All the world may know an author through his books, and it is with something of the feeling of real friendship that I read of the coming to Boston of this distinguished divine. Many years ago, when a child, I learned something of the broad humanity of the man, through (to me) his best novel, "St. Winifred's." I can easily recall to-day my first perusal of it, when, alternating between smiles and tears at its exquisite portrayal of mirth and pathos, I did not fail to catch the wonderful beauty of the real intention which the story, so happily told, was intended to convey, viz.: the utter ruin and defeat which ultimately follows all meanness, cowardice and dishonesty; and the oft-times late, though sure, success and reward which persistent right-doing, under most trying circumstances and seeming destruction, inevitably obtains. The book was written, I believe, either at the time, or soon after, he was Master of Marlborough College, and his growth in thought has been constant ever since, until he stands to-day the most renowned living theological representative of the catholicity of the modern spirit.
How much, or how little, he is conversant with the Principle of Christian Science, I do not know; but in the same proportion of pleasure which I gained from the perusal of "St. Winifred's," which was all I could understand of Truth when I first read it, so now that I have grown to a woman's estate in thought, 1 rejoice to see from his pen—first and foremost beyond all other clergymen—the following masterly tribute to Science, from his address before the Johns Hopkius University of Baltimore:
"Let me add a word as to the beneficence of science. She has not only revealed infinite time, infinite space, infinite organism, but she has been a great archangel, hovering beneficently over mankind. She economizes labor, extends human life, and extinguishes human pain. She restores sight to the blind, mitigates madness, and tramples upon disease. After all these enormous services she ought to be cultivated, and we congratulate the University devoting so much to the subject. Whether our education be in the sciences, or in the languages, we must set steadily before us the one great object we are to obtain. Our education is, that we may become profitable members of the church and the community, and hereafter partake of the glories of an immortal resurrection. Whatever removes us from the power of our senses, that elevates us in the scale of manhood, and that is the object of education."
