 at the special request of the vicar himself. 



The character of the services at this time was very 

 deplorable. The clerk's wife played the harmonium, 

 and the clerk did the singing. If a member of the 

 congregation ventured to join in the responses, or to 



