"A stranger's presence is always trying to a sick person," he said,
with rare delicacy of thought, "and, joined to the excitement of the
service, it might be too much for your dear mother. If I spend half an
hour with her to-day, and administer the Sacrament to-morrow, it will,
I think, be better for her."

So Dean Stanley came that afternoon, all the way to Brompton, and
remained talking with my mother for about half an hour, and then set
himself to understand my own position. He finally told me that conduct
was far more important than theory, and that he regarded all as
"Christians" who recognised and tried to follow the moral law of
Christ. On the question of the absolute Deity of Jesus he laid but
little stress; Jesus was "in a special sense the Son of God," but it
was folly to quarrel over words with only human meanings when dealing
with the mystery of the Divine existence, and, above all, it was folly
to make such words into dividing walls between earnest souls. The one
important matter was the recognition of "duty to God and man," and all
who were one in that recognition might rightfully join in an act of
worship, the essence of which was not acceptance of dogma, but love of
God and self-sacrifice for man. "The Holy Communion," he concluded, in
his soft tones, "was never meant to divide from each other hearts that
are searching after the one true God. It was meant by its founder as a
symbol of unity, not of strife."

On the following day Dean Stanley celebrated the Holy Communion by the
bedside of my dear mother, and well was I repaid for the struggle it
had cost me to ask so great a kindness from a stranger, when I saw the
comfort that gentle, noble heart had given to her. He soothed away all
her anxiety about my heresy with tactful wisdom, bidding her have no