214 THE LIFE OF PHILIP HENRY GOSSE. 



was one at which those who knew human nature better 

 might smile, but which was neither ignoble nor unattractive. 

 These early Brethren had at least one strong point. 

 The absence from their ritual of any other book threw 

 them upon the study of the Bible, and the fact that mast 

 of the founders of the sect were educated and, perhaps it 

 may be added, somewhat eccentrically educated men, 

 made their exposition of the Scripture deep, ingenious, 

 and unconventional. 



One result of these new religious ties w^as the formation 

 of fresh scruples with regard to any action of a worldly 

 kind. The Brethren held that it was the duty of the 

 Christian to leave all revenge to God, to bow to injury 

 and insult, and, above all, on no occasion to use any form 

 of words stronger than affirmation. In the autumn of 

 1847, while Philip Gosse was looking into the window of 

 a print shop, at the corner of Wellington Street, Strand, a 

 boy picked his pocket of a silk handkerchief. A police- 

 man saw the thief, caught him, and dragged him to Bow 

 Street, where the victim of the theft was asked to prose- 

 cute ; " but I," says my father in a letter recording the 

 incident, " from Brethren's notions of grace, refused, and 

 they would not restore me the handkerchief" Soon after- 

 wards, while his mother, he, and the servant-maid were all 

 out at meeting one Sunday morning, the house was broken 

 open and robbed. A watch, some miniatures, and other 

 valuables were stolen. The police came to make inquiries, 

 but, for conscience' sake, the owner refused to take any 

 steps in pursuit. I should add that the extreme punctilio 

 of which these trifling occurrences are examples was after- 

 wards modified ; but my father always retained a great 

 repugnance to the prosecution of individual criminals, 

 though very severe on crime in the abstract. 



Amono- those who met, with this austere simplicity, at 



