Those who knew the subject of this memoir only in his later years were often struck by his physical strength and vigour. Yet from his earliest years and up to middle life there were signs of constitutional delicacy which caused anxiety. On various occasions he was laid by through attacks of illness, and it is plain from passages in his journal that, although physically an athlete, he quite expected that his life would be a short one. But God had other plans for His young servant: true, he was to be disciplined by frequent illnesses—Pakefield had to be resigned in a year owing to delicacy of the chest; his work at Richmond (where he caught smallpox in his parish-visiting), and Holloway, and Ramsgate, was interrupted by periods of ill-health; but these were perhaps the training by which faith was strengthened and spirituality deepened for the great work of middle life, and a hale and saintly old age. The close and topical study of the Scriptures to which allusion is made in the Autobiography, and in which, no doubt, the mathematical training of the University was a great assistance, gave him a clear view of the doctrines of the Church of England; combined with this was an intimate acquaintance with the formularies of the Prayer-Book and the writings of the Reformers, also the result of years of careful reading,—consequently Mr. Hoare was in great request all over England to speak at gatherings of the clergy and devotional meetings of various kinds. Soon after his appointment to Tunbridge Wells, we find in his letters, of which a few extracts are given in the following pages, references to these journeys; in fact he literally seemed to go up and down the country speaking and preaching. It was no unusual event for him to address great audiences in remote towns on the same day. The following letter, written to one of his daughters just after her Confirmation, for which he had prepared her, alludes to this kind of work, but it is inserted here more particularly as a specimen of his tender interest in the spiritual welfare of his children:— “YORK, _May_ 28_th_, 1856. “I do not yet know whether or not I shall be wanted at Pontefract to-morrow, and if I am not I may reach London as soon as this letter; but you have been so much in my thoughts lately that I cannot forbear sending one line of affectionate remembrance.