the scrap from the "Guardian" with Father's speech. I don't think I
remember any speech on a similar occasion so thoroughly good, and so
likely to do good. Plain, sensible, and manly, no question of words
and unimportant differences of opinion; no cant, high or low, just
like himself. I pray I may have but a tenth part of his honesty and
freedom from prejudice and party spirit. It may come, under God's
blessing, if a man's mind is earnestly set on the truth; but the
danger is of setting up your own exclusive standard of truth, moral
and intellectual. Father certainly is more free from it than any man
we ever knew. He tells me in his letter that the Bishop of Sydney is
coming home to consult people in England about Synodical Action, &c.,
and that he is going to meet him and explain to him certain
difficulties and mistakes into which he has fallen with regard to
administering the Oath of Abjuration and the like matters. How few
people, comparatively, know the influence Father exercises in this
way behind the scenes, as it were. His intimacy with so many of the
Bishops, too, makes his position really of very great importance. I
don't want to magnify, but the more I think of him, and know how very
few men they are that command such general respect, and bear such a
character with all men for uprightness and singleness of purpose, it
is very difficult to know how his place could be supplied when we
throw his legal knowledge over and above into the scale. I hope he
will write: I am quite certain that his opinion will exercise a great
influence on very many people. Such a speech as this at Mary Church
embodies exactly the sense of a considerable number of the most
prudent and most able men of the country, and his position and
character give it extra weight, and that would be so equally with his
book as with his speech. How delightful it will be to have him at
Oxford. He means to come in time for dinner on the 14th, and go away
on the 16th; but if he likes it, he will, I daresay, stop now and