very disagreeable sect of Dissenters in my little plantation; they are known by the name of slugs, and have opened a conventicle in the very heart of my cabbage-bed. I am a bigoted, intolerant wretch, as you know, and I mean to burn them, not with fire and fagot, but with lime.'-(i. 218.)

But his tone about 'the saints' has more bitterness in it, as when he pronounces his opinion on the Bishop just consecrated as Heber's successor in the See of Calcutta :

'I am still more convinced than ever that there could not be a more unfit man than Bishop James for the Church of India; evidently not a divine, and also evidently an egotist. . . . He is a semi-saint, and if the Church Missionary Society and Bible Society ply him, as no doubt they will, with flattery, he will soon be a red-hot one.'-(i. 133.)

It is clear, we think, that circumstances conspired to give the outer world a very one-sided view of Hook in those earlier years of his activity; and it was partly his own fault that he long continued to appear the incarnation of everything antiProtestant, and hostile to pure spiritual religion. For although during the issue of the Oxford Tracts he soon found much in them to dislike and dread, and his private letters frequently complained of their unsoundness and Romanizing tendency, yet in public he appeared as their apologist, out of antipathy to the party which was most vehement and unscrupulous in denouncing their writers. Even his intimate friend was astonished to be made in one letter the confidant of his disapproval of Tract XC., and in a following to receive the announcement, 'I have nailed my colours to the mast, and intend to stand by Newman.' In fact, up to the time of Mr. (now Cardinal) Newman's secession in 1845, Hook's public conduct led to his being generally identified with the whole Tractarian theology, and thus confirmed the idea of his being a much more extreme man than he was. But from that critical period his aspect changed, because new circumstances began to bring into prominence the hitherto latent side of his principles. The establishment of a colony of advanced Tractarians' in a district church in Leeds was the sorest trial of his life, and stirred into activity the Protestant element of his character. From that time to the end of his days we find him facing round against Rome, as he had hitherto faced against Geneva. Here are two extracts from his letters which refer to this ill-starred church:

'I consider it unkind in the Puseyites to force themselves upon me; they have upset the coach elsewhere, and now they come to upset the coach here.'-(ii. 193.)

My treatment is hard. Out of my family my joy, my happiness

was

was in my parish. My desire was to exhibit a parish well-worked on the Church of England system; to show that the via media could be carried out. I had gained the confidence of my people; my opponents were softened and coming round; I was beginning to feel that Leeds had become to me a perfect paradise, and now it is a howling wilderness. . . . I have not wept so much for many years as during the last three months, but when I look out of myself to Him on whose help I rely, I take courage; and as I have fought for the Church of England against the Puritans, so will I now fight for her against the Romanizers.'-(ii. 197–8.)

Bearing in mind the popular estimate of Hook, it is curious to see how anxious he became from this time to dissever himself from the advanced party, not in doctrine only, but also in all the distinguishing external peculiarities in which they delighted. To one about to become his curate he wrote in 1857:

'You will perceive that I am a decided anti-Tractarian as well as an anti-Recordite, and I should not like a curate of mine to adopt the affectations in dress, gait, or cant of that party. Cant is particularly offensive to me; the cant of Tractarians is, I think, worse than that of the pseudo-Evangelicals.'-(ii. 368.)

His divergence from what are now called

Catholic' views comes out from time to time in a very marked way. Thus he warns a correspondent against Newman on Justification,' telling him that the Protestant theory is that of the Church of England,' and goes on in his blunt downright style to say :—

'It was in this work that Newman brought out the notion that Protestant stands opposed to Catholic, which every theological puppy has since adopted; whereas Protestant stands opposed to Popery. We are both Protestant and Catholic.'-(ii. 252.)

On Confession his view was elicited by an accusation that what he condemned at St. Saviour's had formerly been taught by himself:

'The system I adopt,' he says, 'is simply that of the Church of England, which would discountenance the habit of confession. We assist people in their difficulties and sorrows, but when we have assisted them tell them to confess to God alone, and no longer, to come to us.... How is it that no curate of my church-and I have had many-no officer, lay or clerical, of my church, has ever made a confession? How is it that not a single member of my own family, not one of my own dear children, for whose spiritual welfare I am bound before all things to watch, ever come to me or go to anyone else for confession? It is because I hold that, while confession may be occasionally necessary as medicine to a mind diseased, it is an exception, not the rule; and I teach them to regulate their own minds, and to go for confession to God alone. How is it that I never go to Vol. 148.-No. 295. confession

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confession myself? Often, very often in my life, God knows, I have required and sought ghostly counsel and advice, but in my early years I sought and opened my griefs to a friend who was and is a layman; and for the last two-and-twenty years I have obtained it from one who is bound to me by the closest ties that can bind together two human beings, and without whose tender care and affectionate support I should not have been able to endure the hard warfare I have had to sustain during the last fourteen years, when I have had to defend the Church of England first from one extreme and then from the other.'-(ii. 346-7.)

In regard to the Sacraments, Dr. Hook always adhered to the view of the old High Church divines; and accordingly after the Gorham judgment he refused to sign a list of resolutions embodying the views of the more extreme party,' and he never had any sympathy with sacrificial notions' of the Eucharist. At Leeds he was accustomed to consecrate in the eastward position, but not at Chichester, where a contrary practice prevailed; and his falling in with the custom there is explained by his remark, I consider the position of the celebrant a thing indifferent.' How little he went along with those who make a point of facing eastwards during almost the whole of the Communion Office, is apparent from a little anecdote of him during the St. Saviour's troubles. At six o'clock one winter morning he was found in his study by a guest, who told him he was on his way to the early celebration at that church. You'll see nothing but their backs,' growled the old 'watch-dog of the Church of England,' as he sometimes called himself, and buried himself again in his books. In 1867 he was urged by Archbishop Longley to take part in the debate on Ritual in Convocation, and he did so with much distaste for the work, as he could not get up any interest in petty questions of ritual.' How completely he dissented from the doctrine which gives the eastward position its importance in the eyes of the Catholic party' is evident from his writing on the occasion as follows::

'I have no principle to guide me, except a feeling that when the use of vestments is connected with sacrificial notions, they ought to be at once discarded; but if, when we have restored the architecture and the music of the Church to excellence, we must, to be consistent, allow an addition to the usual vestments of the minister-this may be permitted. The cope, for instance, is a processional and not a sacrificial vestment.'-(ii. 433.)

It was really only in accordance with the moderate Anglicanism of his entire ministry, although in startling contradiction to the popular estimate of him in the height of his fame, that he said of himself when entering on his greatest literary undertaking,

'The

The Lives of the Archbishops,'-'I write as a thorough Protestant John Bull, disliking everything foreign, and cordially hating Rome' (ii. 403).

The sudden transference of Hook from the rural quiet of Whippingham to the crowded and bustling manufacturing districts, in consequence of his father's promotion to the Deanery of Worcester, great as was the change it brought, did not find him unprepared. He had settled his principles, thrown off his shyness, learnt how to deal with men, and was now eager to do battle for the Church against all opponents. In Birmingham he quickly made his mark, so that the Churchmen of Coventry desired him when in 1829 a vacancy occurred in the living of Holy Trinity; and in his eight years' pastorate of that large parish he so revived and extended all kinds of church work, and so thoroughly carried the people along with him by the energy and attractiveness of his character, that when the most important cure in the north, the vicarage of Leeds, fell vacant, the trustees picked him out of all England as the man best fitted for the post. How marked a personage he had become, although still under forty, is attested by the extraordinary stir which was occasioned as soon as it was known that he had consented to be put in nomination. The few weeks which elapsed before the election were a time of lively agitation; testimonials for and protests against him were showered on the trustees from all sides, and the newspapers fought over him as if he had been a leading politician. So fierce were the invectives and so unscrupulous the misrepresentations launched against him, that even his bold heart shrank from the contest, and he asked permission to withdraw his name. Happily in vain. 'We must, if possible,' was the reply, 'have the best man in the kingdom for Vicar of Leeds;' and Vicar he became by the vote of a large majority. As soon as the news reached him, he poured out his heart to his friend :

'I am stupefied, and therefore cannot express my feelings. I am really overwhelmed; the thought of leaving dear Coventry is full of sadness; the responsibility of my new position alarms me: thus I may be pardoned for not actually feeling joy. Pray for me, pray for us, my dearest friends; and God Almighty grant that our new promotion may be attended by a corresponding growth in grace.'(i. 331.)

Work undertaken in this spirit could scarcely prove a failure. It was indeed a work sufficient to daunt anyone who had his lofty ideal of the position which the Church ought to occupy, and his unflinching resolve never to rest until it was realized. At the time of his appointment the old parish of Leeds contained

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tained a population of about 140,000, rapidly increasing; and for the pastoral oversight of at least half this unwieldy mass the Vicar appears to have been responsible, notwithstanding that nearly a score of churches or chapels of ease existed within the parochial limits. The mechanical functions of baptizing, churching, marrying, and burying, fell with such overwhelming weight on the two or three clergy of the parish church as to preclude every effort to evangelize the masses; and the consequence was that everything in the way of services, schools, and other religious agencies, was at low-water mark. The churchwardens were elected by the open enemies of the Church, for the purpose of keeping the church-rate down to the lowest possible level; the surplices were in rags, the servicebooks in tatters, and a public grievance was made of the increased number of communicants, because of the additional cost to the parish in sacramental wine! The vestry used to meet in the church, and pile their hats and coats on the altar, and even seat themselves upon it, until the new Vicar indignantly locked them out, declaring that if they forced their way in, it should only be over his dead body. The story of his first vestry-meeting has been often told, but it is so good and characteristic of both the man and his position as well to bear repeating :

'On being called to the chair, the Vicar found himself confronted by a mob of nearly 3,000 persons. A statement was made of the probable expenses for the coming year. They amounted to 3551. 11s. 6d. A halfpenny rate was proposed and seconded. A Baptist preacher named Giles then rose and delivered a furious harangue, directed partly against church-rates and partly against the Vicar. At the conclusion of his philippic the Vicar got up, and began by observing that the speech of the gentleman who had just sat down might be divided into two parts, one consisting of an attack upon the system of church-rates in general, and the other of abusive language towards himself the Vicar. "Into the general question of churchrates," he continued, "I shall not enter upon this occasion." "Eh! why won't 'ee?" shouted a thousand sturdy Yorkshire voices. "Because, my friends, you wouldn't listen to me if I did. (Laughter.) I will only observe that the settlement of this particular church-rate rests entirely between yourselves and the churchwardens. I personally am not concerned in it. You have elected your own churchwardens. You know they will not do more than the law requires, and that the law will compel them to do what the law requires to be done. Therefore if you do not grant the church-rate the church itself will sustain no injury, because the money will come out of the churchwardens' pockets. (Laughter.) With regard to the second part of my friend's speech, that which consisted of personal abuse, I would remind you that the most brilliant eloquence without charity

may