elieve most deeply, a work at
present awaits England, and our English Church, greater than the world
has yet seen, I cannot but pray everyone who hears me to listen humbly
for the promptings of God's Spirit, if so be that He is even now calling
him to take a foremost part in it. It is for us, perhaps, first to hear
the call, but it is for you to interpret it and fulfil it. Our work is
already sealed by the past: yours is still rich in boundless
possibilities."

It may readily be believed that this discourse did not please either the
British Parent or the Common Schoolmaster. A rumour went abroad that Mr.
Westcott was going to turn all the boys into monks, and loud was the
clamour of ignorance and superstition. Westcott made the only dignified
reply. He printed (without publishing) the peccant sermon, under the
title "Disciplined Life," and gave a copy to every boy in the School,
expressing the hope that "God, in His great love, will even thus, by
words most unworthily spoken, lead some one among us to think on one
peculiar work of the English Church, and in due time to offer himself
for the fulfilment of it as His Spirit shall teach." Those who remember
that Charles Gore was one of the boys who heard the sermon may think
that the preacher's prayer was answered.

With the masters generally I was on the best of terms. Indeed, I can
only remember two whom I actively disliked, and of these two one was the
absolute reproduction of Mr. Creakle, only armed with "thirty Greek
lines" instead of the cane. Some of the staff were not particularly
friends, but notable as curiosities; and at the head of these must be
placed the Rev. Thomas Henry Steel. This truly remarkable man was born
in 1806. He was Second Classic and Twentieth Wrangler, and Fellow of
Trinity College, Cambridge. He became a master at Harrow under Dr.
Wordsworth in 1836; left the School in 1843, to take a country living;
returned to Harrow, under Dr. Vaughan, in 1849, and in 1855 became (for
the second time) master of The Grove, one of the largest boarding-houses
in Harrow, where he remained till 1881. He was a keen, alert, and active
old gentleman, with a rosy face and long white beard, like Father
Christmas: and he carried, in season and out of season, a bright blue
umbrella. His degree sufficiently proves that he was a ripe scholar,
but, as George Eliot says, "to all ripeness under the sun there comes a
further stage of development which is less esteemed in the