z6o EARLY REMINISCENCES This occurred to the Rev. Charles Lowder, who was in charge of S. Barnabas. I saw him repeatedly kneeling in a dark corner of the chancel, within the screen, engaged in prayer ; kneeling invariably upright, never bowed over a chair. The attitude was characteristic of the man. What I did not know at the time was, how that he was forming the resolve to throw himself into the slummiest of all slums, the region of London Docks, to devote himself to carrying the Gospel to the most poor and ignorant of the East Londoners. As certainly was this a call as was that to S. Paul to " turn to the Gentiles." And he answered the call whole-heartedly ; but little did he then imagine the discouragements he would have to encounter, the heart-breaks, the desertion by those whom he trusted, the insults he would have to face, the disapprobation of the Bishop. Lowder was by no means a man of brilliant abilities, or of great social attractiveness. He was no scholar, nor was he a good conversationalist. His sermons were practical but dry, unillumined by flashes of originality. His insight into character was defective, and to most people he gave the impression of stiffness and chill. He was, however, a man of strong convictions and of iron resolution to persevere in any course that he felt assured was right, and to which he trusted that he had been summoned by God. Bishop Blomfield of London had been no support to the clergy of S. Barnabas in the time of their trouble. He objected to the singing of the suffrages to the prayers, but had to yield reluctantly on this point, because he could not prove that what was the practice in every cathedral was illegal in a parish church. In 1852 he insisted : " If you don't say a collect (before the sermon) and don't say it (turned) to the west, I will withdraw your licence." Referring to a plain metal cross on the retable of the altar, he said : " If it cost me my see, I will have that cross removed." Blomfield was now gone, and the Scotchman, Tait, was in his room, an Erastian, with Presbyterian proclivities. Lowder started his mission in the East of London in 1856-7. He hired an old butcher's shop in Calvert Street. The shop itself was converted into the dining-hall and common-room of the curates and three or four lay assistants. It was lighted through holes cut in the wooden shutters. The furniture was of the poorest description. There was not an arm-chair or a padded
