354 APPENDIX I. 



After two or three weeks we planned to go on a Sunday evening 

 to this public room, where a section of the Christians called 

 " Plymouth Brethren " were meeting, according to the simplicity 

 of the New Testament Scripture principles, without ritual, choral 

 adjunct, or outward adornment. Here we found Philip Henry 

 Gosse addressing the meeting from a high desk in the corner of 

 the room next the window. There were about thirty or forty 

 people present. It was a gospel address from a part of the 

 story of Boaz and Ruth, which history he was going through on 

 successive Sunday evenings. It is a singularly beautiful type of 

 Christ and His Church. I found, afterwards, it was a favourite 

 method with Mr. Gosse to illustrate the New through the charac- 

 ters of the Old Testament. He would say, "There is but one 

 key, whereby we are able to unlock the hidden treasures contained 

 in the Bible, and this one key — which is Christ — aided by that 

 spiritual discernment of sacred things, which the Holy Spirit 

 alone can give, will enable us to unfold and open many hidden 

 truths, lying far beneath the surface of apparently simple narrative, 

 but which will be found to be highly typical of our Saviour, the 

 Redeemer of His Church, of His person, and of His work." 



After the meeting was over, my friend and I walked with Mr. 

 Gosse and his little son as far as Sandhurst gate. Before we 

 parted, he told Mr. Curtis that there were Scripture-reading meet- 

 ings held at his house, and that he would be pleased to see him 

 and any friends who liked to accompany him. We returned to 

 the cottage, well pleased with the minister and his courteous and 

 kind manner to us as strangers. At this time, he was deeply 

 engaged in literary work, bringing out his Romance of Natural 

 History and completing his Actinologia Britannica. He was in the 

 full vigour and swing of his useful life, ardent and enthusiastic in 

 every movement. Two or three times a week he and his son, who 

 was always with him — " the little naturalist," as he had been called 

 in one of his father's books — would go, when the tide was fittest, 

 with a basket, filled with many bottles and jars of various size, 

 chisel, hammer, and other implements, to the shores far and near. 

 They might often be seen, running and jumping down the 

 declivities of the rocks, till they reached the pebbly shores at 

 Oddicombe or Babbicombe. 



His study, which I was permitted to look into on a later visit, 



