.)/)' FATHER. 



K 



new law here among factories and cities 

 in this Wilderness of Sin (Numbers 

 xxxiii. 12) called Progress of Civilisa- 

 tion and be " the Captain of our Exodus 

 into the Canaan of a truer social 

 order." ' 



HIS MOST PRECIOUS BOOKS 

 'That great ideal of the editor as 

 ' the Captain of our Exodus into the 

 Canaan of a true: 1 social order ' still 

 glows like a pillar of fire amid the mid- 

 night gloom before the journalists of 

 the world. But, alas ! it may still be 

 asked — as it was when the Rev. Homer 

 Wilbur preached the sermon which led 

 the editor of the 'Jaalam Independent 

 Blunderbuss ' unaccountably to absent 

 himself from the meeting-house — of the 

 thousands of mutton-loving shepherds 

 who edit our newspapers, ' How many 

 have even the dimmest perception of 

 their immense power and the duties con- 

 sequent thereon ? Here and there haply 

 one. Nine hundred and ninety-nine 

 labour to impress upon the people the 

 great principles of Tweedledum, and 

 other nine hundred and ninety-nine 

 preach with equal earnestness the gospel 

 according to Tweedledee.' It was three 

 or four years before I again felt the 

 kindling touch of Mr. Lowell's genius. 

 Like many other youths in those days, I 

 was in the habit of competing for the 

 modest prizes offered for essays in the 

 ' Boys' Own Magazine,' which was then 

 published by S. O. Beeton. I wrote 

 several, always under the name of ' W. 

 T. Silcoates,' and only succeeded once 

 in gaining a prize. My solitary success 

 was an essay on Oliver Cromwell. The 

 prize was one guinea, which had to be 

 taken out in books published by the pro- 

 prietors of the ' Boys' Own Magazine.' 

 After selecting books valued at twenty 

 shillings, I chose 'The Poetical Works 

 of lames Russell Lowel ' to make up 

 the guinea. That little volume, with its 

 green paper cover, lies before me now, 

 thumbed almost to pieces, underscored, 

 and marked in the margin throughout, 

 and inside there is written, ' To W. T. 

 Silcoates, with Mr. Beeton's best wishes.' 

 With the exception of the little copy of 

 Thomas a Kempis, which General Gor- 

 don gave to me as he was starting for 



Khartoum, it is the most precious of all 

 my books. It has been with me every- 

 where. In Russia, in Ireland, in Rome, 

 in prison, it has been a constant com- 

 panion. 



THE POEM THAT "(HANGED MY LIFE." 



"That little book reached me at a 

 somewhat critical time. I was saturated 

 with the memories of the Puritans, and 

 hllecl with a deep sense of the unworthi- 

 ness of my old literary ambitions. My 

 health, impaired by overstudy, affected 

 my eyes, and for some terrible months 

 1 was haunted by the consciousness of a 

 possible blindness. It was then that I 

 came upon Mr. Lowell's little-known 

 poem, ' Extreme Unction,' which I find 

 marked in pencil — -' This poem changed 

 my life.' " 



" I don't think any four lines ever 

 printed went into my life so deeply as 

 these : — 



' Now here T gasp ; what lose my kind, 

 When this fast-ebbing breath shall 

 part ? 



What bands of love and service bind 

 This being to the world's sad heart ?' 



' The idea that everything wrong in 

 the world was a divine call to use your 

 life in righting it sank deeper into my 

 soul. How well I remember, night after 

 night, looking down from the Manors 

 railway station over the house-crowded 

 valley at the base of All Saints' Church, 

 Newcastle, which towered above them 

 all, all black and empty, like the vast 

 sepulchre of a dead God, and thinking 

 that behind every lighted window which 

 gleamed through the smoky darkness 

 there was at least one human being 

 whose heart was full of all the tragedies 

 of love and hate, of life and of death, 

 and yet between them and me what a 

 great gulf was fixed! How could 

 bands of love and service be woven be- 

 tween these innumerable units so as to 

 make us all one brotherhood once more? 

 There they sat by lamp and candle — 

 so near, and vet 111 all the realities of 

 their existence, as far apart as the fixed 

 stars. And there grew up in me, largely 

 under Lowell's influence, a feeling as if 

 there was something that blasphemed 

 God in whatever interposed a barrier 



