prevalence of the common enemy, Popery, joined all hands together.” Still he returned from the momentous visit in question with a rigidity of churchmanship strangely at variance with the revolutionary mood in which we should have expected to find him.
“On my return with our dearest B., she proposed to me to take charge, on Sundays, of her little flock at Poltimore. I cannot, perhaps, convey to you the repugnance I had; first, because I really disapproved on principle; and, secondly, because I saw that it would stand in the way of my procuring ordination; yet it worked on my mind till I could not but go; and I went. … Yet I only allowed this going to Poltimore as a particular exception, in consequence of the notorious inadequacy of the clergyman there. I had never yet gone near a dissenting place of worship.”
In the summer of 1827[1] Groves’ connexion with Trinity College was broken off. His narrative of the circumstances is very important for the light that it throws on the working of his mind at this period.
“Mr. T., of Calcutta, asked me, ‘Why are you wasting your time, in going through college, if you intend going to the East?’ My reply was, that if I returned disabled, I should be able to minister in England; and here the matter ended. As we walked home, Mary [Mrs. Groves] said, ‘Don’t you think there is great force in Mr. T.’s question?’ I said, ‘I thought there was, but not so great as to prevent my going that time’. … On Sunday morning, about three o’clock, we were awoke by the noise of something falling. … On proceeding into the dining-room, I found the candles lit, as they had been left the preceding evening, and my little drawers broken open, all my papers scattered about the room, and my money gone. As I was returning upstairs, I met dearest M. in the hall, and said, ‘Well, my love, the thieves have been here, and taken all the money’. ‘And now,’ she said,
- ↑ This date is clear from two circumstances taken in conjunction: his letter to Caldecott on November 12, 1827; and his statements (pp. 41-2) that the next visit after that which he missed would have been nine months later, and that he was to have taken his degree “the following Easter”.
