The Rev. C. Kingsley rj 



When his father was given a hving in Chelsea by Lord 

 Cadogan, Kingsley went to King's College, walking backwards 

 and forwards from Chelsea daily, and became not a little bored 

 with the unending parochial activities in his parents' parish. 

 Both the district visitors and the young ladies given to good 

 works failed to please him, judging by a letter he wrote to a 

 friend at this time, in which he refers to these worthy people as 

 being — " Nothing but ugly splay-footed beings, three -fourths 

 of whom can't sing, and the other quarter sing miles out of tune 

 with voices like love-sick parrots. Confound ! " 



In 1838 he went to Magdalene College, Cambridge, where at 

 first he showed signs of being something of a recluse. He read 

 the Oxford pamphlet, which appeared at this time, and becam.e 

 entangled in the theological hurly-burly that swept over the 

 two great universities. He worked himself up into a dis- 

 tressing state of mind, beset on all sides with doubts and 

 speculation ; of course what was happening v/as only the 

 mental upheaval that all active minds have to meet and conquer, 

 as has been told by Carlyle in his " Sartor Resartus," and is 

 there for those who are ready to dig for it under the mantle of 

 obscurity the author has thrown about his meaning, in that 

 strange work of genius. All Kingsley 's letters show how this 

 struggle was raging within him at the time. First the Athan- 

 asian Creed got up against his path, and we hear such phrases 

 as, " Bigotry, cruelty and quibbling." By the way, he ulti- 

 mately became quite reconciled to the creed, but that was years 

 later. There were passionate letters of doubt written : " You 

 cannot conceive the moments of self-abasement and self-shame 

 I have. ... If the philosophers of old were right, and I am 

 right in my religion, alas for Christendom ! and if I am wrong, 

 alas for myself ! . . . I cannot say, with the French atheist, 

 ' O God (if there be a God).' I cannot entreat Him on the 

 chance of His possessing a power I do not believe He possesses." 

 Then came a time when nothing seemed to matter. It was the 

 centre of the whirlpool. He wanted to fly to the far west and 

 live all by himself in the prairies. This led to the conclusion 

 that he would have a good time first. Why not ? as nothing 

 mattered. So he hunted, played cards, shot duck in the fens, 

 learnt boxing under a negro fighter, neglected his work, and 

 incidentally became very popular. There is a description of 



