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A light went out of our lives when Edward King passed out of our companionship. It was light that he carried with him--light that shone through him--light that flowed from him. The room was lit into which he entered. It was as if we had fallen under a streak of sunlight, that flickered, and danced, and laughed, and turned all to colour and to gold. Those eyes of his were an illumination. Even to recall him for an instant in the bare memory, was enough to set all the day alive and glittering.

“My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky.”

So the heart ever leaped, as it caught sight of that dear face, that shone and quivered with the radiant hope that had made it its very own. Was there ever such a face, so gracious, so winning, so benignant, so tender? Its beauty was utterly natural and native. It made no effort to be striking, or marked, or peculiar, or special. It possessed just the typical beauty that should, of right, belong to the human countenance. It seemed to say “This is what a face is meant to be. This is the face that a man would have, if he were, really, himself. This is the face that love would normally wear.” We felt as if we had been waiting for such a face to come and meet us--a face that would simply reveal how deep is the goodness of which humanity is capable. Oh! if all men could but be just like that! So typical was its naturalness. Yet, of course, this did not diminish its intense individuality. It was only that this most vital individuality was so whole and sound and normal and true, that it seemed to be the perfect expression of what a man might be.

Throughout, one was conscious of this rounded normality. There was nothing in him one-sided, or excessive, or unbalanced. There was no side of his character which wanted explanation, or was out of perspective. Everything hung together. Everything befitted. He never overshot his mark: or fell below it. He knew what he could do: and did it. No note was forced. No pose was taken. Where limits came, they were instinctively accepted. His natural manhood always found itself, in whatever he did: and showed itself complete and distinctive. And Grace had so intimately mingled with his nature that it was all of one piece. Grace itself had become natural. Who could say which was which? Was it all Grace? Was it all nature? Was it not all both? Anyhow, the whole man moved altogether, in every word and act. There were no separate compartments; and no disturbing reserves. The soul of Edward King was alive throughout his whole bodily frame and gifts and capacities, so that the impact that he made upon one was absolutely simple and undivided. The central spirit tingled in every pressure of the hand, in every turn of the voice, in every gleam of the eye. You had the whole of him, whenever you touched him. That was one of the unique delights of his companionship.

And, always, this inner manhood of his, which so spontaneously and freely responded to your call, was sound as a bell: lucid as a brook: clear-eyed as a child. How wholesome it was to be near him! How open-aired, and unsophisticated, and simple-hearted, he was! The founts of his life were so unclouded, and unsoiled. You knew, at once, as he spoke, why it is that the earth is saved by the laughter of little children and the song of birds, and the wonder of flowers, and the sound of flowing waters.

This gracious beauty of his countenance lasted to the very end. Indeed, it had taken on a new charm: for the signals of old age in the wreathed wrinkles only gave an additional emphasis to the delicate rose-pink colouring of a face that was charged with the gaiety of an unconquerable gladness. You saw that he was alive with a spirit of good cheer which years could not damp, nor infirmities becloud. He thought better and better of the world every year that he lived. It was impossible to depress him. Those kindly grey eyes could, indeed, shine with a glint of steel: and the level brows, with their bushy eyebrows, could wear a look of sternness. For he was a soldier at heart: and knew the stress of battle: and had a sword that he could wield. This touch of severity was apt to come out in photographs. But he was still an undying optimist. He believed in everything being for the best. He saw goodness and wisdom everywhere manifest. He loved everybody and everything. He grew happier and happier. His eyes twinkled with dauntless merriment: his presence brimmed over with joy. After all, the earth was a good place: and heaven would be better still. God be thanked!

I suppose that Cuddesdon men will always say that, whatever else came out at Christ Church and Lincoln, still there was never anything quite so full of thrill as the old days on the blessed Hill, when King was Principal. The whole place was alive with him. His look, his voice, his gaiety, his beauty, his charm, his holiness, filled it and possessed it. There was an air about it, a tone in it, a quality, a delicacy, a depth, which were his creation. He could draw love out of a stone: and there was not a man of any type or character that did not yield to his sway. Great burly chaps, arriving alarmed and unshaped, keeping their portmanteaux packed ready for a bolt, were at his feet before they knew where they were. There was nothing of the forcing-house, of the seminarist pose, as was popularly supposed. All was human, natural, free. “Here is one of my hot-house plants,” I remember him saying at one of the annual luncheons, as he laid his hand on the enormous shoulders of a man who had stroked the Oxford boat to victory for four years running on the Putney course. It is hopeless to try to tell the wonder of those old days. All over England there are men who look back to them, as to a heavenly vision--to which, by the infinite mercy of God, they have not been wholly disobedient.

One thing they certainly learned, apart from the secret of their own souls: and that was--belief in the poor. He loved the poor with a peculiar reverence and delight. He was their man. He knew them through and through. He felt as they felt. He could get at the heart of the very rough lads who were the bane of Wheatley and Cuddesdon.

Once, no doubt, this led to a mischance. His successor found a gang of them quite hopeless. They were the hooligans of the village: they pillaged his garden. In desperation, he sent off for a Sergeant from Cowley Barracks to come along and see what he could do. The Sergeant was eminently successful: and carried off three of the worst in triumph as recruits. But three mothers at once set out on foot. By nine o’clock they were kneeling on the carpet of the new Canon’s study at Christ Church, weeping and wailing for their boys: and by twelve o’clock every boy had been bought out again by Dr. King, and had returned to the bosom of their families, and to the orchard of the unhappy Principal.

This was unlucky. It did not mean that King was not perfectly shrewd in his reading of the poor. He had no illusions. He had a very quick eye. He did not give himself away with the reckless “abandon” of Dr. Liddon. Perhaps it may be good to recall how profoundly unwilling he was to sign the petition for pardon on behalf of the young sailor, condemned for murder, whom he visited in the prison at Lincoln. He was convinced, I think, that the spiritual crisis of conversion could best tally with suffering the extreme and critical penalty of death.

It was a real joy to him, as Bishop, to recover his touch on the country poor, whom he loved so intimately at Cuddesdon. And, especially, he delighted in the confirmation of his beloved plough-boys. “So nice to smell the pomatum again!” he exclaimed.

Here is an extract from a letter to me in 1877 and another in 1895:--

“... The same is true of the Labour trouble, and the strikes. Political economy--the relation of Ethics to Politics, is becoming a practical question, and I very much hope some of your good people will bring out an edition of the ‘Republic’ adapted for a ‘Christian Ploughboy,’ with notes in his language, and illustrated, not by arguments, but by stories. We have been worrying these poor boys with the Proverbs, and little narrow bits of personal ethics, and now they are beginning to feel there is a big world round about them, and lots of new powers, and hopes, and so they are dashing about. But we must put them upon the real principles, and then, after a bit, they will go on, and up, in order, dear things!”

“... I still sometimes long to do a little in attaching the minds of the simple ones to the great Life-giving principles. I don’t think the minds of the poor have been treated with sufficient loving, reverent, ability. We want a book, like Darwin on Worms, on the intellectual, moral, and spiritual capacities of the poor--do write it?

“Good-bye. Many, many thanks. I feel I am less nuisance in an hotel, at least there is some sort of satisfaction in paying for the nuisance that one is.

“With my love and blessing,

Always, always,

Your most affectionate,

E. Lincoln.”

On his coming up to the Professorship at Oxford, the University was, naturally, very patronizing. “A good holy man, no doubt: but without a pretence at Academic distinction.” That is what each uplifted nose obviously suggested. But what we, who were nearest to him, came to discover was his excellent ability. He took great pains with himself, for one thing. He re-read his Aristotle, with great keenness. He worked at Italian: and made himself quite a good Dante scholar. He even went to Dr. Pusey’s Hebrew Lectures: and told us amazing tales of how the dear old doctor pegged away, so deaf that he could not hear the passing waggons which entirely drowned whole sections of his lecture. Still, after each interval of thunder, he would be found still going on, as if nothing had happened, though all hope of discovering where he had got to was gone.

As the years went on, we got more and more to see that King’s judgment on the intellectual interests of the hour went right home, and was best worth having. He could take a measure, or give an estimate, of the worth of things, with singular felicity. Once, we had all been rather swept off our feet by the vivacity of certain Bampton Lectures which were laid out on rather well-worn conventional lines. The material was old, no doubt: but, still, it was surprising how well they went. How was it? What would King say of them? “Well, it is wonderful,” he said, “how good an old pair of trousers will come out, if you have laid them away for some time in a drawer.” He had hit it exactly. The trousers were green, for all their apparent sheen.

A Bishop had been in St. Mary’s pulpit, warning the undergraduates against everything that they were the least likely to commit--the use of the Confessional or Mariolatry, I think it was. “That sort of sermon,” said King, “always reminds one of the useful notice-board sticking up out of the water in Magdalen meadow, when the floods are out--earnestly announcing that ‘Trespassers will be prosecuted.’ ”

As for his own sermons, who can report their delicate perfection? They were like nothing else in the world. They dropped out, in that level, low-toned quality of voice which was so dear and so characteristic to those who loved him. Brief little breaths of phrases fell on the heart like dew. Something there was of the traditional Tractarian restraint and reserve, in the manner of delivery. The bent figure kept one posture: and there was hardly any motion of hand or head. Only, now and again, the eyes were lifted, and opened: and the glory of the spirit flashed swiftly through.

Sometimes, the exquisite simplicity of the utterance led to misjudgments on the worth of what was said. He had preached one of these flawless sermons on one Sunday morning in Christ Church Cathedral: and I had rushed out, after it, all one thrill of rapture: and had gone to Frank Paget, then a tutor at the House, to pour out my emotions. I told him that it had been priceless: incomparable: a gem: such a sermon as no one else in the wide world could have given: and so on. Paget thought that he might improve the occasion, when the next undergraduate came to his room, and said: “So I hear that you had a good sermon in Cathedral this morning.” The man looked up with an air of relief, and said: “Oh! I am so glad that you say that: because I thought so too: but the other chaps said that it was awful rot!”

Through all the Cuddesdon and most of the Oxford time, the most delightfully characteristic feature of his home was his mother. She had his gracious tender ways: and it was an infinite joy to him to play round her with his fun.

In the trial for libel which a strange clergyman brought against him for writing a letter which lost him a living, King’s letters to Colonel Talbot, the Patron, were read out to an astonished Court. “It will be so nice to get to Wales, for then our mums will meet.” “Their what?” asked the judge. “It appears to be, My Lord, a name by which they call their mothers.”

One of the prettiest sights in the world was to watch him open the little side-door into their garden out of the Cathedral, and pass through with her, after service. In a later year, when a rasping, scarifying sermon had been preached, he said to Edward Talbot: “It is at such a time that I miss my dear mother.” Talbot asked why. “Because, directly we were through the door, I should have turned to her and said: ‘That was a beastly sermon’; and then it would all have been out: and I should have been sorry to have said it: and should have begun to apologize for the sermon: and to love the preacher. Now, the poison is in me all the week and I can’t get rid of it.”

We used to wonder how he would ever bear her departure. But, when the death came, we found that he had been preparing himself for years, and that he could retain all his wonderful serenity and gentleness and confidence and courage. I have hit on a letter written to me after it, so quiet and sure, recalling, in its tone, the spirit of his own death and the last words that he uttered before passing:--

“My great satisfaction is that the victory was so complete. I did not expect any fear, but there was not one word of anxiety or care about anything. Just the same trustful, bright, loving self she’s always been; for the last two days she was not outwardly conscious, but all was perfectly calm. I think this is what I should have chosen before all things if I might have chosen, and it was given unasked in greater abundance. How to get on I do not quite see, but then I need not move just yet; I am sure the light will come. I have had so many kind letters speaking of her brightness, sympathy, wisdom, etc., and when I remember that she has been enabled to do all this in the days of her widowhood, it is a bright example for me, and gives me hope. Pray for me, dear friend, a little bit, that I may be guided. I am tempted to fear the loss of her wisdom almost more than the comfort of her brightness, but I know whence it came and it can come still.

“All blessings for the coming term; the angels are busy.