c fragments of St. Luke's Gospel. His deepest
interest, however, lay not in these subsidiary studies, but in the
fundamental problems of theology proper. His Burney Prize essay,
printed at the University Press in 1893 under the title of "The
Self-limitation of the Word of God as manifested in the Incarnation,"
is no doubt comparatively slight, and in some respects immature; but
its reverent and fearless treatment of the difficulties of his great
theme gave promise of work of permanent value in this field. His
interest in the great problems never flagged, and his sympathetic touch
with the life and thought of the younger men in his college kept him
constantly {31} engaged on the task of putting into clear and ever
clearer expression such solutions as he was able to attain. His
sermons in College Chapel were singularly effective, because he never
wasted a word, and because every sentence was felt to be the outcome of
strenuous thought tested by living experience.

'It is not surprising, therefore, that he exercised an unusual
influence upon younger students. His friends were very closely bound
to him indeed, in bonds which death can consecrate but cannot sever.
They can never cease to thank God for the pure, bright, tender, utterly
sincere, fearless, and faithful spirit He has given them to love.'

{32}

CHAPTER IV

THE LAST FEW MONTHS

From the time that Forbes took his degree at Cambridge his health was
far from strong. He suffered from time to time from a form of eczema
which caused him a good deal of discomfort and pain. Many of his
letters contain references to the fact that he had been unwell and had
been unable to do as much work as he had hoped. In September 1897 he
went with his brother Armitage on a visit to St. Petersburg and Moscow.
He stayed in the house of a Russian priest at St. Petersburg, and was
much interested in the work of Father John of Kronstadt, with whom an
interview was arranged which unfortunately fell through at the last
moment. Towards the end of 1897 he developed a bad cough and was
threatened with phthisis. He accordingly spent Christmas and the first
two or three months of 1898 at St. Moritz in Switzerland. His health
then seemed to be much improved. For several years he went back to St.
Moritz to spend the greater part of the Christmas vacation. He took
great delight in tobogganing, and on one occasion was awarded a prize
for a race in which he took part. In the s