One evening, at that time, I met Lord Shaftesbury at a friend’s house, and had a conversation with him on the subject of the book. It is well known that, with the impetuosity which was so natural to that great and good man, he was swept along by a hurricane of indignation, which led him to pronounce “Ecce Homo” a work of most pernicious tendency. Of Lord Shaftesbury it might be said that he was like a cloud which moveth altogether, if it move at all. He could do or say nothing by halves; and however minds of a different order might judge of his acts and utterances, there can be no doubt that by the enthusiasm of his advocacy he carried beneficial measures which otherwise might not have succeeded. When I was talking with him after the manner just indicated and pointing out arguments which I conceived might be constructed out of some of the writer’s admissions, he was evidently very restless, and expressed his strong conviction, that the book deserved to be strongly reprehended, in order to warn people against being led away by its contents. In the course of conversation he manifested, that he had not read what he so severely condemned. This habit of condemning books without reading them, it is to be feared, is too common in the present day. Here let me add Lord Shaftesbury’s manner was not always the same. At times he was gentle and exceedingly affable, of which I remember an amusing instance. We were travelling together from Peterborough, after a jubilee meeting of the British and Foreign Bible Society in that city. He was speaking of the profound ignorance of the upper classes respecting the character and habits of Nonconformists; and I ventured to relate to him, in illustration of what he had said himself, a story which I had heard respecting his father, who was Chairman of the Committee of the House of Lords. A solicitor waited upon him to confer respecting a Bill, which was coming before the Upper House, in reference to matters which affected the rights of Dissenters. The old Earl said to this gentleman, “I hear a good deal about these Dissenters, and some things very strange. I have been told they are people _who go about without clothes_.” The Earl laughed, and said, such a thing as I related was just like him. CHAPTER X 1873