Life and letters of Edward Bickersteth, Bishop of South Tokyo

Front matter

Life and letters of Edward Bickerst-Pth Ri<5hoD of

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LIFE AND LETTERS

Preface

To write a biography is an attempt to prolong and extend a personal influence. After my brother's death in August 1897, a desire was expressed not only in England, but also in Delhi and in Japan, that some authentic account should be written of the work which he was called of God to do, first in the East and afterwards in the Far East.

At the request of Mrs. Edward Bickersteth, my sister-in-law, I undertook to write this biography. I had hoped to complete the work within a year, but I could not foresee that the increase of population in the parish of Lewisham, rapid for many years past, would have developed during the last two years at a pace in excess of the growth of any other part of the metropolitan area. This has made it almost impossible to give continuous thought or study to the Life, except during absence from home.

While it may be granted that the choice of a near relative as a biographer has some advantages, there are obvious dangers involved in such a selection. I cannot say how far I have avoided them ; at least, I have tried to do so. As a Commissary in England to my brother during almost all his episcopate, I was necessarily familiar with viii BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH

his Japanese work, but I have special reason to thank those who by the loan of letters and documents have enabled me to deal, as fully as space allowed, with the years during which my brother was head of the Cambridge Mission. I am thus indebted to the present Bishop of Durham, the Bishop Designate of Lahore (Dr. Lefroy), the Master of Pembroke College, the Rev. S. S. AUnutt (now head of the Cambridge Mission), the Rev. Dr. Weitbrecht, and especially to Canon Stanton, of Trinity College, Cambridge, who has been intimately connected with the Mission from its start and kindlj- allowed me to read over to him the Chapters II. to V. As a graduate of the University of Oxford, I have felt it a special privilege to be allowed to write the story of this well-known Cambridge Mission.

In the early part of Chapter VI. will be found, in a letter addressed by the Bishop to the Master of Pembroke, a terse and vivid account of the state of Japan in 1886. But I have purposely avoided overloading the book with facts and figures connected with the marvellous story of Japanese enterprise since 1868, as travellers, artists, and journalists have already made the world familiar with this romance of modern history, its contrast with the preceding centuries of apathy, its encouragement to believe that what the Japanese have alread)- done is but the preface to the volume of their future achievements, if once the gold of Christianity mingles with the quicksilver of their national temperament. To them imitation does not appear to mean limitation, as it so often does, because they are careful also to adapt, as well as to adopt, western ideas, reforming

PREFACE ix

them where necessary to suit their own habits of thought and life. The late Sir Rutherford Alcock once pointed out to mc, in the course of conversation, that more than once in their history the Japanese had shown great abilitj' in seizing upon new ideas, but for his part he was doubtful as to their power ' to keep on developing ' unless Christianity added stability to the national character.

I have intentionally put together into separate chapters information about the organisation of the Cambridge Mission, the Nippon Sei Kokwai, and Community Missions, because happily in these days not only several English Bishops expect their Ordination candidates to take up a missionary subject, but also young Church people all over the country voluntarily submit themselves to examination in missionary knowledge. It will be convenient, I hope, to such students to have ready to hand, and disentangled from biographical details, information upon such missionary methods, while for those who have time for fuller study the intervening chapters will illustrate the way in which the Bishop applied his principles.

I desire to take this opportunity of thanking those, and they are many, who have sent me personal recollections of my brother's work, which every reader will feel to be a great addition to the value of the volume, especially the well-known traveller, Mrs. Bishop, Colonel Gordon Young, the Rev. F. Armine King, Warden of St. Andrew's Mission, Tokyo, the Rev. John Imai, and others, as well as Mr. A. C. Benson for leave to reproduce some of his father's letters.

X BISHOP EDWARD BICKERSTETH

Chiefly I have to thank my sister-in-law, not only for putting unreservedly at my disposal all my brother's papers and letters, but also for helping me in every way in her power, especially where her residence in Japan, which I have never visited, enabled her to supply my lack of knowledge.

Some words of my predecessor in this parish, the present Bishop of Lichfield, to whom I had written acquainting him with my purpose of writing my brother's life, have often come to my mind, and supplied me with an inspiring motive : ' Your brother's memoir will be much more than a valuable contribution to missionary literature. It will be an incentive to missionary zeal, and to self-sacrificing love for the Master and for the souls He loves.'

If it should please God to fulfil this hopeful forecast, it will be an answer to many prayers, and a rich reward for any labour involved in the task.

The Vicarage, Lewisham, S.E.

Festival of S. Michael and All Angels, 1899

Chapter I Introductory

Birth at Banningham — Parentage, Edward Bickersteth of Watton, ' Edwar Henry,' of Exeter — Baptism — Childhood at Hampstead — Schooldays at Highgate — Foreign travel — Scholarship at Pembroke College, Cambridge — Degree — Death of his mother and of two sisters — Selection of assistant curacy — Ordination — Work at West End, Hampstead — Fellowship — Personal appearance — Characteristics — Relationship to Church parties .......

CHAPTER H

Return to Cambridge — Recollections by Rev. C. W. E. Body — Desires for missionary' work, to what due? — First idea of the Cambridge University Mission — Influence of Dr. Westcott and Dr. French — Bickersteth's offer to go out to India — Testimony of Professor Stanton and Rev. S. S. Allnutt to his influence —His paper on Cambridge Mission before Cambridge Church Society — The four-fold object of the CM. — His paper in ' Mission Field ' — Why Delhi was selected — Community Missions then a novelty — Affiliation of Cambridge Mission with S. P.O.— Statistics of S.P.G. at Delhi— Letter of Rev. R. R. Winter — Consecration of Dr. French as first Bishop of Lahore — Formation of Cambridge Committee — Departure of the first two missionaries, Edward Bickersteth and J. D. M. Murray, for Delhi

CHAPTER HI

CAMBRIDGE MISSION, DELHI (tHE WORK)

Arrival in Delhi — Visit of Bishop (Johnson) of Calcutta — First impressions— Teaching in St. Stephen's High School — Training of Catechists — Christian hostel for boys — Furlough of the Rev. R. R. Winter — Serious illness of the Rev. J. D. M. Murray — Bickersteth left alone in charge of the mission — Recollections by Mrs. Parsons — His efforts to teach the teachers — Necessity for Christian masters in secular schools —Arrival of the Rev. H. C. Carlyon and Rev. J. D. Blackett— Bickersteth's views on bazaar preaching — His evangelistic labours among Kolis and Chamars — His views on relative merits of Hinduism xii and Muhammadanism and their mutual influence on India and on each other — Arrival of Rev. S. S. Allnutt and Rev. G. A. Lefroy — Decision of the CM. to prepare candidates for the Calcutta (B.A.) degree — Appeal of Bishop French and Bishop Lightfoot to Cambridge- Meeting in College Hall, Westminster — Speech by Dr. Westcott — The beginning of the Higher Education — Visit of Rev. E. H. Bickersteth to Delhi — Bickersteth's illness and enforced furlough — Personal Recollections by Dr. VVeitbrecht .......

CHAPTER IV

CAMBRIDGE MISSION, DELHI (THE LIFe)

Spiritual power dependent on devotional life — Bickersteth's appreciation of Retreats and Quiet Days— His advocacy of intercessor)' prayer — Other plans for deepening spiritual life — His vindication of ' rule ' in prayer, and conviction that missionaries, above all men, need a regulated devotional life — Effects of the spiritual fervour of the Cambridge mission in (a) stricter discipline, (6) more definite teaching, and (<r) the spirit of brotherliness among the members of the mission — Recollections by Rev. G. A. Lefroy — By Bishop (Matthew) of Lahore — By Col. Gordon Young — Address of native Christians to Bishop of Exeter on hearing of Bickersteth's death ........

CHAPTER V

Continued ill-health — Letters to Rev. G. A. Lefroy, S. S. Allnutt, H. C. Carlyon —Forced to take another year of furlough (1883-4) — Departure of Rev. J. W. T. Wright and Rev. Arthur Haig for CM., Delhi — Permanent Relations of CM. with S. P. G. — Endeavours to organise Zenana work into a Community Mission for women — At Cannes for the winter — Letter on the unseen world — Correspondence with Allnutt and Lefroy — Summer in England — Again forbidden to return to India (1884) — Acceptance of Rectory of Framlingham — Bishop French's offer of Archdeaconry of Simlaand Indian Chaplaincy — Correspondence >-e Headship of CM. — Refusal of Archdeaconry and decision to return to Delhi — Again forbidden to rejoin mission (March 1885) — At last allowed to return (Sept. 1895) — Called to Japan as Bishop (October) — His training for that post — Grief at giving up the CM., Delhi — Letters to Lefroy — Consecration — Departure for the Far East ...........

CHAPTER VI

A MISSIONARY P.ISHOP's LIFE (1886-1888)

Outward bound — Journal — Visit to Jesuit Missions at Shanghai — ' Open ' letter to Dr. Searle on the State of Japan — Landing at Nagasaki —

CONTENTS xiii

Holy week at Osaka — Important conference there— Arrival at Tokyo — Meeting with Bishop Williams (American) and Bishop Nicolai (Russian)— First idea of Nippon Sei Kokwai (N.S.K.)— Second ' open ' letter to Dr. Searle on St. Andrew's Mission, to be established at Tokyo — First missionary tour (Northwards) to Yezo and the Ainus, (Westwards) to Kiushiu — First proposal for Ladies' Institute (Educational) at Tokyo — Letters to his fourth brother on his beginning the clerical life — Three conferences at Osaka— His first ordination in Japan — To Nagasaki again and back by Shikoku — Easter (1887) in Tokyo — First local council of N.S.K. —Visit to Korea with Bishop (Scott) of North China (Sept. 29-Oct. 6) — Beginning of St. Andrew's and St. Hilda's Missions — Holy Week (1888) in Tokyo and ordination of John Imai — Bishop's First Pastoral— Return (May 1888) to Lambeth Conference — Five months in England — Speech in St. James's Hall — His part in the Lambeth Conference — Summer holidays with the Bishop of Exeter —Return with recruits to Japan (October 1888) . 149

CHAPTER VII

MISSIONARY METHODS, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO COMMUNITY MISSIONS

S.r.G. and C. M.S. jNIissions — Bishop Bickersteth's paper on 'Variety of Methods' (1893)— Letter from Canon Tristram — The Ladies' Institute (Education)— Community Missions — St. Andrew's for men — The Bishop's idea in starting it — Its first members — Its rule of life — Vows — Miss Tsuda's paper on the position of Japanese women — St. Hilda's Mission for women — Exterior rule of the community — The Bishop's letters on the necessary qualifications of its members — Its special work — Consecration of the chapel, with the Bishop's address — Its medical work — Orphanage — Recollections by Miss Thornton and by Miss Bullock .......... 206

CHAPTER VIII

Landing at Tokyo (St. Andrew's Day) 1888— Statistics as to the strength of the missions of the Church of England in Japan — Christmas at Tokyo — Letters from the Inland Sea — Visit to Kagoshima, his most southernly station — Travelling hard and fast, late and early — Second Lenten Pastoral (March 1889) on (i) Reunion, (2) Standards of faith, - (3) Ritual controversies at home, (4) Ecclesiastical courts in their effect on missionary enterprise — His first (English) ordination to priesthood, Easter 1889 — St. Hilda's Hospital — Second Biennial Synod— Scheme for Pastor Funds — Journey to Vezo (2,000 miles in 17 days) — Tour in Southern Japan — Ordination of Rev. John Imai to priesthood — xiv

First thought of bishopric of South Japan (January 1890) — Pastoral letter to university students — Third Lenten Pastoral — Visit of Duke and Duchess of Connaught — And of Bishop Corfe (of Korea) — First extempore address in Japanese— Autumn journey to Western Japan — Fourth Lenten Pastoral (189 1 ) — At work on Commentaries — Canon Barnett's visit and reminiscences — Third Biennial Synod and visit of Bishop Hare (American) — Letter on Prayer Book Revision— Visit of the Bishop of Exeter and party — Terrific earthquake — A year of journeying (1892) — Visit to Luchoo Islands — First baptism of Ainus — Return to England (December 27, 1892) via Delhi — Conference with Archbishop on Episcopal Subdivision — In England February to October 1893, with incessant travelling — His marriage (September) and return to Japan via Canada ....... 254

CHAPTER IX

NIPPON SEI KOKWAl

{Holy Catholic Churcli of Japan)

Its intention — Two defective views of a missionary's duty — Archbishop Benson on the opportunity thus offered — The Bishop's sermon before the First Synod (1887) — The resolution adopted at Osaka — The relation of the N.S.K. to other bodies of Christians— A conference with Protestant Nonconformists — The constitution and Canons of the N.S.K. — Was its formation premature? — Letter from the Bishop on ritual points — Revision of Japanese Prayer Book — The principles which underlay it — Pastoral letter from the Bishops of the Anglican communions in Japan — The decision as to the Thirty-nine Articles — The marriage laws — Letter of Archbishop Benson, and joint Pastoral letter on this subject — Successive synods and their work — Home and foreign missions of the N.S.K. — Extension of the Episcopate — Recollections by Bishop Fyson and Bishop Evington. ........ 301

CHAPTER X

Success of his efforts for the increase of the episcopate in Japan — Consecration of the Bishops of Kiushiu and of Yezo — His visit and appeal to the Church in Canada — His impression of the missionary opportunities of that Church — Fourth General Synod — Welcome to the newly consecrated American Bishop (McKim) — Special General Synod on Episcopal Jurisdiction — His proposal to the Archbishop of Canterbury to form a bishopric of Osaka (June 1894) — His appeal to Canada to send a Bishop to the West Coast — The war with China and its effect on missionary inquiry — His special collects for use of soldiers — Revision of Japanese Book of Common Prayer — Conduct of

CONTENTS

XV the Japanese during the war — The Bonin Islands— Visitation of the West Coast — Eighth Lenten Pastoral (1895) — First meeting of Bishops of the Anglican Communion in Japan (June 1895) — Summer holidays in Karuizawa — Summored to England to confer about Osaka Bishopric — Return with Bishop (Awdry) of Southampton appointed as First Bishop of Osaka — A bright Easter (1896) — General Synod at Osaka — Letters written while on a ' pioneer ' tour— Recollections by Miss Rankin — Disastrous floods in Gifu — Serious illness and final return to England — Recollections by Mrs. Bishop .... 360

CHAPTER XI

His natural love of reading — Criticism on books in his letters home — Value of early Greek Fathers to the modern missionary — References to books which attack the faith — To biographies, Manning, Pusey, &c. — His views on the Atonement — On Sacrifice — On the ' Lux Mundi ' school of thought — On Old Testament criticism — On Keswick teaching— On Reunion with Nonconformists — On the Pope's Encyclical — On the Imperial position of the Church of England — On Church Reform the true cure for lawlessness — His defence of the Miracle of the Resurrection in the ' Japan Mail ' — His teaching on private confession— Non-communicating attendance — Fasting Communion — Some letters of spiritual counsel — His ideal of the Episcopate and efforts to reach the ideal — Appreciation of his character by the Rev. F. Armine King — By Rev. John Imai — By the Bishop of St. Andrews 397

CHAPTER XII

The Bishop's death at an early age not premature — Months of illness — Lambeth Conference — Last earthly days — The funeral at Chisledon — Reception of the news in Japan — Address from Kobe Christians — Extract from the ' Japan Daily Mail ' — Memorial services, with address by Archdeacon Shaw — Resolution of the Diocesan General Synod — Permanent memorials — Personal letters ...... 454

Index

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Photogravure Portrait Frontispiece

Pembroke College, Cambridge .... To face p. 20

Cambridge Mission at Delhi .... „ 49

Bickersteth Hall, Delhi „ 61

Group of Cambridge Missionaries at Delhi . „ 79

Framlingham Rectory ,,130

St. Andrew's House, Tokyo .... „ 224

Group of Clergy and Divinity Students . „ 290

Vignette Portrait „ 300

Group of the Members of the Synod of 1893 „ 351

Bishopstowe, Tokyo „ 365

St. Andrew's Church, Tokyo .... „ 368

The Bishop's Grave at Chisledon ... „ 474

Memorial Brass in Exeter Cathedral . . . page 474 Map of Japan

CHAPTER I

Edward BiCKERSTETH, the third in direct succession who has borne the name during this century, was the eldest son of Edward Henry, Bishop of Exeter. He was born June 26, 1850, at Banningham Rectory, Norfolk". He sprang, however, from a family which had originally come from the North. Nowhere do the waters gleam and curve with greater beauty than along the winding banks of the Lune, as it nears the little country town of Kirkby Lonsdale in Westmoreland. The old pastoral republics which peopled the valleys and hills in the good old days of the Cumberland and Westmoreland estatesmen produced many gentle in heart and soul, and wise and shrewd above their class. Of these the Broughams, the Sedgwicks, and the Bickersteths are examples. The Bickersteths, or Bickcrstaffes — for down to the last century the name was spelt indifferently in either way — were lords of the manor of Bickerstaffe, near Ormskirk, in Lancashire, from a period anterior to the reign of King John, and played a not inconsiderable part in local history during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, two members of the family representing the county in Parliament, Sir Ralph (who was several times High Sheriff of Lancashire during the reign of Edward H.) in 1313, and Henry de Bickersteth in 1339. In 1376 the manor passed by the marriage of an heiress to an ancestor of the present Earl of Derby, but more than one branch of the family continued to reside in the neighbourhood, and a second Henry de Bickerstcth acquired through his marriage with Malma, daughter and co-heir of Gilbert de Ince {circa 1420), an estate in Aughton, the adjoining parish to Ormskirk, which remained in the possession of the family down to 1736. From this Henry was lineally descended Thomas Bickersteth of Aughton, whose third son James, after studying medicine under Dr. Longworth of Ormskirk, settled as a surgeon at Burton-in- Kendal. He was the father of Henry Bickersteth of Kirkby Lonsdale, who as a surgeon was well known in the town, and honoured far and near.

Henry Bickersteth married a lady named Elizabeth Batty, of Deansbiggin, a remarkable woman, shrewd, strict, and stately, called the Queen of Kirkby Lonsdale. They had five sons, the eldest of whom, James, was lost at sea ; the second, John, was a learned divine and hymnwriter, and was the father of Robert (Bishop of Ripon, 1857-1884) and Edward (Dean of Lichfield); the third, Henry, became Senior Wrangler (1808), subsequently Master of the Rolls (1836-185 1), and was called to the Upper House as Baron Langdale.' The fourth was Edward, and the fifth Robert, who having settled at Liverpool, became one of the first medical men in the north of England.

This fourth son, Edward Bickersteth, the father of the present Bishop of Exeter, was the grandfather of the subject of this memoir. He came to London on January i, i8or, when only fourteen years of age, to take a clerkship at the General Post Office. He was a youth of eager temperament, possessed of great energy of character, and had a

' He married Lady Jane Harley, daughter of Edward, Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, but had only one daughter, who pre-deceas.ed him. He was offered, but declined on the score of health, the great seal of England.'

passion for reading. His duties at the Post Office occupied him daily from lO to 3, but within four years vvc find him offering his services to a lawyer for eight hours a day in addition to this. These hours had to be fitted in between 6 to 10 A.M. and 3 to 1 1 P.M. In his new work he employed himself with such success that in due time he himself became a solicitor, a profession which he only relinquished, together with an annual income of 800/., in 181 5, on taking Holy Orders. He undoubtedly bequeathed to his grandson his love of learning, while his character and career probably shaped the thoughts of the younger man in more ways than can be definitely traced. For Edward Bickersteth, in exchanging the legal profession for the ministry of God's Word and Sacraments, had not only given up excellent worldly prospects for the kingdom of God's sake, but knew that he would be at once sent out on a special mission of inquiry to Africa, the western shores of which were then invested with peculiar terror owing to the grievous mortality among the missionaries. He had, however, for years been a missionary at heart, and was ordained Deacon (being then twenty-nine years of age) on December 10, 1815, by the Bishop of Norwich, and Priest on December 21, within eleven days, by the Bishop of Gloucester (on Letters Dimissory). This enabled him to proceed in full orders to Sierra Leone, where he himself prepared the first six native converts for the Lord's Supper, and admitted them to those Holy Mysteries.

Subsequently, he was resident for many years at the C.M.S. House in Salisbury Square, E.G., as one of the secretaries of that society, and as Rector of Watton, Herts (1830- 1 850), he was ' in labours abundant, in journeyings oft' on behalf of the foreign missions of the Church. He was called to his rest on February 28, 1850.

His only son Edward Henry (through his marriage

B 2 with Sarah, eldest daughter of Thomas Bignold, Esq., of Norwich) was born on St. Paul's day 1825. He had five sisters, two of whom became widely known through the book called ' Doing and Suffering.' ' After taking classical and mathematical honours at Trinity College, Cambridge, and obtaining for the first time then on record the Chancellor's medal for English verse three years in succession, he was ordained in Norwich Cathedral in 1848 (where his father had been ordained twenty-three years before), and appointed at once as curate-in-charge of the small country parish of Banningham in Norfolk. He had married the same year his cousin Rosa, daughter of Sir Samuel Bignold, M.P. for Norwich. Their first-born child was a daughter, the eldest of ten sisters, and the next a son, Edward, the eldest of six brothers. He was born at the Rectory on Wednesday, June 26, 1850. Against this event the following extract stands in the Bishop of Exeter's diary : ' The mercy of its being a boy, whose birth my father anticipated with joy, and whose blessed standard of the Gospel may God grant him one day to uphold.'

It will be seen, therefore, that from the first day of his earthly life the child thus welcomed was dedicated by the piety and prayers of his own father to the work of upholding, if not of carrying into distant lands, the Cross of Christ. For indeed the father himself had fully inherited the ardour of the missionary spirit, and although in God's never-failing Providence not allowed to offer himself for

' This book recorded the correspondence between the elder sister Elizabeth (wife of the Rev. T. R. Eirks, Professor in Moral Philosophy in the University of Cambridge), and Fanny her younger sister, a great invalid, and was written by their sister Mrs. Ward, afterwards the devoted godmother of Edward Bickersteth. Of the other sisters, one, Mrs. Durrant, is now a missionary at her own charges in connection with the C.M.S. in North- West India, and another, Mrs. Cook, is the mother of two medical missionaries in Uganda.

the mission field (an honour which he had in early life once coveted), yet he became the spiritual father and supporter of many who gladly sacrificed all for Christ's sake and the Gospel's, and lived to send his eldest son as his representative.

Edward was baptised by his father on Sunday, July 28, 1850, his godfathers being one of his uncles, the Rev. T. R. Govett, M.A., and John McGregor, Esq., better known as ' Rob Ro}-,' who had been a bosom friend of his father's at Trinity College, Cambridge.^ At the baptism the father preached from the words, ' Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named ' — thinking of his own father, then in Paradise, and of the little boy added that day to the Church below.

In 185 1 Edward Henry Bickersteth was appointed by the philanthropist Earl of Shaftesbury, his own and his father's friend, to the Rectory of Hinton Martell in Dorsetshire, and while there Bishop Denison of Salisbury visited the parish and gave his blessing to the future missionary. In 1 855, however, Mr. Bickersteth was chosen by trustees for the Vicarage of Christ Church, Hampstead, where he continued to reside for thirty years, until he was selected on the nomination of Mr. Gladstone first for the Deanery of Gloucester, and shortly after for the Bishopric of Exeter, over which see he now presides. The change of the parental home to the pleasant vicinity of London (Hampstead is only four miles from Charing Cross, and was then much less built over) solved the educational problem, as there were exceptionally good schools in the neighbourhood.

The vicarage, built in the time of Queen Anne, was

' It is interesting to note that another Cambridge friend and coteniporary of his father's, also of Trinity College, the Rev. Brooke Foss Westcott, had visited the rectory shortly before.

a roomy house, secured for Christ Church during the vicariate of my father's predecessor, Thomas Pelham (subsequently Bishop of Norwich), and commanded splendid views across London from Primrose Hill to the Crystal Palace, and on a clear day as far as to Knockholt Beeches, near Sevenoaks ; while it had a garden which recalled Tennyson's lines:

Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite

Beyond it, blooms the garden that I love.

News from the humming city comes to it

In sound of funeral or of marriage bells ;

And, sitting muffled in dark leaves, you hear

The windy clanging of the minster clock, t

There man}' happy hours were spent, and a healthier place in the neighbourhood of London could hardly have been found.

In the autumn of 1859 Edward went to a dame's school (Mrs. Smallwood's), situated in North End, on the farther side of the Heath, and stayed there for two years and more. Each morning he shared his father's early cup of coffee, and was then accompanied by him across the Heath, which was at that time infested by very rough characters.^ Father and son, however, went both of them together, and reached the school daily in summer and winter by 7 A.M., at which hour the boy's work began.

In 1862 he was sent on to Highgate School, which was founded in 1565 by Sir Roger Cholmeley, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, and was then under the Rev. John Bradley Dyne, D.D. This entailed a daily walk of four miles to and from school, in winter across the Heath and along the high road which led through Caen woods, the

' On three occasions the boy when returning home from Highgate School was stopped in the fields, and once robbed of watch and chain, and another time of money.

property of the Earl of Mansfield ; in summer by a slightly shorter route across the fields which lay to the north side of Traitor's Hill. The father still accompanied the son daily, unless hindered by private or pastoral duties, delighting in making him familiar with the Latin names of birds, trees, &c., and in following all his classical studies. Within a term or two a cousin, Edward Bickersteth Birks, came to reside at Christ Church vicarage for several years,' and the two cousins, thus thrown together, became almost like brothers.

Edward's seven years at Highgate School were in every sense happy, and while proving him to be keen in the acquisition of Greek and Latin, and unusually fond of reading, also showed that he was not devoid of a healthy interest in games. Football he never cared for, but excelled so far in cricket as to play in the First Eleven during his last term, obtaining that year the highest score in the Old Cholmeleian match.- He was also fond oi entomology, and collected many good specimens on the Heath and in the Highgate woods. He was taught swimming and riding, the latter accomplishment giving him a firm seat and confidence on horseback, and being of special use to him in after years, when he had to scour the plains round Delhi in visiting different mission stations, or make his way along untrodden paths in Japan. At school he showed no aptitude for modern languages, though as a missionary he mastered six eastern languages.