for a time, but his mind was set on parish work rather than
administration. He knew Hugh well, and Hugh was an Etonian himself.
Moreover, my father was glad that Hugh should be with a trusted friend,
and so he went there. St. Clair Donaldson was a clergyman of an
Evangelical type, though the Mission had been previously conducted by a
very High Churchman, William Carter, the present Archbishop of Capetown.
But now distinctive High Church practices were given up, and the parish
was run on moderate, kindly, and sensible lines. Whether such an
institution is primarily and distinctively religious may be questioned.
Such work is centred rather upon friendly and helpful relations, and
religion becomes one of a number of active forces, rather than the force
upon which all depends. High-minded, duty-loving, transparently good and
cheerful as the tone of the clergy was, it was, no doubt, tentative
rather than authoritative.

Hugh's work there lay a good deal in the direction of the boys' clubs;
he used to go down to the clubs, play and talk with the boys, and go out
with them on Saturday afternoons to football and cricket. But he never
found it a congenial occupation, and I cannot help feeling that it was
rather a case of putting a very delicate and subtle instrument to do a
rough sort of work. What was needed was a hearty, kindly,
elder-brotherly relation, and the men who did this best were the
good-natured and robust men with a generic interest in the young, who
could set a clean-minded, wholesome, and hearty example. But Hugh was
not of this type. His mind was full of mystical and poetical ideas of
religion, and his artistic nature was intent upon expressing them. He
was successful in a way, because he had by this time a great charm of
frankness and simplicity; he never had the least temptation to draw
social distinctions, but he desired to find people personally
interesting. He used to say afterwards that he did not really believe in