and we trust that you will allow them to remain within St. Andrews Church, in which we have so often listened to your words and have been cheered by your presence. They will be a permanent memorial of your honoured name.

The Bishop, in reply, said,-My dear friends and brethren in Christ, I am greatly gratified and cheered under a trial of much bodily pain and infirmity by the regard and affection which you have exhibited towards me in this address. I also rejoice to think that through your kindness and generosity to me my successors in the Episcopate to the end of time will be provided with an official chair and a pastoral staff, which, through the excellence of their workmanship, are not unworthy of the sacred place and solemn purpose for which they are designed. You have alluded to the source from which the material they are composed of has been obtained. The fact you mention cannot fail to give them an historical interest, and to me especially, as a Christ Church man and a friend of the late Dean, it enhances their value. You have also reminded me that this is the 40th year since I became your Bishop; and you are so good as to express a hope that my life, which has been so mercifully prolonged when so many of my juniors have been called away, may still be preserved for some time to come. In such circumstances an occasion like this is one for deep feeling and much serious reflection on my part rather than for many words. I will, therefore, only say further that I appreciate these tokens of your esteem and attachment very highly, and thank you one and all for them most heartily.

The Te Deum was then sung, and the ceremony closed with the Benediction.

But even this was not the Bishop's last public utterance, Though suffering in these last years from severe pain and bodily weakness, his intellectual vigour was still great, and to within a few weeks of his death he was making progress with the second volume of his 'Annals,' and preparing the material which has been used in this memoir. He also published a valuable volume of sermons (Primary Witness to the Truth of the Gospel') and revised his book on Shakespeare and the Outlines of the Christian Ministry.'

On 12 August, 1892, he wrote from Edinburgh to Miss M. Barter:

Since I came here I have written my Charge (not long), but have made as yet very little progress with the Annals '-proof sheets are coming in both of Shakespeare' and 'Outlines,' so that I do not expect to be ready for your kindly-offered and valuable assistance so soon as I had hoped [probably in copying the Annals'], probably not till the end of the year or thereabouts.

The Charge was delivered in the Bishop's absence on 5 October.1 Canon Farquhar writes in his Diary:

We have to-day what may most likely prove to be Bishop Wordsworth's last Diocesan Synod. Last night we were awakened by terrific peals of thunder, and all to-day rain has been descending in torrents. Nevertheless there was a fair attendance of clergy and laity. The Bishop himself was absent for the first time during an Episcopate of 40 years! His Charge was read by the Dean. The old man's appeal to the Presbyterians ('for the last time') was very touching. The Archdeacon, in happy terms, proposed a motion congratulating the Bishop on his undiminished intellectual energy, and conveying the affectionate thanks of the Synod for some touching words of farewell with which the Charge concluded. This was carried unanimously. And is this indeed the end of these forty years of mighty Charges?

The following statistics for two years, 1853 and 1892, giving the figures at the beginning and the end of his

It was printed in full in the Scottish Guardian of 7 October, where it occupies nearly nine closely printed columns. It is therefore of considerable length, and is of the author's accustomed ability. Its text is the address of Dr. Charteris as Moderator of the General Assembly: The Sacred Foundation of the Church of Scotland.' The Bishop restates the two main features of his scheme, (1) that he did not mean it to apply to Nonconformity in general, but to Scottish Presbyterianism; (2) that the acceptance, where desired, of Presbyterian ordination, was not to be as a rule for the future, but pro hac vice. He notices an article in the Church Times of 23 September supporting a 'precisely similar' view.

Episcopate, will show at a glance something of the progress made in forty years, though they only represent a few heads of work. I borrow them mainly from Canon

And now the Bishop, having rendered up his accounts to man, might have hoped that he would be left in peace to prepare to give account of his stewardship to Him who gave it. But the end of strife was not yet. Most untowardly the meeting of the Glasgow Church Conference, not a week after the delivery of the Charge, gave an opening to a trusted officer of the Diocese to criticise the Bishop's Reunion policy in a manner which the critic himself afterwards deeply regretted. This was on 11 October. It was apparently in consequence of this that the Bishop once again took pen in hand, and in a very vigorous and lucid letter addressed to the Scotsman' on the 13th (which appeared in its issue of the 15th 1) made what he described as an Apologia pro vita sua. There was no reference to the untoward incident, but after an allusion to the failure of prophecies about his uncle (like Jeffrey's famous This will never do ' on the Excursion '), he went on to put a series of thirteen questions, the answers to which must (in his opinion) necessarily be in the affirmative, and all tend to support his position. Some kind of an apology

These were Dunblane and Kirriemuir.

2 Add also 18 Missions, Private Chapels, &c.

3 The number confirmed is very large by comparison. It must imply that a great many Presbyterians received the rite. The boys of the training ship 'Mars' must also be counted.

It was reprinted in the Scottish Guardian of the 28th.

6

was made by his critic in a letter to the Scottish Guardian,' but it did not quite satisfy his devotion to the cause for though wounded in person he clearly felt for that far the most. Yet he fretted much under the unlooked for charge, made by one whom he loved, that he had not only been doing no good, but had done positive harm, and he could not wholly pass it over. The result was a final and a very remarkable exertion, made within a fortnight of his death, in the form of a letter to the same Church newspaper, entitled An Attempt to remove Misunderstanding,' dated 21 November, and appearing in its issue of the 25th. The arguments are well marshalled and the points made clear, and, while he lost nothing in point of dignity, his cause was certainly the gainer. The critic was gently but firmly answered, and those concerned reminded of the necessity of historical studies and full consideration of circumstances, before expressing an opinion on the great cause to which he had given the best part of his life.

In the interval between these two letters he noticed with thankfulness a hopeful incident in another quarter.

This was the foundation of the Scottish Church Society, which was constituted at a meeting held in Edinburgh on 19 October, under the presidency of his friend, Dr. Milligan (see the report in the Scottish Guardian,' 28 October, p. 576). The following words stand at the head of its constitution:

The motto of the Society shall be Ask for the Old Paths .. and walk therein.

The general purpose of the Society shall be to defend and advance Catholic doctrine as set forth in the Ancient Creeds and embodied in the standards of the Church of Scotland, and generally to assert Scriptural principles in all matters relating to Church Order and Policy, Christian work and Spiritual life throughout Scotland.

Here was clearly the beginning of a Tractarian movement' inside the Established Church, which might well be expected to have as important fruits as that which had coincided with the Bishop's early days, and thus a gleam of light shone across his last month of life.

The following account of the last days of the Bishop has been written by a member of the family:

Early in December he was taken ill; the illness, though painful, was mercifully short, and it was plain that the long life was close to its end. Friday, only four days before his death, he was evidently aware of this; severe pain coming on, he remarked that this was certainly to be his cross.' He was full of tender consideration for the daughter who was his chief companion and nurse during that last week, anxious that she should not be knocked up, and saying, as he kissed her that Friday evening, 'My dear, you have been good to me!' His mind was vigorous almost to the last; and, still intent on the Church and Diocese he loved so well, on Sunday afternoon he dictated for the post directions concerning the induction of an Incumbent and other ecclesiastical business. On Monday, the last day, he received with thankfulness the loving ministry of a young priest then in charge at St. Andrews. About 10 o'clock in the morning, feeling his powers failing, he raised himself in bed with a strong and concentrated effort and, with a clear and vigorous voice, offered his last prayer and act of humble contrition, in which he earnestly described himself as the chiefest of sinners.' He only spoke once again, when, seeing another daughter, who had come from a distance to his death-bed, he said with a loving smile to her, 'Are you there, my dear? Oh, I am so glad to see you.' His face brightened again as his children said the Te Deum' and, as the evening drew on, sang hymns round his bed-till about 8 p.m. on 5 December his spirit passed painlessly away.

He was buried in the Cathedral cemetery on Friday, the 9th. His body was taken into the chancel of St. Andrew's Church the previous evening, and watched through the night by members of the congregation. Early in the morning, while a golden sunrise lit up sea and sky with a radiant glow quite remarkable for that cold, foggy December season, a congregation of loving