The sad news came to England upon May 19; both Colonel Mockler and Mr. Mackirdy wrote full accounts by the mail, but Colonel Mockler also telegraphed to Mr. Maitland and asked him to communicate the tidings home. It was fitting that the mournful task should fall to one whose grandfather had given a special blessing to the bishop when he first set forth as a young man upon his missionary labours; and who himself had been the last in intimate companionship to share his missionary labours; one who for months, (as he said) in this time of their bereavement remembered by name both Mrs. French and those of her children who were personally known to him twice daily in his morning and his midday prayers; and who, after collecting all the details of the latest hours, so soon was to be called to follow him to the sweet rest of Paradise.

To all who took an interest in missionary efforts the bishop's death came as a shock indeed, but scarce as a surprise, for many feared that he had entered on a task beyond his strength and years. Very abundant were the marks of sympathy: from natives and from Europeans, from missionaries and from chaplains, from soldiers and civilians, from missionary bishops in far distant lands, from colleagues in his English ministries and members of his English congregations, from invalids who, while debarred from active work, had constantly sustained him by their prayers, there came almost innumerable tokens of regard for him: each noting some fresh point for comfort or for praise and thankfulness, or saintly memory, and all alike breathing the common consciousness that one of rare devotion and rich gifts had gone to his reward. His very name,' said one, 'was a Sursum Corda.' 'He was not, for God took him,' said another. You know the Jewish legend, that Moses died of the kisses of God, and what else would a sunstroke be to one so loving and beloved, so meet for translation? When we think what lingering illness would

1 Sir Peregrine Maitland.

LETTERS OF FRIENDS

403

have been to him, or any decay of that brilliant mind, can we help bowing our heads and thanking even while the heart aches and aches, and the tears will have their way?' It is so entirely the death he would himself have chosen' seems to have been the thought of very many. One letter, representing in some sort the feeling of the whole English Church of which the writer is the Primate, may be given here at length. Archbishop Benson wrote:

MY DEAR MRS. FRENCH,

Lambeth Palace, S. E., May 21, 1891.

The distressing news reached me through Mr. Murray's kindness to-day. Distressing indeed to us who loved him, revered him, went by his advice, saw by his help great visions of the future, having learnt from him how they were to be attained and realized; and to you overwhelming, especially after the bright letters you had just received.

I feel the public loss is so great, and the thought of the Church is so strong, that I am only afraid lest I should seem to underrate the great grief and sympathy which I feel, and all will feel, with you personally.

But if we look away through the shadows as they environ us, what peace or reward can be imagined more beautiful and perfect than this faithful servant's?

Strange that it should come just when he had buckled his armour on again, like a young man, when by right he should have been reposing. And how it will go to all hearts that his journey was crowned at Muscat, close to the last slumber-place of Henry Martyn'. What a sign! God seems very near. respect,

Once more, in deepest sympathy and
Yours most truly always,

E. CANTUAR.

To note the references in the public press would far exceed the limits of the present memoir. That missionary periodicals and religious newspapers should have appreciative notices was not remarkable; but the noble article upon his death in the Civil and Military Gazette of the Punjab (May 22, 1891) was an unusual tribute to the depth of the impression he had made upon the larger world

1 Muscat and Tocat are almost at opposite extremities of those wide Moslem lands; there is a moral and dramatic closeness which others also saw.

of men. After reviewing his career, it ended with these

words:

'His was indeed a saintly character, utterly self-denying and unworldly. Single-hearted, devout, and humble, the fire of enthusiasm for the propagation of the Gospel burned as brightly in his breast in those last lonely days in Muscat as it did when he turned his back on Oxford and all it offered, to give himself to India.

'Doubtless there will be some public memorial of our late bishop, but he little needs it, for he lives in affectionate remembrance in the hearts of all who knew him, and the cathedral stands a monument of his own making to show what he did for his see. He was a man who having put his hand to the plough did not look back. Through an arid and often unthankful soil under the Eastern sun he drove his furrow straight and true to the last, and death found him, as the years closed round his venerable head, still straining at the labour which he loved.

'The field he sowed was a virgin soil, and the thorns through which he walked were many. In the fulness of time, if those who come after him water and prune and labour as he would have done, we shall see the harvest. To-day we grieve only for the memory of the man who was a friend to all who knew him and to thousands who did not, a good Christian, and a faithful follower of Him whose Gospel he taught.'

In the cathedral at Lahore a brass has been put up with this inscription:

In reverent memory of

THOMAS VALPY FRENCH, D.D.,

Sometime Fellow of University College, Oxford, and Founder of this Cathedral Church, who from the year 1851, when he arrived in India, served the Church of God, First, with patient labour as a missionary in the North-West Provinces and in the Punjab,

and then, for ten years, as first bishop of this diocese, 1877–1887. He died at Muscat in Arabia,

a lonely witness of the Kingdom of Christ, May 14, 1891.

A minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the Gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost.'-Rom. xv. 16.

The verse selected was a favourite. The bishop preached on it before the University of Cambridge, and at St. Bride's in 1884 before the C. M. S. It seems to sum up very fitly the spirit of his life.