164 GEOEGE JOHN EOMANES issi- 



This service, unless a clergyman happened to be 

 staying at Geanies, he conducted himself, and ended 

 it by reading a sermon. He had all his Presbyterian 

 ancestors' love for a good discourse, and serious efforts 

 had to be made to prevent him from reading too long 

 a sermon. 



Mozley's ' University Sermons ' he liked parti- 

 cularly, and when these were divided, they were 

 tolerated by his audience, who at first considered them 

 much too long. He also read many of Dean Church's 

 sermons. 



He first knew the Dean in 1883, and although he 

 only went very occasionally to the Deanery, he was 

 greatly impressed by the striking personality of the 

 great divine and scholar, whom to know was to love. 

 The Dean's beautiful style, his great learning, his intel- 

 lectual sympathy with perplexities and troubles of heart 

 and mind, and the indefinable air of distinction which a 

 great writer stamps on every bit of work he undertakes, 

 all appealed to Mr. Romanes ; and above and beyond 

 all these, the almost austere loftiness of thought, the 

 moral heights implied in Dean Church's writings, 

 seized on the mind of one who, beyond all else, 

 reverenced personal character and personal good- 

 ness. 



He really enjoyed reading Dean Church's sermons, 

 and they exercised much influence on him. For 

 Newman, on the other hand, he had little liking, and 

 indeed he never did Newman adequate justice. He 

 had promised a friend just before his death to read 

 more of Newman, and discover for himself the great 

 gifts of that wonderful man, but there was not time. 

 Only one bit of Newman's writing was dear to him, 

 ' Lead, kindly Light.' 



The following letter rose out of a conversation 



