330 THE LIFE OF PHILIP HENRY GOSSE. 



and self-contained habit of mind, he found it impossible 

 to throw in his lot with the system of any existing 

 Christian Church. In middle life he had connected him- 

 self with the Plymouth Brethren, principally, no doubt, 

 because of their lack of systematic organization, their repu- 

 diation of all traditional authority, their belief that the Bible 

 is the infallible and sufficient guide. But he soon lost 

 confidence in the Plymouth Brethren also, and for the last 

 thirty years of his life he was really unconnected with any 

 Christian body whatever. What was very curious was that, 

 with his intense persistence in the study of religious ques- 

 tions, he should feel no curiosity to know the views of others. 

 In those thirty years he scarcely heard any preacher of 

 his own reputed sect ; I am confident that he never once 

 attended the services of any unaffiliated minister. 



He had gathered round him at St. Marychurch a 

 cluster of friends, mostly of a simple and rustic order, to 

 whom he preached and expounded, and amongst whom he 

 officiated as minister and head. This little body he called 

 " The Church of Christ in this Parish," ignoring, with a 

 sublime serenity, the claims of all the other religious 

 institutions with which St. Marychurch might be supplied. 

 His attitude, without the least intentional arrogance or 

 unfriendliness, was exactly that which some first apostle of 

 the Christian faith in Ceylon or Sumatra might have 

 adopted, to whom his own converts were ''the Church," 

 and the surrounding Asiatics, of whatever civilization, of 

 whatever variety of ancient and divergent creed, merely 

 " the world." He made no attempt, however, to prosely- 

 tize ; he alternated his expositions to the flock under his 

 care by addresses, of an explanatory and hortatory cha- 

 racter, to outsiders, in " the Room," as his little chapel was 

 with severe modesty styled. But his view was that the 

 light was kept burning in the small community, and that 



