GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 331 



on those in the darkness around lay the solemn responsi- 

 bility if they were not attracted into its circle of radiance. 



Over such a mind, so earnestly and deeply convinced, 

 external considerations could have little sway. " My mind 

 to me a kingdom is," my father used often to repeat, 

 but not at all in the sense of the poet. Society had no 

 court of appeal against any course of action which my 

 father's conscience prompted, and it was rather a subject 

 of congratulation that, having chosen to lead a retired 

 and meditative life, he really did not come into collision 

 with the world. He belonged to the race from which 

 passive martyrs are taken. He had no desire to go out 

 with a trumpet and a sword, but in his own quieter way 

 he was as stubborn as any of the victims of Bloody Mary. 

 If he had happened to object to any of the modes in which 

 government, as at present constituted, operates in social 

 discipline ; if, for instance, he had formed conscientious 

 scruples against paying rates, or being vaccinated, he 

 would have offered the absolute maximum of resistance. 

 Fortunately for his domestic peace, he did not come into 

 collision with the law on any of these points. But he had 

 peculiarities which showed the iron rigidity of his con- 

 science. He had a very singular objection to the feast of 

 Christmas, conceiving this festival to be a heathen survival 

 to which the name of Christ had been affixed in hideous 

 profanity. This objection showed itself in amusing and 

 bewildering ways. He regarded plum-pudding and roast 

 turkey as innocent and acceptable, if the fatal word had 

 not been pronounced in connection with them ; but if once 

 they were spoken of as " Christmas turkey," or a " Christ- 

 mas pudding," they became abominable, " food offered to 

 idols." Biblical students will observe the source of this 

 idea — a most ingenious adaptation to modern life of an 

 injunction to the Corinthians. Friends who knew this 



