He has a profound interest in all forms of Christianity. There was a time, many years ago, when he was fond of going the round of the Churches. He would also listen in the old days with the closest interest to the discourses of the Salvationist preachers on Wandsworth Common; and he would often contribute to their collections, and talk to their officers. And yet, at the other extreme, he has always had a curious admiration for Roman Catholicism. He would sometimes argue that the Methodist discipline in Wales was founded on the Catholic model. I remember going with him into a London Catholic Church where he listened with rapt attention to the chanting of the Latin psalms. There was something in the roll of the language which penetrated and held him. But he was always a great listener. He would never complain at the length of a sermon. When at Brighton he would take his friends to listen to the preaching of a young Nonconformist minister at whose feet he sat with whole-hearted admiration. He would always argue that the standard of preaching among the Nonconformists had steadily risen and was now higher than among the Anglicans. He attributed that fact very largely to post-graduate colleges like Mansfield. He was a great admirer of Principal Fairbairn, and would listen to that great man’s hour-long discourses without moving an eyelid. Wit is his most sparkling characteristic; and there are few companies of talkers among whom he is not the wittiest. His laugh will change the mood of the gravest men, just as his smile has been known to affect the attitude of immense multitudes. And yet wit is not his greatest gift. I should place higher that power of insight into deep truths which he will display in sympathetic company. Generally the theme of this insight will be politics; and there is no subject which he is more swift to illuminate with telling phrase. In these moods he will seem to be looking at all parties, and even at himself, from the outside. It is an extraordinary gift of detachment, literary and artistic in its nature, and peculiarly rare in a party politician. It goes with a Celtic love of whimsical paradox, like the talk of a man at his ease, a little disturbing to the strait sect of the faithful party men. But it will not always be politics that his mind plays on in this manner. In moments of relaxation he will take a wider range. Sometimes it will be this very subject of religion, which is never very far absent from his thoughts. “Christianity,” he said to me once, “is like a gold-mine. We are always imagining that it is exhausted, and that no more gold can come out of it. Then humanity digs a little deeper, and it always comes across a fresh seam.” He always seems to be digging a little deeper himself.