"Here then you have your answer, you that thought To find our London unawakened still, A sleeping plunder for you, thought to fill The gorge of private greed, and count for naught The common good. Time unto her has brought Her glorious hour, her strength of public will Grown conscious, and a civic soul to thrill The once dull mass that for your spoil you sought. Lo, where the alert majestic city stands, Dreaming her dream of golden days to be, With shaded eyes beneath her arching hands Scanning the forward pathway, like a seer To whom the riven future has made clear The marvel of some mighty destiny."[61] Moved by the desire to gratify a young ambition, I introduced the poet to Mr. Gladstone, and that great man, who never damned with faint praise, pronounced that this was the finest thing written about London since Wordsworth's Sonnet "Composed upon Westminster Bridge." In August, 1892, Gladstone became Prime Minister for the fourth time. He gave me a place in his Government; and for the next three years my activities were limited to North Bedfordshire, which I then represented, the House of Commons, and Whitehall. I was restored to liberty by the dissolution of July, 1895. In my chapter about Oxford, I spoke of the Rev. E. S. Talbot, then Warden of Keble, and now Bishop of Winchester, as one of those whose friendship I had acquired in undergraduate days. After serving for a while as Vicar of Leeds, he was appointed in 1895 to the See of Rochester, which then included South London. Soon after he had entered on his new work, he said to me, "Men of leisure are very scarce in South London. Will you come across the Thames, and lend us a hand?" FOOTNOTES: [55] Dr. Butler's Harrow Sermons. Series II. [56] "Christianity without the Cross a Corruption of the Gospel of Christ." [57] Rev. H. Scott Holland, D.D. [58] Honourable mention ought here to be made of "The Guild of St. Matthew," founded by the Rev. Stewart Headlam in 1877. Its object was "To justify God to the People," and it prepared the way for later organizations. [59] The Rev. H. S. Holland, D.D. [60] F. W. H. Myers. [61] F. Henderson, _By the Sea, and other poems_. XV ECCLESIASTICA The English Church, as established by the law of England, offers the Supernatural to all who choose to come. It is like the Divine Being Himself, Whose sun shines alike on the evil and on the good. J. H. SHORTHOUSE, _John Inglesant_.