290 FRANCIS ORPEN MORRIS 



years, for he had none of the ways of old men about 

 him ; his mind and memory were fully as fresh and 

 active at eighty as they were at fifty, and he was as 

 thoroughly alive to the questions of the day and the' 

 events that were passing around him at the latter 

 period as he was at the former. His sight and hearing 

 were practically as good in 1892 as in 1872 ; if his 

 step was not quite as elastic a year or two before his 

 death as of yore, he could at least walk several miles 

 without fatigue. 



No trouble was too great for him to take in order 

 to rectify any statement which seemed to him to need 

 correction, but which the ordinary reader would 

 have let pass without comment. His action on 

 these occasions can best be described, perhaps, by 

 saying that he appeared ever on the look-out, and 

 was ready to fall upon the unwary scribe like a hawk 

 that had been hovering over its prey. 



I need not mention names, but, as an instance of 

 this, will only say that one Mr. X. had been contri- 

 buting his opinions to a certain Church paper on 

 a point connected with the headings to the chap- 

 ters in the Bible. This correspondent had, in the 

 course of his observations, made some extraordi- 

 nary statements which need not here be entered 

 into ; they were such, however, as to carry absurdity 

 on the face of them, and most of those who read 

 them would assuredly have at once seen the palpable 

 errors, and not have considered the writer worth the 

 powder and shot necessary to demolish him. Not 

 so Mr. Morris. He took the trouble to give a whole 



