82 sportsmen Parsons in Peace and War 



Catholic priesthood are encouraged or discouraged to pursue 

 " Truth for its own sake." After all, Kingsley said nothing 

 more harsh of the Church of Rome than Newman had already 

 said himself, though he recanted his sayings later. 



In Newman he found rather more than his match, for the 

 to-be Cardinal was a highly-skilled controversialist and scored 

 points heavily against his antagonist. 



The Bristol riots, which Kingsley had seen as a schoolboy 

 at Clifton, awakened his interest in the conditions under which 

 the working -classes lived, and it never abated. It was what 

 he saw in the slums of his father's London parish, and the 

 condition of Eversley when first he went there as a curate, 

 that turned his attention to the question of sanitation, and 

 he achieved great things, collecting a band of fellow-workers 

 about him whose efforts materially widened his sphere of 

 influence. 



He preached the doctrine of fresh air and cold water from 

 the pulpit wherever he went, and his methods were the origin 

 of the term " Muscular Christianity " which caught the popular 

 fancy as only empty phrases can do. Much of the improvement 

 in sanitation that took place during the succeeding quarter of a 

 century was directly or indirectly due to his ceaseless efforts. 



Kingsley habitually overworked himself, and his tempera- 

 ment that made it difficult for him to sit through a meal without 

 jumping up and fidgeting about the room at intervals, did not 

 help him to take much rest, however urgently needed. Several 

 times he was obliged to go abroad for a holiday, but fishing was 

 his favourite method of recuperation. The days he loved best 

 were spent by the river with his friend Tom Hughes, and when 

 he had to go alone, his first thought was always to let his friend 

 hear all about it. 



Kingsley was a keen naturalist as well as a geologist. It is 

 probably true that he was interested in too many subjects, for 

 his early writings gave promise of considerably greater things 

 than he ever achieved. His volatile nature sent him on a 

 thousand quests and always prevented him concentrating on 

 one theme, which might have given a really great writer to the 

 world. 



As it is, his "Water Babies" is an exquisite thing, and, like 

 " Alice in Wonderland," has given delight to more grown-up 



