MEMOIRS.

I.

THE REV. E. S. TALBOT, D.D., VICAR OF LEEDS, AND SOMETIME WARDEN Of Keble College.1

THE loss of Aubrey Moore claims from the reverent affection of his friends some attempt at a loving estimate of his character and work. In the midst of the grief widely felt by many sorts of men that a life as rich in promise as any in the Church of England, or in the English religious world, should have been so early taken from earth, it moves true thankfulness to remember that the last five years. of his life have enabled him to leave a definite contribution of clear and marked significance to our deepest spiritual and intellectual life. To cast the eye rapidly over the writings that he has left, few as they are, is to gain a wonderful impression of calm, strong, candid, coherent, clear-sighted work, of much knowledge assimilated and co-ordinated, of blended spiritual and intellectual insight; but it 1 Reprinted from the Guardian of Jan. 29, 1890, with revisions,

is also to realize that he had proved and uttered the message which he had to give, and that future work might have hardly done more than interpret and expand it. The writings referred to are. "Science and the Faith" (containing reviews republished from the Guardian and Quarterly, with a preface defining the general drift of their thought), an "Oxford House Paper" on "Evolution and Christianity," three sermons in "Keble College Sermons, 1877-88," "Holy Week Addresses" (with a preface on Calvinism, etc.), "Theology and Law: an Assize Sermon," and an essay on "" The Christian Doctrine of God" in "Lux Mundi." It is much to be hoped that other pieces of his work may still be issued, possibly his Oxford Reformation lectures which drew so large a class, some of his sermons, and further essays on scientific subjects, e.g. on Weismann's modification of the evolution doctrine. His is work of which the unity and the balance made every addition of detail more appreciably interesting and useful.1

Moore's life may be very briefly given. He was the second son of the Rev. Daniel Moore, Pre

1 The wish here expressed has already been carried out in the main. The Essays on Weismann are included in the present volume, and the Reformation Lectures have been published this year by Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., under the title of "Lectures and Papers on the History of Reformation in England and on the Continent."

bendary of St. Paul's and Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen, and his friends know how much. his home was to him, and how much he owed throughout his life to his father's stimulating and loving sympathy with his career, of which he used often to speak with playful tenderness. His school was St. Paul's, where he would have won more distinction but for the chance which made him all the way up the school competitor with one who was afterwards to be associated with him at Keble College, and in contribution to "Lux Mundi," Mr. Illingworth. Moore's power seems to have developed slowly; he did not secure an open scholarship at Oxford, though his First Class in Moderations witnesses to his work at St. Paul's. But a schoolfellow's recollection recalls the promise of future character in the sweetness with which he received and quickly overcame the bluntness of school comment on a physical peculiarity, and the blitheness and energy with which unhindered by it he threw himself into cricket. How well this fits with a friend's remark about him in later life in the Oxford Magazine of January 22, that he was "the constant witness to us of the triumph of spirit over matter," and that

"While gifted with a body which could scarcely fail to make a man constantly self-conscious, and which, quickly wearied by physical effort, must have tended to make him fretful and sensitive, he yet bore the burden so that we forgot that he had a burden to bear."

At Oxford distinctions in the schools were followed by a Fellowship at St. John's, where he was tutor for three years by the side of a like-minded friend, R. S. Copleston, now Bishop of Colombo. From an interval spent as a parish priest at Frenchay in Gloucestershire he brought away a great affection for the place and people, and the true priest's sense of pastoral responsibility, which formed so distinctive an element both of his tutorial and intellectual work, and which is seen in the last action of his life, his acceptance of an official Fellowship at Magdalen, carrying with it the religious "cure" of the undergraduates. He never broke his links. with Oxford, coming up most terms weekly to give lectures as assistant to Dr. Bright or to attend the meeting of an association of tutors engaged in Oxford work on Church lines, which had then been recently formed as a bond of brotherhood. true vocation became clear, and it was a great happiness for Keble College that it was the means of bringing him back to the University. Here he found ample scope; he held tutorships simultaneously at Magdalen and at Keble; the "combined system" of lectures enabled him to become lecturer on the Ethics of Aristotle to a very large number of those reading "Literae Humaniores." Along with this he was always writing on theology, and carrying on his lectures on Ecclesiastical History, of the teaching of which in the Refor

His

mation period he came to have almost a monopoly. Thus his professional work assisted and reflected the unifying character of his mind. His examining chaplainship to Bishop Mackarness (continued under Bishop Stubbs), which was matter of great delight and deep interest to him (the dedication of his last book expresses his regret and love for his chief), his honorary Canonry at Christ Church, his preacherships at St. Mary's and at Whitehall, the offer at the same moment of examinerships in "Literae Humaniores" (this he had accepted) and in Theology, and, though last, not least characteristic, the Curatorship of the Botanical Gardens, are the evidence of his powers and of their repute, evidence which received a last pathetic contribution from the gathering of many sorts of men in Keble Chapel and at Holywell at his funeral. A request addressed to him within the last few weeks before his death through Bishop Potter of New York, to go over to America and give a course of lectures on "The Religious Bearings of Modern Science," is a sign how far his repute was spreading. He declined the offer with extreme regret. It carries no disparagement, for it implies no comparison, of others to say, as was said by the Oxford correspondent of the Guardian, that he "has lately occupied a unique position up here." No one was more respected among undergraduates. Not long ago, when some of them wished to form