rapid rush of clear language. Servants and working-men came to hear with reverence and affection a man who spoke as if his whole being were in the words he used, and who seemed to sympathise with their lives as none had ever done before.

The appreciation of his teaching by servants, a class seldom reached by an intellectual preacher, was remarkable. The story which follows is extracted from a short memoir published after his death :

On the morning of Christmas Day 1847, scarcely five months after his arrival at Brighton, Mr. Robertson, on ascending to his reading-desk, found there a set of handsome prayer-books, which had been presented to him by the servants of families attending the chapel, as a Christmas offering. Naturally affected by this evidence of kindly feeling, he in his sermon took occasion to advert to the subject of presents, and drew a picture of the delight which would fill the heart of a fond brother who, on the morning of his birthday, should awake and find in his chamber a rose placed there by sisterly affection. The simple gift, almost valueless in itself, would be more prized by the brother's heart than a purse of gold. The application of the incident he left to those who could best understand its hidden meaning. The gift was subsequently acknowledged by the following letter :

'9, Montpelier Terrace, Brighton: December 27, 1847. 'My dear Friends,-I should not satisfy my own heart if I were not to tell you how much I was gratified on Christmas Day by your thoughtful offering of the new books for Trinity Chapel. It would be injustice to you if I were to say this with the idea that it emanated from any personal feeling towards myself, who am as yet a stranger among you. I am persuaded that your higher motive was the wish to adorn the services of a house dedicated to the worship of God; but, as the minister of that house, it will not be out of place if the thanks are expressed by I feel that it was kindly imagined and delicately done;

me.

His Interest in his Duties increases

147

and I am the more touched by being told that all who joined in presenting it are in circumstances of life which make the offering doubly precious. I shall never read out of those books without the inspiring feeling that there are hearts around me.

'I am, my dear friends,

'Your affectionate minister,

'FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON.'

As the congregation became larger, and he recognised the several elements which composed it, his sense of the importance of his work increased, and with that his interest in his duty.

And the town in which he was now placed opened to him a field for his earnestness and his genius. The change from Cheltenham to Oxford had not been greater than was now the change from Oxford to Brighton. He had formerly left a half-fashionable place, with narrow interests and a confined sphere of thought, for one of the thinking centres of England, where all social, political, and theological questions were debated with as much eagerness as latitude. There he had easily taken his place as an inspiriting and sympathising teacher. He was now transferred to a town which, more, perhaps, than any other in England, has among its population the sharp contrasts which mutually irritate one another into aggressive life in London. He came into contact at Brighton with religious tendencies and sects as extreme as at Cheltenham, but they were opposed more strongly than at Cheltenham by a bold freedom of thought among the upper and lower classes, which tended in the former to carelessness or silent contempt for Christianity, and in the latter to open infidelity. He met with men of all classes, whose opinions had been formed and widened in the storm and stress of London life, and with others whose prejudices were as blind

as those of the smallest village in England. He associated with clergymen of all religious denominations, who had rendered themselves known by their eloquence and their writings or by their active leadership of party. He mingled with persons of every shade of Conservatism and Liberalism, and, among the working men, with large numbers of hot and eager Chartists.

If he had been as fresh and enthusiastic as he had been six years before, he would, like a young soldier, have rejoiced at his position, placed thus in the fore-front of the battle. But, as we have seen, he was worn and weary.

He had a presentiment, which was not altogether painful to him, that his work-done as he did it, with a throbbing brain, with nerves strung to their utmost tension, and with a physical excitement which was all the more consuming from being mastered in its outward forms-would kill him in a few years. He resolved to crowd into this short time all he could. He had long felt that Christianity was too much preached as theology, too little as the religion of daily life; too much as a religion of feeling, too little as a religion of principles; too much as a religion only for individuals, too little as a religion for nations and for the world. He determined to make it bear upon the social state of all classes, upon the questions which agitated society, upon the great movements of the world.

Shortly after his arrival at Brighton, he had an opportunity for carrying out his intention. The great surge which took its impulse from the volcanic outburst of February, 1848, in Paris, rolled over half of Europe. The decrees of February 25, 26, by which Lamartine declared France republican, chimed in with the hopes of all the educated as well as uneducated minds among the working classes. The cry of

Effect of the Revolution of 1848 upon him

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Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, and the demands based upon this watchword, created a wild fear in some Englishmen and a wild joy in others, which were alike irrational. No man in society could be silent on these subjects. Robertson resolved not to be silent in the pulpit. His spirit was stirred within him, as the spirits of Coleridge and of Wordsworth had been at the beginning of a greater revolution. He rejoiced in the downfall of old oppressions; and in the 'young cries of Freedom,' he thought that he heard the wheels of the chariot of the Son of Man, coming nearer and nearer to vindicate the cause of the poor. He writes in 1848:

The world has become a new one since we met. To my mind, it is a world full of hope, even to bursting. I wonder what you think of all these tumults:

For all the past of time reveals

A bridal dawn of thunder-peals,

Wherever thought hath wedded fact.

Some outlines of a kingdom of Christ begin to glimmer, albeit very faintly, and far off, perhaps, by many, many centuries. Nevertheless, a few strokes of the rough sketch by a masterhand are worth the seeing, though no one knows yet how they shall be filled up. And those bold, free, dashing marks are made too plainly to be ever done out again. Made in blood, as they always are, and made somewhat rudely; but the Masterhand is visible through the great red blotches on the canvas of the universe. I could almost say sometimes, in fulness of heart, 'Now let Thy servant depart in peace.'

I have been very much overdone by work here. It is extremely trying; full of encouragment, but full of a far larger amount of misunderstanding and dislike than I expected to meet with. And I work alone with many adversaries,' and few to bless; but with a very distinct conviction that I am

doing something; and for that I am grateful, for it is well-nigh the only thing that is worth the living for.

He had already begun, in January, 1848, a course of lectures on the First Book of Samuel. In explaining the history contained in that book he necessarily entered on questions belonging to the life of society, and to the rise and progress of national ideas. At the very beginning of his exposition he was forced to speak of a great revolution. As he went on, he came into contact with the subject of the rights of property and the rights of labour; and, in the election of David instead of Saul, he was obliged to discuss the limits of authority, and how far an unjust or a weak king is a rightful ruler of a people. So there was scarcely a question debated in 1848 which was not brought before him. He did not refuse them. They were all treated of; but as Israelitish, not as modern questions. It was not his fault that these lectures, running side by side with the national convulsions and social excitement of Europe and England, had a double interest-an ancient and a modern one. It was not his fault that men did what he could not do in the pulpit, and applied the principles which he found. in the First Book of Samuel, to the society and times in which they lived.

However, he irritated and terrified almost all parties in Brighton. A cry was raised against him. He was spoken of as a Revolutionist and a Democrat. An anonymous

letter was sent to the bishop of the diocese, complaining of a certain sermon, and accusing him of preaching on political subjects, in a manner calculated-when men's minds

See this subject fully carried out in Vol. i. Sermon xvi., and Vol. ii. Sermon i.