ll me perhaps that I am too much like a woman in matters of
faith. Yet so I am made. I must follow the lead of my whole
being--not of my mind alone. I often wonder how it is that I love with
such a strange, passionate, unutterable affection, and whether many men
are like me. {139} I am most pleased to hear of your doings,
especially of your whist parties.

_To F. S. H., chaplain on board H.M.S. Canopus._

Brislington; April 10, 1901.

I am glad that you like your 'parish.' I feel more and more that I
should prefer being among sailors to being among soldiers. I am afraid
that I should do little good among either. Still I like, or think that
I should like, naval officers even more than army officers. If they do
talk a great deal of 'shop,' that is a healthy sign. I only wish our
officers in the army were--I will not say more proud of their
profession (for they have, I dare say, sufficient pride)--but more
anxious to learn and to think out matters connected with it. I dare
say the naval officer is obliged to act more independently and to think
for himself in an emergency; for the army discipline is carried to such
an extreme that the man for some years has seldom any occasion to act
on his own initiative--to rise to an occasion. He simply has to ask a
superior what to do next. He tends to resemble the Hindu
station-master who telegraphed 'Tiger on platform; please wire
instructions.' If their talking shop is worrying occasionally, yet be
of good comfort, it is on the whole a good sign. It is better than
talking golf or polo all day, and better far than loose and unmanly
conversation. The more you are interested in the matters yourself, not
simply because you want to be all things to all men, if by any means
you may gain one or two, but because you are a man {140} and a
Christian, and therefore all things human have an interest to you, the
more you will enjoy such 'shop.' We want not only to affect an
interest in what is of vital concern to our neighbours, but to feel it.
I begin to realise more now than I used to that I must not simply watch
football matches, or run with the boats, because I want to show
interest, but because I am learning--however late in the day and
however imperfectly--to feel a real concern for such matters. And,
strange to say, I am more interested in them than I used to be. Since
the Lord took human flesh and interested Himself in all human life, He
has left us an example tha