profession, for which he had such rare gifts,
he would start handicapped by his low degree. In any case, he had for
some time cherished the idea of taking Holy Orders. The ministry of the
Church would give him a congenial field of work and, so he hoped, some
leisure to continue his favourite studies. Perhaps he had not the same
strong conviction of a 'call' as many men of his day in the High Church
or Evangelical parties; but he was, at the time, strongly drawn by the
example and teaching of Stanley and Maurice, and he soon showed that it
was not merely for negative reasons or from half-hearted zeal that he
had made the choice. When urged by Stanley to seek a curacy in West
London, he deliberately chose the East End of the town because the need
there was greater and the training in self-sacrifice was sterner; and
there is no doubt that the popular sympathies, which the reading of
history had already implanted in him, were nourished and strengthened by
nine years of work among the poor. The exertion of parish work taxed his
physical resources, and he was often incapacitated for short periods by
the lavish way in which he spent himself. Indeed, but for this constant
drain upon his strength, he might have lived a longer life and left more
work behind him.

Of the parishes which he served, the last and the most interesting was
St. Philip's, Stepney, to which he went from Hoxton in 1864. It was a
parish of 16,000 souls, lying between Whitechapel and Poplar, not far
from the London Docks. Dreary though the district seems to us
to-day--and at times Green was fully conscious of this--he could
re-people it in imagination with the men of the past, and find pleasure
in the noble views on the river and the crowded shipping that passed so
near its streets. But above all he found a source of interest in the
living individuals whom he met in his daily round and who needed his
help; and though he achieved signal success in the pulpit by his power
of extempore preaching, he himself cared more for the effect of his
visiting and other social work. Sermons might make an impression for the
moment; personal sympathy, shown in the moment when it was needed, might
change the whole current of a life.

For children his affection was unfailing; and for the humours of older
people he had a wide tolerance and charity. His letters abound with
references to this side of his work. He tells us of his 'polished' pork
butcher and his learned parish cle