‘_Aug. 31._――… It has lately come into my head that the present state of things in England makes an opening for reviving the monastic system. I think of putting the view forward under the title of “Project for Reviving Religion in Great Towns.” Certainly colleges of unmarried priests (who might, of course, retire to a living, when they could and liked) would be the cheapest possible way of providing effectively for the spiritual wants of a large population…. I must go about the country to look for the stray sheep of the true fold: there are many about, I am sure; only that odious Protestantism sticks in people’s gizzard. I see Hammond takes that view of the Infallibility of the Church which P[almer] says was the old one. We must revive it. Surely the promise, “I am with you always,” means something?’ It is extraordinary how Hurrell’s talk runs not so much on existing outer problems as on notions which ‘have lately come into my head.’ The others were content to face emergencies the moment they arose. He knew not how to wait till things turned up: he went forward to turn them up. His vocation was less to lead than to prompt the men born to be leaders. The hard necessity of his lot, the denial to so vigorous a spirit of the physical fuel to keep it alight, imposed this upon him: to be what Emerson calls ‘the seeing eye, not the helping hand.’ Yet his enforced contemplative life kept those active brother lives together; he riveted their armour, mounted their banners, and re-tipped their spears. It was his destiny to give very much more than they could use, so highly congested and quintessential were his ideas, and the verbal hints born of them: ‘Such sounds as make deep silence in the heart, For Thought to do her part.’