The life and letters of George Alfred Lefroy D. D., Bishop of Calcutta, and metropolitan

Front matter

BX 5199 .L45 A5 Lefroy, George Alfred, 1854- 1918.

The life and letters of Georae Alfred Lefrov D. nJ

Section

Preface

When the relatives of the late Bishop of Calcutta approached me with a request that I would write his “ Life,” it was impossible to refuse. He had been a warm friend of many years. I had just been freed from the S.P.G., and was myself born in India, with a family name not unknown in the Punjab. Moreover, I had spent six weeks in Delhi in 1913.

If the charm of a Biography depends in great part upon letters, then this volume ought to find a welcome ; and no biographer can have been more highly favoured than I have been by the wealth of the bright, hopeful, thoughtful correspondence placed at my disposal by the family. For thirtynine years this devoted son and brother wrote almost weekly to one or other of the home circle. All these letters have been preserved and are in truth an unconscious autobiography of utmost value. My difficulty has consisted in choosing among them. No son or brother, again, could ever have poured out his soul more fully to his own people than did George Lefroy : and at the same time no family has ever been more honourably reticent in regard to these confidences than the brothers and sisters who were privileged to receive such an education, for such indeed it is, in missionary problems.

To Miss Helena Lefroy I have to give my deepest thanks. She has read all the proofs and has made the index. Though I am solely responsible for all that is published. Miss Lefroy’s counsel at every stage has been quite invaluable, and through her I have been in touch with all the other members of the family. In regard to the portraits, we all agreed that the photograph which forms the frontispiece gives the best impression of the man while he was still physically in his prime. The picture of Lefroy as Bishop of Calcutta, a reproduction of which is given, was painted by Mr. Goldsborough Anderson, and is the property of Mr. Edward Lefroy.

Perhaps the friends who have helped me most for the delineation of character, are the Bishop of Bombay, Bishop Foss Westcott (now the Metropolitan), and Archdeacon

PREFACE viii

Firminger, of Calcutta. To the Bishop of Madras, to many members of the Delhi Mission, chiefly to the Rev. F. J. Western, to the Bishop of Lahore and many members of the Diocese, past and present, as for example the Rev. H. U. W. Stanton, to many clergy and friends in the Diocese of Calcutta, especially the Rev. J. Godber, I desire to freely express my gratitude for help given.

It will be noted also how delightful a contribution has been made by a group of Indian gentlemen, both Christian and Moslem : nor have women missionaries in India failed to add their quota.

Those who knew Lefroy at school and college have been most helpful : and Mr. H. P. K. Skipton, secretary of the Indian Church Aid Association, most generously placed at my disposal all his material after writing the charming appreciation of one whom he loved and revered. This article is now published separately. My wife and Miss Fletcher gave me invaluable aid in copying letters, and Mr. A. W. Nott has been a constant helper.

In regard to the book itself, I have always held that biographies are spoilt by lengthiness, and that one volume is several times better than two, except in very exceptional circumstances. The best praise a book can receive is a wish that it had been longer. The central point of interest for most people will, I have no doubt, be found in the chapters which deal with the work of Lefroy in his relations with the Moslems. These I believe will be of permanent value, and I specially desire to explain that in regard to questions of Mahommedan controversy and criticisms of the tenets of Islam, I have not introduced any new matter. I have only quoted from articles written by Lefroy many years ago, such treatises being still available for purchase.

With regret I complete my task, wishing that I had accomplished it better. I can truly say that no one will have gained more than I have myself by the study of the life work of so great, so lovable, so bright and hopeful a man of God.

Chiswick,

January, 1920.

Table Of Contents

CHAPTER PACE

I. Home and School Life i

II. Cambridge 9

Index

K

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

TO FACE PAGE

Portrait : Bishop of Lahore Frontispiece

(From a photograph by Elliot and Fry, Ltd.)

Aghaderg Rectory 2

St. Stephen’s Church, Delhi 20

Cambridge Brotherhood, 1904 128

Lahore Cathedral 149

The Bishop’s Mother 152

Portrait : Bishop of Calcutta 221

{^Froni the painting by Mr. C. Goldsborougk Anderson')

Calcutta Cathedral 222

LIFE AND LETTERS OF

GEORGE ALFRED LEFROY

Chapter I Home And School Life

The Lefroys trace their descent from a family which fled from the Netherlands during the Spanish wars. They arrived in England in 1569 and settled first in Canterbury ; afterwards at Ewshott in Hampshire. Then in 1763 one branch of the family is found in Ireland. George Alfred Lefroy’s greatgrandfather was an officer in the British army, and was quartered in Ireland for many years, and so founded the Irish branch. The grandfather, Thomas Langlois, an eminent Irish lawyer, became Chief Justice of the Queen’s Bench, and married the daughter of Sir Robert Paul of Silversprings, County Waterford. Four sons and three daughters were born to them. The third son, Jeffry, was the father of the future Metropolitan of India. He took Holy Orders, and in 1836 became Rector of Aghaderg in the Diocese of Dromore, County Down, and here he remained for fifty years, dying in 1885 in the Rectory where all his family were reared. The Rev. Jeffry Lefroy was the humblest of men, and was genuinely surprised w'hen honours fell to him. In 1876 his Bishop conferred upon him the Deanery of Dromore, some seven miles from Aghaderg ; this, however, did not mean departure from home and parish. Naturally, too, he served on all important Bodies, such as the General Synod of the Church of Ireland, the Representative Church Body, and the chief Diocesan Committees. It will be seen later what his son, the Bishop, owed to his father’s character and influence. In 1844 the Rector of Aghaderg married Helena, eldest daughter of the Rev. Frederick Stewart and Lady Helena Trench of Kilmorony near Athy. Six sons and three daughters were born to them, George Alfred being the fourth son, born August ii, 1854.

No mother ever had a nobler influence on her children than the wife of the Rector of Aghaderg. Two of her children have written a memoir of their mother for private circulation, a beautiful story, and I regret that I can only summarise the account there given of a very gracious personality. Mrs. Lefroy, nee Trench, was born in Dublin in 1820, her mother. Lady Helena, being the daughter of the first Lord Arden, an elder brother of Spencer Perceval, who was assassinated in the Lobby of the House of Commons in 1812.

The Trenches moved to Kilmorony when Helena was fourteen. Here she became not only a first-rate horsewoman, a gardener and a botanist, but was also thoroughly grounded in the classics by her father, and learnt to read and to speak French, German and Italian. Her father, the Rector of Athy, was one of the old-fashioned Evangelical clergy, one of the best of them, deeply versed in Bible and Prayer-book, imbuing his family with a solid personal religion, a splendid foundation on which to build wider convictions of the Church and its Sacraments. These last influences were soon felt by the Trench family through Sir William Heathcote, of Hursley Park, the friend and patron of John Keble, the former having married Lady Caroline Perceval, another daughter of Lord Arden. Sir William often visited Kilmorony, and in 1841 the Trenches met Dr. Pusey in Ireland, being introduced by John Keble. In 1844 Helena married Mr. Lefroy, and left Kilmorony for the Rectory of Aghaderg. It may be noted that from her earliest days she had felt the true importance of missions and had consistently supported the S.P.G. In 1853 she heard George Augustus Selwyn preach, and then and there she dedicated to God, and for the work of the Church abroad, her yet unborn babe, to be baptized in due course George Alfred.

The Lefroys, and George not least, have always looked back with joy to the summer holidays, annually repeated, when the whole family in patriarchal fashion migrated from

AGHADERG RECTORY.

•vaS V

HOME AND SCHOOL LIFE 3

the Rectory in a body to Newcastle at the foot of the Mourne mountains, then a little fishing village. The cow and the pony, and the cart with the luggage, started in the evening, the family in an old-fashioned carriage began their migration next morning. Once settled in, the whole party engaged in constant excursions into the hills ; they bathed and boated, of course, and it was the mother who rejoiced to arrange all the plans and picnics. Forty years afterwards, George and a brother were in the Orkneys and struck up a friendship with other visitors at the inn, when one of them said, “ Are you the Lefroys who used to go off the pier at Newcastle ? ”

In the years that followed, the mother took the greatest pains to keep in touch with her sons, and was an indefatigable letter writer. Her handwriting was beautiful, for she had been brought up to believe that letters should be written with care and accuracy. There is no doubt that her example in this respect moulded George’s own habits all through his life, and it may be as well to state here that the future missionary wrote almost weekly throughout his Indian career either to his mother or to one of his sisters ; long and careful letters they almost all are, and clearly written. All these have been preserved, and the biographer’s perplexity consists in choosing his material from a mass of wealth almost unprecedented in amount and quality.

But there is another member of the Aghaderg circle of whom special mention must be made. Happy is the household which has possessed a nurse beloved and honoured, only next in affection to the mother. Among this august band Sarah Anne Curtis must be given a high place ; for forty years she was the nurse of the successive children in their infancy, and the friend of all of them in maturer years. She was evidently possessed of great gifts ; besides this, she was a very godly woman, well versed in Scripture ; also she had an unfailing supply of stories, and was an expert at all games, puzzles, and charades, being at the same time a stern disciplinarian. Perhaps what she was all in all may be summed up in a remark of the mother: “Yes, I always thought there must be some good in me because I was never jealous of Curty.”

In 1885 Dean Lcfroy died : Mrs. Lefroy lived on for her children, believing in the wisdom of the old saying, “ It is not so important to do extraordinary things as to do common things extraordinarily well.” Another trait in her character deserves attention : “ There was never in her a trace of that hurry and rush which is more common than attractive in the lives of many self-denying people. No one ever saw her fussed, or what is called ‘ put out.’ It was the result not of carelessness or easy-goingness but of an intensely, but unobtrusively, methodical, disciplined, and thorough life, a calm, strong and happy temperament." There can be no doubt that her son George did not fail to recognise the beauty of this lesson from his mother’s character. The day came when as Bishop of Lahore it was his duty at Bannu to preach at a service attended by the present King and Queen. He took as his text the words “ Fret not.” The Princess, as she then was, asked the Bishop for a copy of his sermon, and I am deeply indebted to her Majesty for giving me permission to use her copy in order to give many others the benefit of the lesson so well inculcated by the Bishop. The sermon will be found on pp. 152 et seq, given almost in full. Mrs. Lefroy had another gift. She read beautifully, and her sons and daughters tell of the delight with which they listened to Scott’s novels, and to many of Miss Yonge’s works — especially the “ Heir of Redclyffe ” — read to them of evenings.

After the death of the Rector of Aghaderg the family moved to Killiney, County Dublin, the mother giving as the reason for her choice that her sons were in England ; no, she would not go to England. “ I shall stay in Ireland, but I shall settle as near England as I can, so that whenever my sons want to come to me they can do so as easily as possible,” Killiney church was a long mile off, but up to the time when Mrs. Lefroy was eighty years of age she walked to church and back again Sunday after Sunday, Of course it was an immense joy to the mother when her son George, whom she had dedicated to God when yet unborn, was consecrated Bishop of Lahore in 1899. The Bishop came home in 1908, visiting Palestine on his way, in order to attend the Pan Anglican Congress and the Lambeth Conference, and was in time to see his mother once more. She passed away in that

HOME AND SCHOOL LIFE year in her eighty-eighth year. They tell how she repeated the 27th Psalm perfectly and accurately as was her wont, almost as her last words. Characteristically, too, when asked how she felt, she answered, “ Oh ! failing, failing, failing ; but oh ! how I wish that matters would hurry up a little.” She was buried beside her husband at Loughbrickland, and gre^t was the gathering at the funeral ; all classes and religious denominations were present. A dozen times the bearers were changed, so eager were as many as possible to help to carry “ the mistress ” to her last resting-place.

The history of one to whom the subject of this memoir owed so much is the best possible background for all that is to follow. Let the Bishop speak for himself. In a sermon preached at Simla on ” Womanhood ” he said, “ Think of the mother’s influence and of how she herself — not what she says, not what she does, but above all what she is — is impressed upon the life of her child, and moulds it and shapes it in a thousand ways which we can never trace, of which mother and child may alike be wholly unconscious, but which are as certain as the influence on us of any other of the natural surroundings and circumstances amid which the young plastic life develops and is formed. Nor is it restricted to the time of infancy or childhood only, though even if it were the impress so made, the seed so sown must necessarily be of the greatest possible potency in the development of the whole life. I stand before you myself, as one, and I doubt not there are other men in the congregation who could say the same, to whom the mother is still the guiding power of my life. I turn to her still, not only for counsel in difficulties, though that too, but also which is of infinitely more importance, for that sense of restfulness and calm and quiet, for the inspiration of all things pure and true and beautiful and good, and for the sense of God’s presence coming very close to human life, which are surely amongst the most strengthening and helpful influences which can enter into the life of any of us. I owe more to my mother than to any other human influence of which I am conscious.” A noble tribute from a son to a mother.

George must early have imbibed influences from his mother since it is related of him that even before he could speak plainly, if asked what he intended to be, he used to lisp “ I want to be a Missionary in New Zealand.” But we pass on to schooldays.

At ten years of age he was sent with an elder brother to Temple Grove near Mortlake, a famous school, occupying the house of Sir William Temple, ambassador in Holland in the reign of William III., and where Swift was Secretary and where also it is said he first met Stella. George only spent one year there, and in 1865 he went to Marlborough, where he remained for nine years. Starting at the bottom of the school he worked his way up to the top. Strong in body he succeeded in winning the school mile after several efforts ; but his happiest memories were connected with many a ramble in Savernake Forest, where he gained a love for wild life which led him in after years to seek his recreation as often as possible in the higher Himalayas ; letters in due time will reveal his joy in expeditions at altitudes up to 15,000 feet and within view of mighty peaks.

Memories of George’s school life as given by school fellows and masters are all delightful, and the following lines seem to reveal the man as we knew him up to the end.

The Rev. G. H. Purdue writes :

“ I was at Marlborough with him in 1869-73 and for the last two or three years he was one of my chief friends. He was a splendid type of a public-school boy, a first class milerunner — winning the mile his last year as a ‘ dark horse ’ owing to his splendid stamina and pluck — but above all things highprincipled and not ashamed to show his colours when necessary, always cheery and good tempered. It would be difficult to find a finer character in the rough and tumble of public-school life in those days. One incident respecting him I always recall with gratitude. Knowing that I like himself was hoping to be ordained, he suggested that we should meet in his study and read Greek Testament together. This we did on several occasions. It was one of the most precious memories of my friendship with him. No wonder that a boy of his age who could, with so many claims on his time, so propose a plan for his friend’s benefit, should have lived to become the much loved and honoured helper and friend of so many souls.”

” Lefroy had a charming disposition which disarmed

HOME AND SCHOOL LIFE opposition and won him friends among all classes. I remember on one occasion how he took me to the house of a farmer who lived near Marlborough. Farmers and College boys were not always the best of friends, but in this instance we were generously entertained to walnuts and wine. It appeared that previously to this the farmer had caught Lefroy trespassing on his ground. Lefroy explained that he had done no harm and would do no harm. Thus a friendship commenced and peace reigned in the place of war.”

From the Rev. W. H. Churchill (1880) to Mrs. Lefroy:

” Frank sent me George’s letter to read which I am now returning. I am so glad to see he is cheery and well, but I doubt if it is possible for him to be otherwise. I have known him for 14 years now: we went to Marlborough together as small bairns, and I never knew him say or do anything that would have brought a blush to your cheek. In after life it was just the same. At our ordination we saw a great deal of each other, and there he was, a man of such disinterested holiness, together with such winning, tolerant, unselfish ways, that it made one hang down one’s head and sigh to be a little more like him. You who know him will know that this is not extravagance, but merely the truth. It is honour enough to have such a friend : what joy it must be to have such a son.”

“ Thank you so much for letting me see George’s letter. I have just packed off one to him, 15 pages of sermon sheets, giving an account of Trinity Sunday at Ely. Many a time my thoughts wandered back a year and visions of George, on his knees, alone with me, made me wish, not a little, that he too were there. He is one of those men whose very presence drives sin away. Good-bye.”

From the Rev. C. W. Bourne (his house master) :

“ The impression that Lefroy ’s character made on me was of ‘ straightness ’ and ‘ alertness.’ He was one of those persons whom one always took for granted : that he would under all circumstances do the right thing in the right way seemed to be a matter of course. Such a character goes on its way, sweetening all its surroundings, but so unostentatiously that one does not realise at first how much good such a person is doing. I have tried to recall some of those who were boys with him in the same house at Marlborough. I fancy I am correct in naming the following : R. E. Prothero (now Lord Ernie) ; H. Vassall, the famous Oxford footballer, and his cousin R. L. S. Vassall, who died while serving in one of our frontier campaigns in India ; C. L. M. Des Gray, the diplomatist ; A. P. Codd, the most brilliant mathematician I ever taught ; R. G. Kekewich, the defender of Kimberley, and his cousin, H. L. Lopes ; J. B. Kite, Dean of Hobart ; G. W. Grey, at that time a Queen’s Page ; G. Mackintosh and W. L. Mackintosh, two brothers who have done great things, one in the service of the Army, and the other of the Church ; K. W. Murray, the Genealogist ; R. W. Doyne, the well-known ophthalmic surgeon ; and two notable trios of brothers, Sieveking and Pickard- Cambridge. I kept in touch with Lefroy till he went out to India, but after that time ill-luck always prevented my seeing anything of him in his visits to England.”

Chapter II Cambridge

In 1874, George Lefroy went up to Trinity College, Cambridge. So far as I can judge he did not exhibit in his University life any special indication that he would be distinguished in after years. But undoubtedly he did not neglect his studies since in 1878 he gained a first class in the Theological Tripos. Speaking of Lefroy, Dr. Stanton writes, “ Emphatically he was one of those Christian lads from our great English Public Schools of whom Archbishop Benson once said, ‘The army of Heaven which follows the Son of man on white horses has no more fair, more beautiful recruits.’ ” Home, School, University were training the man, and he was one who had no need for a special moment of conversion. Continuing in one stay he grew, and there is a noble work in a world that needs all types of Christian life for those who by all testimony go from strength to strength, earning the gratitude of schoolmasters and college tutors, and carrying on for themselves the happiest of associations of their early days for after life. It was during his time at Cambridge that he was brought into touch with those who were planning a Cambridge Mission to Delhi. The story has already been well and completely told by Canon Bickersteth in his Life of his brother,^ and I am permitted to give the substance of what is there stated as well as to print an extract from one of Lefroy’s letters which appears in that volume.

The conception of such a Mission seems to have occurred first to Edward Bickersteth some time in 1875 and under the influence of two distinguished men. Dr. Valpy French, some time fellow of University College, Oxford, a great missionary and linguist and soon to become Bishop of Lahore, and also of

* “Life and Letters of Edward Bickersteth ” (Sampson Low).

lo LIFE AND LETTERS OF GEORGE ALFRED LEFROY

Professor Westcott at Cambridge. French, of course, had been visiting Cambridge in the cause of Missions in the Punjab. Both these men felt that, in the words of Dr. Westcott, “ the Universities are providentially fitted to train men who shall interpret the Faith of the West to the East and bring back to us new illustrations of the one infinite and eternal Gospel.” In 1876 the scheme was proposed in papers read before the Cambridge University Church Society and the Cambridge Graduates Mission Aid Society, by Dr. French and the Rev. E. Bickersteth. The general idea was “ the formation of a band of fellow workers whose special object should be, in addition to evangelistic labours, to promote higher education, to provide a home for Christian students, and to undertake literary and other work which might reach the more educated and thoughtful.” The S.P.G. promised cordial assistance ; Delhi was proposed as the best centre, and Sir Bartle Frere wrote a letter warmly supporting the scheme and pointing out the advantage to be gained by associating Cambridge with the fine work already being carried out at Delhi by the Rev. R. R. Winter under the auspices of the S.P.G. The Rev. E. Bickersteth and the Rev. J. D. M. Murray actually joined Mr. Winter in Delhi in 1877. In 1878 Mr. Winter took furlough and the whole of the Mission work in Delhi was entrusted temporarily to the two Cambridge men. In 1878 the Rev. H. C. Carlyon and the Rev. H. F. Blackett joined the others in Delhi. All four were either fellows or scholars of their colleges.

But to return to Lefroy at Cambridge. After taking his degree he spent the greater part of his time at Cambridge in the study of Hebrew and Persian. He also began to teach in Jesus Lane Sunday school, and to give lectures in Barnwell to young men. In that year he writes home upon a subject which earns for him the intense sympathy of his biographer : “ I was asked,” he says, “ not only to teach in the Sunday school but also to collect subscriptions for the C.M.S. It is terrible work, about the most unpleasant I think that I was ever employed on, but I try to keep my naturally depressed spirits as high as possible, and I believe that so far I have met with average success.” It may help if I add my experience to Lefroy’s. As a Sunday school teacher at Jesus Lane throughout my Cambridge career I was given a list of

CAMBRIDGE

1 1

names at Trinity of men whom I was to visit for the purpose of obtaining sums of 5j. for the C.M.S. Nothing I have ever had to do since has seemed formidable after that experience ! I can understand better how Lefroy could face angry crowds in the Delhi Bazaar since he also persevered in obtaining those sums (at what a cost !). To knock at a man’s door, probably a senior man, to find him at breakfast with others, to expl^iin in halting terms what I wanted to a man who may have had the dimmest idea of the C.M.S., and to be asked in return how much I wanted in order to get rid of me as soon as possible, and to feel that 5^. was a cheap riddance ! No, nothing in after life has been a more distressing duty. But to continue : let Lefroy speak for himself in regard to his early associations with Bickersteth.

“ My recollections of contact at Cambridge with Edward Bickersteth, before the mission started for Delhi, are very slight indeed. I remember a walk in the Botanical Gardens shortly after I had, in consequence of a sermon preached by Dr. Lightfoot in Great St. Mary’s, asked to be accepted as a member of the Brotherhood. One or two similar walks I know followed, and then I have a clear recollection of a characteristically University gathering at which, the full number of six who had been asked for to start the mission having been completed, we inaugurated our undertaking by a breakfast in Pembroke College in the rooms of our leader. And I have often thought that it was a marked sign of the hand of our God upon us for good from the first, that although of the six who so sat down to breakfast in the spring of 1877 only two were able to go out that year, two more the next year, and the remaining two not till the autumn of 1879, yet eventually, without a single loss or withdrawal from any cause, the same six met in December, 1879, for breakfast and a truly “common ’’ life in Delhi. Of the subjects of conversation in those first walks I remember nothing, but I do know that the sense of enthusiasm and of keen, though restrained, energy which so markedly characterised Bickersteth did not wholly fail of their due effect upon me.”

In June, 1879, George Lefroy was ordained Deacon by the Bishop of Ely. He came home for a few weeks before he sailed in November for India. And it happened that on his last Sunday at Aghaderg he read the lesson (Ezekiel ii.) in which the words occur “ to preach the word, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear.” For his sermon ere he left, his text was “ Brethren, pray for us,” and his words were long remembered by many of his hearers. His companion for the voyage was the Rev. S. S. Allnutt, these two making up the number of the Cambridge mission to six : And it is .surely a touching and inspiring fact to remember that three of them have just passed away all within a year, forty years after they went to India ; all three, Allnutt, Lefroy, Carlyon, lie buried among the people for whom they gave their lives. Lefroy’s brother, the Rev. F. Lefroy, gives us the last peep of the young missionary in a letter to his mother written from his grandmother. Lady Helena Trench’s house, at Rownhams.