clearly that you are ready to do that behind my back which you would not do before my face."
I used to think of him in his parish as thrumming on the souls of his people, as clumsily and incapably as with his stiff fingers he scrambled over the notes of his piano. I suspect it is much the same now with parsons of the like type. I know how it was with them as chaplains during the war of 1914-18. Captain Algernon H. Villiers—he fell in the war—wrote of these men[1]: "No padre ever appears except to smoke a cigarette and say 'Cheeri-o.'" What could be expected of one of such chaplains who had shed all positive belief? Pitiful and kind he might be, but incompetent spiritually.
Gunning was Squire Bedell at the time. He had to escort the Heads of the colleges to S. Mary's for the University Sermon. He is reported to have said: "I have heard one thousand and fifty-three sermons, and, thank God, I am a Christian still."
There was a small Roman Catholic chapel at Cambridge. I never attended it. On a certain Whit-Sunday, an Italian monk or friar was advertised to preach, and some of the University men attended, out of curiosity.
The man was absolutely confident that he was a fluent and practised orator in the English language. When he ascended the pulpit, and had delivered his text, he began: "Dis is a very great day. It is one of de greatest day In de Catolic Church, for on dis day did de Fire-tongs come down out of Hebben."
On January 28, 1855, I came of age, and on that occasion we had not only a dinner for the tenants and cottagers downstairs, but also one in the Gallery, the Ghost Walk, for the neighbours. My health was proposed by Mr. Shilston Calmady Hamlyn of Lea Wood in Bridestowe. I recall how I made a great ass of myself in my reply. It was the first time I had been called on to stand on my legs and make a speech.
On my eightieth birthday again we had a dinner for all neighbours, and on the occasion I was presented with a cake surrounded by eighty lighted tapers. On this occasion my health was proposed by Mr. Charles Calmady Hamlyn of Lea Wood, the grandson of him who had proposed it on my coming of age, and who in 1913 married my youngest daughter Grace.
- ↑ Letters and Papers of A. H. Villiers. S.P.C.K. 1919.
