have the blinds drawn up--'I want', he said, 'to see the sky and the
light'. The next day he died, and a week later a country wagon bore the
coffin to Haslemere. Thence it passed to Westminster, where his dust was
to be laid beside that of Browning, among the great men who had gone
before. In what mood he faced death we can learn from his own words:

Spirit, nearing yon dark portal at the limit of thy human state,
Fear not thou the hidden purpose of that Power which alone is great,
Nor the myriad world, His shadow, nor the silent Opener of the Gate![30]

[Note 30: 'God and the Universe,' from _Death of Oenone_, &c.
Macmillan, (1892.)]

[Illustration: CHARLES KINGSLEY

From a drawing by W. S. Hunt in the National Portrait Gallery]

CHARLES KINGSLEY

1819-75

1819. Born at Holne on Dartmoor, June 12.
1830-6. Father rector of Clovelly.
1832. Grammar School at Helston, Cornwall.
1836. Father rector of St. Luke's, Chelsea. C. K. to King's College,
London.
1838-42. Magdalene College, Cambridge.
1842. Ordained at Farnham. Curate of Eversley.
1844. Marriage to Fanny Grenfell. Friendship with F. D. Maurice.
1844. Rector of Eversley.
1848. Chartist riots. 'Parson Lot' pamphlets.
1850. _Alton Locke_ published.
1855. _Westward Ho!_ published.
1857. _Two Years Ago_ published.
1859. Chaplain to the Queen.
1860. Professor of Modern History at Cambridge.
1864. Tour in the south of France.
1869. Canon of Chester.
1870. Tour to the West Indies.
1873. Canon of Westminster.
1874. Tour to California.
1875. Death at Eversley, January 23.

CHARLES KINGSLEY

PARISH PRIEST

If Charles Kingsley had been born in Scandinavia a thousand years
earlier, one more valiant Viking would have sailed westward from the
deep fiords of his native home to risk his fortunes in a new world, one
who by his courage, his foresight, and his leadership of men was well
fitted to be captain of his bark. The lover of the open-air life, the
searcher after knowledge, the fighter that he was, he would have been in
his element, foremost in the fray, most eager in the quest. But it was
given to him to live in quieter times, to graft on the old Norse stock
the graces of modern culture and the virtues of a Christian; and in a
peaceful parish of rural England he found full scope for his gifts.
There he taught his own and succeeding generations how full and
beneficent the life of a parish priest can be. Our villages and towns
produced m