Page:Letters from New Zealand (Harper).djvu/294

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Letters from New Zealand

and spiritual problems which are with us to-day, as they were in old days, though under different conditions of life,—all this also enhanced with the charm of a singularly attractive literary style. Somehow, I imagine, when much interested in any such book, one forms a mental image of the author. I wonder whether it is not often better to be content with that, than to see some great writer, poet, or thinker in the flesh. Certainly I was taken aback on this occasion. "John Inglesant,"—the courtly cavalier, the faithful follower of his Royal Master, even to the scaffold at Whitehall; the accomplished swordsman, the mystic, ever seeking the true Light of Spiritual guidance; courted and flattered by the Church of Rome, but always faithful to his Mother Church; entered the room, by no means my ideal of the man.

I had another experience of a great man, thinker and preacher, but in this case the personality of the man was akin to his books, Phillips Brooks, the American. Such a fine specimen of manhood, with abundance of flowing hair, but in his dress hardly suggestive of the parson; a suit of brown stuff and a black tie. He was keen to know all I could tell him of the Church in New Zealand. "My people are so generous to me; they insist on arranging for a holiday travel every year, and some day I may even get as far as New Zealand. Have you done anything in the way of revision of the Prayer book? We have in America; for instance, the addition of other sentences to those which precede Morning and Evening Prayer; the omission of the last four verses in the Venite, substituting in their place the words 'O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness: let the whole Earth stand in awe of Him. For He cometh, for He