in a lively conversation to keep us all waiting till his thoughts could break through again. In church, however, whether he was reading or speaking extempore, there was no sign of stammering; apparently there was no effort to overcome it. But when we walked home from church he would say: “Oh, let me stammer now, you won’t mind it.” He was not a learned theologian, his one idea of Christianity was practical Christianity, honesty, purity, love. He was always most courteous, most willing to bow before higher authority or greater learning; but when he thought there was anything wrong, or mean, or cowardly, anything with which he, as an honest man, could not agree, he was as firm as a rock. His favourite pursuits lay in natural science. He knew every flower, every bird, every fish, and every insect in his neighbourhood, and he had imbibed a belief in the laws of nature, which represented to him indirectly the thoughts of God. When, therefore, after a long continuance of drought, the bishop of his diocese ordered him to have a special prayer for rain, he respectfully and firmly declined. He would pray for the good gifts of heaven, offer thanks to God for all that He was pleased to send in His wisdom, but he would not enter into particulars with Him, he would not put his own small human wisdom against the Divine wisdom; he would not preach on what he thought was good for us, for God knew best. He had no difficulty in persuading his farmers and labourers that if they had any trust in God, and any reverence for the Divine wisdom that rules the world, they would place all their troubles and cares before Him in prayer, but they would not beg for anything which, in His wisdom, He withheld from them. “Thy will be done,” that was his prayer for rain. There was great commotion in ecclesiastical dovecotes, most of all in episcopal palaces. All sorts of punishments were threatened, but Kingsley remained throughout perfectly quiet, yet most determined. He would not degrade his sacred office to that of a rain-maker or medicine-man, and he carried his point. “In America we manage these things better!” said an American friend of Kingsley. “A clergyman in a village on the frontier between two of our States prayed for rain. The rain came, and it soaked the ground to such an extent that the young lambs in the neighbouring State caught cold and died. An action was brought against the clergyman for the mischief he had done, and he and his parishioners were condemned to pay damages to the sheep farmers. They never prayed for rain again after that.”