XIV LIFE OF DR. ROLLESTON. 



Broad Church School, more sympathetic to him, relieved him in 

 his scientific work from the pressure of theological restraint, 

 while enlarging his tolerance of other men's views to the widest 

 stretch. But from first to last he held for himself, beneath and 

 almost untouched by theological or scientific discussion, the faith 

 of his early youth, much as he had it from his father, the York- 

 shire clergyman. It is well to get a clear idea of this at the 

 beginning in following Rolles ton's career, which cannot be 

 understood without it. But it must also be understood that 

 to him the good of theology consisted in its being the vehicle of 

 morality. It was one thing to hear him argue with his friend 

 Wickham Flower about Augustine's doctrine of the Fall of Man, 

 but quite another thing if all at once he came on some live 

 question of duty or honour, drawing from him solemn words in 

 tones which showed where the inmost motives of his mind were 

 enshrined. The memory of his early friends shows that in his 

 college days it was already with him as in later years, when he 

 had passed from taught to teacher. He had his great Homeric 

 laugh at a sentimentalist, and his all but ferocious scorn of a 

 charlatan. But let him have a right to enforce against selfish 

 resistance, or a wrong to expose and punish, let him feel called 

 on to attack the oppressor of the weak, or the perverter of 

 righteous dealing, then one might see his eyes kindle and his 

 massive features harden, into the attitude of combat, bringing 

 even his shoulders and arms into the first suggestion of battle, 

 truly signalling the mind within. In such real issues, rather 

 than in abstract questions of doctrine, the man and his impulses 

 are to be read. He was a born fighter, ever ready to do battle 

 for truth and right, wherever he believed truth and right were to 

 be found, and needed help from him. 



Among the records of Rolleston's Undergraduate days are 

 letters written to his friend Miss Mary Beever, a lady whom he 

 used to visit in her house on the side of Coniston, and who in 

 an auntly manner encouraged him to correspond with her in 

 the old-fashioned serious way. Letters written in men's student 

 days ought to be thus kept, showing as they do the growth and 



