Letters to His Friends Part 3

'I close this short account of my friend with extracts from three letters casually taken from those which have reached me. A young clergyman writes: "I feel I owe a very great debt to him, both as a lecturer and as a friend. His clearness of mind and power of thought were such as I have never seen in any other man. But far more precious than these intellectual gifts was the inspiration of his personal character. His ideals were so high, and he lived so close to them.

Few lives have better expressed the truth of the words of which he was so fond: 'He that {42} loseth his life shall find it.'" A schoolmaster writes: "The last talk I had with him was a month before my ordination, and I remember the emphasis that he laid on the praying side of a clergyman's life." A doctor writes: "Looking back upon my time at Christ's, I think that of all the influences which helped me, the most potent was my friendship with Forbes Robinson. . . . I came to know him somewhat intimately by spending an Easter vacation with him, and several of our conversations then have left a lasting impression on my mind. . . . I suppose, as one gets older and sees so much more of death, that a deepening faith takes away that sense of personal loss and leaves behind a feeling of gladness that yet another friend has pa.s.sed to the Communion of Saints."

'Of his life we may use the motto of his College:

'AD HONOREM CHRISTI JESU ET FIDEI EJUS INCREMENTUM.'

Mr. Kittermaster writes:

'Forbes Robinson did not regard any one of us as a "mere undergraduate," one of a ma.s.s; that was the first thing which those of us who knew him as undergraduates learnt. He was genuinely interested from the first in his undergraduate acquaintances; interested in them as men, not as promising pupils, not as likely scholars, not as athletes, not as material for "improving" influence, but as men--individuals, each possessing a separate and distinct human {43} personality, and therefore of the truest and deepest interest to him.

'Our public schools taught us (and for most of us Cambridge continued the teaching) that to be of any real importance and consequence among his fellows a man must be "good at games," or perhaps--but this more rarely--"good at work." Such is the simple creed of the undergraduate.

If he satisfies neither of the above requirements, then he recognises, with greater or less sadness, that he is an ordinary man, the "average undergraduate." He is one of the crowd if he has no athletic powers to commend him to the notice of his fellows _in statu pupillari_; he is one of the crowd if he has no slightest hope of making for himself any name in the intellectual world, to commend him to the leaders of thought at Cambridge. And this knowledge is to many a Cambridge boy, playing at being a man, a matter of real, if unconfessed, grief.

'But "there is no such thing as the average man, or at least as the average undergraduate." This was the belief which Forbes Robinson held with increasing conviction as his life went on. And it was this belief which accounted to some extent for the very large part which his friendship undoubtedly played in the life of many a Cambridge undergraduate.

'For a man condemned by his fellows and himself to the position of the "ordinary man" found himself in the presence of Forbes (as all of us universally called him) to be no such thing. Gradually and with genuine surprise he learned from him--not by any definite {44} word of teaching--that though it might cost him efforts painful and many to get the better of his "special," and though athletic fame knew him not at all, yet the possibilities of his own peculiar personal life were wonderful and great. For here was one who compelled men by his genuine unaffected interest in their lives and work to be themselves genuinely interested in them too. A man could not know Forbes for long and not be quickly conscious of a new sense of the value of himself, which made him believe that his own personality and life were things of great importance. For "He is interested in me" is what almost every man felt from the start of his acquaintance with Forbes. "He is interested in me" we felt when he pa.s.sed us in the street with his quaint humorous smile of recognition; we felt the same when we entered his room, to be received often without a word but with the same half smile: we felt the same again if we knew that he was watching the progress of a football match or boat race in which we were taking part. And "he is interested in me"--most wonderful of all--we felt as we listened to him in the lecture room, and were compelled to attention; for his interest in the men in front of him, coupled with his interest in his subject, forced us all--pa.s.s men and honours men alike--to listen to the history of Church and Doctrine and Creeds. It was this unfeigned interest in men, simply as men, that in the first instance gave him the influence which he certainly exercised over all sorts of men, including the kind of men whom the majority of their fellows disregarded, {45} or perhaps despised; "the babes and sucklings of the undergraduate world," to quote another. Such men, in whom most of us could find little to attract us, were to him vastly interesting--interesting for their simple human personality.

'Some men perhaps never discovered from what source his interest in them sprang. They knew that their views of the possibilities of their own life were enlarged, that they believed in themselves more for having been with him; but it was not all at once that they discovered the reason of his interest and belief in them. It was due to the Christ. With each new friendship and acquaintance which Forbes made--and this is especially true of young men--he saw deeper into the meaning of the Incarnation of Christ. This was the secret of his extraordinary interest and amazing belief in nearly every one of us.

He saw in us all, however ordinary, however commonplace--yes, however unlovely were our lives--something somewhere of Jesus Christ.

'Then some of us were privileged to discover that what he felt for us was something far deeper and holier than is expressed by the word "interest." It was love. In every fullest sense he understood the grand full meaning of the word. His love for his friends was something altogether larger and deeper and truer than is generally understood by the word. It was so holy a thing that it is hard to write of it. He knew, and the knowledge is perhaps rarer than is supposed, what in all its fulness was the meaning of the love of one man for another. This is why he could enter into the spirit of Tennyson's "In {46} Memoriam"

as almost no one else could. Tennyson's experience might have been so entirely his own. His love for his friends was indeed a wonderful, sacred thing, beautiful to see. With Henry Drummond he felt that it was better not to live than not to love. Love was to him a part of all his being: for in him dwelt "the strong Son of G.o.d, Immortal Love,"

compelling him to love his fellow-men.

'It was to him a real grief that (as he often quite wrongly supposed) one or two of those, for whom he would quite willingly have cut off his right hand if in any way it could have advantaged them, cared not at all for him, nor ever understood how he cared for them. But he found relief from the strange unsatisfied longing, engendered in him by this belief, in intense continuous prayer for those whom he loved. He prayed, it is certain, as few men pray. Prayer was to him the very breath of life. And his prayers, like his life, must have been utterly selfless. Many do not understand the amount they owe to his prayers.

Some of us may some day realise the magnitude of the debt; at present it is not seen. But he prayed with all the effort of his being for his friends: eagerly, pa.s.sionately, unceasingly he prayed. "Pray for him, believe in him; believe in him, pray for him," he was never tired of saying to those who spoke to him of some disappointing friend. And his own life was a proof of the power which lay behind such prayer.

'To those reading this who did not know Forbes Robinson it may seem that a man of such intensity of feeling and holiness of life would be more likely {47} to frighten away than to attract to close quarters the "average undergraduate" (whose existence he denied). This most certainly was not the case. For, if there was in him something utterly divine, he was also human as ever man could be. He admired, like the veriest freshman, the physical strength and powers of the athlete. In his presence the man of bodily attainments and strength of limb experienced the strange sensation of being looked up to by one whom he knew to be utterly superior to him. But perhaps nearly all who knew him experienced this at one time or another; for he must have been one of the most humble men that have ever lived. His humility was almost a fault. It led him to depreciate himself so far. And yet how beautiful a thing it was! He did indeed count all men better than himself.

'He easily condoned offences which in some eyes, and especially the eyes of dons, loom as a general rule heinous and large. And the riotous undergraduate, who cuts chapels and lectures, found that a don--yes, and a junior dean--could be a friend of his.

'He possessed too a keen and real sense of humour. He could, and often did, laugh with all his heart. He chaffed continuously his large circle of undergraduate friends. When he was questioning a man in the lecture-room, you felt that all the time he was half chaffing him. He addressed us all in lectures as "Mr.," in a half serious, half amused style. "It is the only chance for some men to retain any self-respect--to address them as 'Mr.'"--he would say, after the discovery of some more than usual piece of {48} ignorance in his cla.s.s of "special" men; "for how can a man have any self-respect unless addressed as 'Mr.' who does not know which are the Pastoral Epistles, or who is the Bishop of Durham (then Bishop Westcott)?"

'He could not remember the name of his best friend on occasions, and he would recount with real glee how he had been known successfully to introduce two men, not knowing the name of either. On one occasion it fell to him to introduce to each other a low-caste West African native and a particularly high-caste Brahmin rejoicing in a lofty sounding polysyllabic t.i.tle: of course he transposed the names--with results, so he declared, almost fatal to himself.

'He would display with humorous pride to his athletic friends a photograph of himself coming in second in a toboggan handicap race at St. Moritz, which he always maintained he morally won. He was full of spontaneous humour. When he greeted you, when he looked at you, when he talked with you, it was always with a half smile on his face. It was his sense of humour which procured him a quick entrance into many a man's life and heart. It was his sense of humour which made the hostile undergraduate, hauled for cutting lectures or chapels, forget his hostility and the presence of the don; though at the end of the interview he, probably for the first time, began to think whether chapel-going had any meaning, whether a lecture, if listened to, might conceivably profit the listener. It was his sense of humour which made all feel at home with him, which at the first attracted the most unlikely men, {49} which inspired with confidence the shyest, and made the most frivolous and thoughtless not afraid of him. Yet while he would laugh, and make us laugh, for as long as ever any one wished, through all his unaffected merriment he made men feel the strange earnestness of his life. And all knew that, while he never obtruded on us religious or even serious matters, he was ready at a moment's notice to speak with us of spiritual things. And most men felt something of what a friend of his wrote of him after his death: "He understood of 'the things that matter' more than any man that I shall ever meet."

And many men who owe to Forbes Robinson their first serious thoughts of and their first insight into "the things that matter" must feel the same. It is this fact that makes it impossible to measure the far-reaching deep influence of his life. For the greatness of that life lay not in any large influence on any large body of undergraduates, though the undergraduate life of Christ's College must, as a whole, have felt his real influence; nor was his life great simply because he was a scholar and a thinker. But his life was great, and will for all time remain great, because it was an inspiration--there is no other word: it was, and is, a lasting, vivid, real inspiration to a few. What Bishop Westcott did on a large scale, Forbes Robinson did on a small. He inspired men--inspired them to search for and hold to the realities of life.

'To sum up: a man admitted into the inner chamber of his life learnt there something of these three things: (_a_) The value of his own personality, (_b_) the meaning of love, (_c_) the power of prayer.

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'_a. The value of his own personality._--A man, as he talked with Forbes, was taught with increasing clearness the amazing possibilities of life for any one who has tried to think what it means to say that "this is I." Many of us, conscious in ourselves only of very ordinary attainments, of no very high ideals, of weaknesses of character, learnt from our friend that in spite of all this, our own personality was G.o.d's greatest gift to us. We learnt from him that our own particular commonplace life was, with all its failures and inconsistencies, a tremendous enterprise, big with opportunities. He taught us this by his belief in us. He held (again like Bishop Westcott) through everything to the faith of "man naturally Christian." By his belief in a man he forced him at last to believe in himself. For he taught us that we were, each one, two men--the real "Ego" and the false--and that the real self must in the end have the mastery over the false, because that real self was the Christ.

'_b. The meaning of love._--It is impossible for lesser natures to enter into all that the word "love" meant to Forbes. His love for his friends was "wonderful, pa.s.sing the love of women." He loved some men with an intensity of feeling impossible to describe. It was almost pain to him. If he loved a man he loved him with a pa.s.sionate love (no weaker expression will do). We undergraduates found our natures too small to understand it. Yet, as we learnt to know him more and more, we began too to learn a little of what real love is--we began to learn what can be the meaning and the wonder and the power {51} and the depth of the love of man for man. And we understood in time that his love for us and his belief in us sprang from the same high source--from the Christ in him, in us.

'_c. The power of prayer._--This last lesson explained the other two.

Perhaps only a few of those who knew Forbes as undergraduates learnt it. Yet an intimate knowledge of him must have forced almost any man to the belief that 'more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.' He prayed for those he loved, it is certain, for hours at a time. All his thoughts about some men gradually became prayers. He could not teach us everything that prayer meant to him; he could not teach us to pray as he prayed. Yet through him one or two at least of his undergraduate friends saw a little further into the eternal mystery of prayer. And men must sometimes--with all reverence be it said--have experienced in his presence the same kind of a feeling of some great unseen influence at work as that which the disciples must have experienced in the presence of Christ after He, apart and alone, had watched through the night with G.o.d in prayer. For many an hour of his life did Forbes spend like that, striving with G.o.d for those he loved.

He believed--he knew (this was his own testimony)--that he could in this way bring to bear upon a man's life more real effective influence than by any word of direct personal teaching or advice. So did he prove once more that the man of power in the spiritual world is the man of prayer.

'These are the great lessons of Forbes Robinson's {52} life--lessons which many a careless undergraduate learnt in a greater or less degree, and, learning, caught from the teacher something of his pa.s.sion for life and love and prayer, for service of G.o.d and man.

'There must be many who will not soon forget the lessons; there must be many in whose lives the influence and inspiration of that saintly life will be for ever a power making for holiness and high ideals of living; there are, it is certain, very many who will thank G.o.d continually that they were, in their undergraduate days, allowed to call Forbes Robinson friend.

'How many of us, when we heard with a shock of almost horror that he had pa.s.sed from us, conjured up before us the picture we shall never see again--the picture of our friend sitting any evening at his table in Darwin's historic rooms at Christ's, dimly lighted with candles! We shall remember long the quick look up at our entrance, the half-smile on his face, the welcome of a man's love in his eyes, however busy and tired he might be. Then, though it cost him later hours out of bed, the invitation to sit down, followed quickly by an indignant remonstrance as we ousted his cat from the best arm-chair. And then the talk that followed: sometimes almost trivial; sometimes (but only if we wished it) deeply serious; sometimes--and these occasions were precious--a kind of soliloquy on his part, as he spoke of G.o.d, of the realities of life, of love, of prayer. Then, with still the same half-smile, he would bid us "Good night," and watch us out of the room with the same look of love in his eyes with which he welcomed us, {53} as he turned back to his table to work and think and pray far into the night.

'So many a one of us has left him again and again, to return to the merry, careless, selfish undergraduate world a n.o.bler, better man. And now he has pa.s.sed from us--"dead ere his prime" we should say, did we not understand that somewhere the faithful, hopeful, loving soul has better work to do. He is, as he ever was, "in Christ." He lives. His life remains here and beyond. His faith in G.o.d, in prayer; his hope for every man; his utterly wonderful, amazing love,--they still remain.

For _nuni menei_ (nothing can rob us of the word) _pistis, elpis, agape, ta tria tauta; meizpon de touton he agape_.'

[Transcriber's note: The above Greek phrases were transliterated as follows: _nuni_--nu, upsilon, nu, iota; _menei_--mu, epsilon, nu, epsilon, iota; _pistis_--pi, iota, sigma, tau, iota, final sigma; _elpis_--epsilon, lambda, pi, iota, final sigma; _agape_--alpha (soft breathing mark), gamma, alpha, pi, eta; _ta_--tau, alpha; _tria_--tau, rho, iota, alpha; _tauta_--tau, alpha, upsilon, tau, alpha; _meizpon_--mu, epsilon, iota, zeta, omega, nu; _de_--delta, epsilon; _touton_--tau, omicron, upsilon, tau, omega, nu; _he_--(rough breathing mark) epsilon; _agape_--alpha (soft breathing mark), gamma, alpha, pi, eta]

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LETTERS

_To A. V. R._

Brislington Hill, Bristol: September 24, 1890.

. . . I have been persuaded to try the Semitic Languages Tripos. I have been learning German and Syriac a little this Long with that aim in view. . . . I don't really know what to do. I am trying to do what will best fit me for my future work. It is hard to know what is right.

. . . The only thing I want is not to develop into a mere bookworm. . . . The atmosphere of Cambridge so tends to deaden one, and to make one unsympathetic with humanity; and yet the Church today does so need men who know something, men who can express with no uncertain sound the truth of Old Testament and New Testament criticism.

I want so to find out what the Old Testament is, and how far we can believe in it, in its essential truth, in its historical accuracy. The question can only be settled by scholars--by scholars filled with the spirit of humility and understanding. It cannot be settled by the so-called spiritual faculty alone, but only by the intellect guided by the Spirit of Truth.

I have been reading St. John's Gospel in Greek and Syriac, and more and more I become convinced {55} that what it says is truth: _zoe_--life--anything worth calling life--anything that can last--anything that is of use here and hereafter--is to be gained alone by actually eating and drinking the Body of the Son of Man. The expression is awfully strong--the expression in itself. I am not talking of all sorts of modern explanations of the expression. Take it as it stands in the original: 'You have no life, unless you eat and drink. . . .'

[Transcriber's note: The word _zoe_ in the above paragraph was transliterated from the Greek letters zeta, omega, eta.]

I wish there could be a small Greek Testament reading in the College for considering what the New Testament really means, apart from modern interpretations. Is it possible to find out the true, original meaning of that book, and to understand its problems a little and its solutions? 'Quid importat scientia sine timore Dei?'

_To T. H. M._

Aldeburgh House, Blackheath: March 20, 1891.

I am gradually finding out how ignorant I am of the meaning of the New Testament, and how miserably I have read my own miserable notions and glosses into the words of St. Paul. I am sure that the solution of the greatest problems which concern humanity is to be found in his Epistles, if we could only approach them without bias and with more childishness. I feel certain that the Incarnation is the great fact of the world's, and probably of the universe's, history. 'The Word was made flesh.'

And so the Word had breath, and wrought With human hands the creed of creeds In loveliness of perfect deeds, More strong than all poetic thought.

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The death on Calvary must have had effects far beyond this particular world. 'He descended into h.e.l.l.' He claimed His power over all parts of His universe. The Good _has_ conquered. The Bad _is_ defeated.