m as to something quite out of the
common groove. There were none of the accessories which generally
attract boyish admiration--no rhetoric, no purple patches, no
declamation, no pretence of spontaneity. His anxious forehead crowned a
puny body, and his voice was so faint as to be almost inaudible. The
language was totally unadorned; the sentences were closely packed with
meaning; and the meaning was not always easy. But the charm lay in
distinction, aloofness from common ways of thinking and speaking, a wide
outlook on events and movements in the Church, and a fiery enthusiasm
all the more telling because sedulously restrained. I remember as if I
heard it yesterday a reference in December, 1869, to "that august
assemblage which gathers to-morrow under the dome of St. Peter's," and I
remember feeling pretty sure at the moment that there was no other
schoolmaster in England who would preach to his boys about the Vatican
Council. But by far the most momentous of Westcott's sermons at Harrow
was that which he preached on the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity, 1868.
The text was Ephesians v. 15: "See then that ye walk circumspectly." The
sermon was an earnest plea for the revival of the ascetic life, and the
preacher endeavoured to show "what new blessings God has in store for
absolute self-sacrifice" by telling his hearers about the great
victories of asceticism in history. He took first the instance of St.
Anthony, as the type of personal asceticism; then that of St. Benedict,
as the author of the Common Life of equality and brotherhood; and then
that of St. Francis, who, "in the midst of a Church endowed with all
that art and learning and wealth and power could give, reasserted the
love of God to the poorest, the meanest, the most repulsive of His
children, and placed again the simple Cross above all the treasures of
the world." Even "the unparalleled achievements, the matchless energy,
of the Jesuits" were duly recognized as triumphs of faith and
discipline; and the sermon ended with a passionate appeal to the Harrow
boys to follow the example of young Antony or the still younger
Benedict, and prepare themselves to take their part in reviving the
ascetic life of the English Church.

"It is to a congregation like this that the call comes with the most
stirring and the most cheering voice. The young alone have the fresh
enthusiasm which in former times God has been pleased to consecrate to
like services.... And if, as I do b