community of like-minded people, who desired more opportunity for quiet
devotion and meditation, for solitary work and contemplation, than the
life of the world could afford them. Sometimes he designed a joint
establishment, sometimes small separate houses; but the essence of it
all was solitude, cheered by sympathy and enough friendly companionship
to avoid morbidity. At one time he planned a boys' home, in connection
with the work of his friend Mr. Norman Potter, at another a home of rest
for troubled and invalided people, at another a community for poor and
sensitive people, who "if they could get away from squalor and conflict,
would blow like flowers." With his love of precise detail, he drew up
time-tables, so many hours for devotion and meditation, so many for work
and exercise, so many for sociability.

But gradually his engagements increased so that he was constantly away,
preaching and lecturing; and thus he was seldom at home for more than
two or three days at a time. Thrice he went to Rome to preach courses of
sermons, and thrice he went to America, where he made many friends.
Until latterly he used to go away for holidays of various kinds, a motor
tour in France, a trip to Switzerland, where he climbed mountains; and
he often went to stay with Lord Kenmare at Killarney, where he stalked
deer, shot and fished, and lived an out-of-door life. I remember his
describing to me an incident on one of those visits, how he was
returning from a deer-stalk, in the roughest clothes, when he saw a
little group of people in a by-lane, and presently a message arrived to
say that there was a dying woman by the roadside, and could he go to
her. He went in haste, heard her confession, and gave her absolution,
while the bystanders withdrew to a distance, that no word might be
overheard, and stood bareheaded till the end came.

His engagement-books, of which I have several, show a dangerous