ton
Mission was planted in a district which it was very hard to reach from
Eton, so that few of the boys were ever able to make a personal
acquaintance with the hard and bare conditions of life in the crowded
industrial region which their Mission was doing so much to help and
uplift, or to realise the urgency of the needs of a district which most
of them had never visited.

But if the Mission did not touch the imagination of the boys, yet, on
the other hand, it became a very well-managed parish, with ample
resources to draw upon; and it certainly attracted the services of a
number of old Etonians, who had reached a stage of thought at which the
problem of industrial poverty became an interesting one.

Money was poured out upon the parish; a magnificent church was built, a
clergy-house was established, curates were subsidised, clubs were
established, and excellent work was done there. The vicar at this time
was a friend and contemporary of my own at Eton, St. Clair Donaldson,
now Archbishop of Brisbane. He had lived with us as my father's chaplain
for a time, but his mind was set on parish work rather than
administration. He knew Hugh well, and Hugh was an Etonian himself.
Moreover, my father was glad that Hugh should be with a trusted friend,
and so he went there. St. Clair Donaldson was a clergyman of an
Evangelical type, though the Mission had been previously conducted by a
very High Churchman, William Carter, the present Archbishop of Capetown.
But now distinctive High Church practices were given up, and the parish
was run on moderate, kindly, and sensible lines. Whether such an
institution is primarily and distinctively religious may be questioned.
Such work is centred rather upon friendly and helpful relations, and
religion becomes one of a number of active forces, rather than the force
upon which all depends. High-minded, duty-loving, transparently good and
cheerful as the tone of the clergy was, it was, no doubt, tentative
rather than authoritative.

Hugh's work there lay a good deal in the direction of the boys' clubs;
he used to go down to the clubs, play and talk with the boys, and go out
with them on Saturday afternoons to football and cricket. But he never
found it a congenial occupation, and I cannot help feeling that it was
rather a case of putting a very delicate and subtle instrument to do a
rough sort of work. What was needed was a hearty, kindly,
elder-brotherly relation, and the men who did this be