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DELIGHT IN HIS GRANDSON'S WORK.

Among his autumn pleasures was the watching the first work of his architect grandson-a new bell-tower at the House of Mercy.

The winter brought a heavy and wholly unexpected blow -the death of his only son on December 14. This bitter grief was borne with calm submission. He went on, to the fullest measure of his strength, with his accustomed work, he met all around him with his usual gentle smile, but those who watched him closely saw that the spring of his life was broken, and from that day his strength failed more and more rapidly.

Still, for nearly two years he worked on, till, after his return home from Ryde, in the summer of 1901, he was laid by with a slight internal attack, from the effects of which he never wholly rallied. In October he seemed much better, and on the 26th of that month he was able to preside at the reelection of the Mother Superior. On that day he visited the Convalescent Hospital, as well as the House of Mercy, doing more than he had done for long, and was bright in the evening, and pleased to have got through so much. The next day he did not feel able to rise, and on the following morning, the Feast of St. Simon and St. Jude, he passed away without pain or struggle, in the presence of his two daughters and a nursing Sister.

Two days later, on the eve of All Saints, he was laid beside his wife in Clewer churchyard, in the presence of a great gathering of friends and fellow-workers in those labours for the Church of God to which all his life had been given.

Canon Carter's great delight in natural beauty has often been noticed in this volume. There was a last and touching instance. At dusk, on the evening before his death, one of his daughters was about to draw the curtains. He stopped her, saying, "I want to see the star," and lay gazing at the planet which shone in unusual splendour through the window at the foot of his bed. A star appears in the background of the bronze placed in the parish church of Clewer to his memory, in remembrance of this his last look on outward things.

A few lines written by himself may here find a fitting place.

"I am deeply grateful to Almighty God for life prolonged, so that I have lived to see the result and the success of the struggles of many years, during which in His Providence I have had to bear some part. Doctrines, once fiercely opposed, now accepted or tolerated, and at least making their way more peacefully; Ritual, once still more wildly attacked, now authoritatively sanctioned, at least as to its main features; the Religious Life, once so strangely suspected, spreading everywhere; a whole Church Revival on true Catholic lines, which commenced since I was ordained, thus obtaining a settlement and bearing promise of permanence and of progress through after ages, on English grounds and according to English ideas. Thanks be to God!"

The following is a touching account of Canon Carter's last years in his ministerial life, from 1885 to 1901, written kindly at the instance of the editor of this work. Mr Cuthbert was for some time an assistant Curate of Clewer in earlier life, and was subsequently Sub-Warden for about seventeen years, and has been appointed, since the Founder's death, his successor as Warden. He had many opportunities, from friendship and office, of intercourse with Canon Carter during his declining years until their close, and the impressions which he received from the holy life which he constantly had before him he has recorded in a few pages, which will form a suitable conclusion to this memoir. Mr. Cuthbert's record bears out the description given of the Warden of Clewer at the time of his death-"Canon Carter presented sanctity under the aspect of beauty." 1

"MY DEAREST FRIEND,

"St. John's Lodge, Clewer.

"In trying, at your request, to put on record some reminiscences of our venerable and beloved Master, I feel very painfully how inadequate will be the few scattered recollections which are all that I can contribute to give any true impression of him as I found him to be during an

1 Article in Church Quarterly.

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"IT IS TOWARDS EVENING.”

intercourse which lasted through more than a quarter of a century, and which latterly became so close and intimate. My first meeting with Mr. Carter was in the year 1867, when I attended a Retreat conducted by him at Bovey Tracey. It was my first Retreat; the subject of the addresses was 'The Priesthood,' and ideas of the ministerial life were then opened out to me which were far in advance of anything which I had hitherto realized, and which were deepened and brought more closely home to me when I went to him privately. This Retreat was held either immediately before or after the opening of the newly erected House of Mercy, and I remember being greatly impressed by the sermon which Mr. Carter preached at the dedication service, in which he dwelt on the place which the Grace of Sympathy holds in the Christian life as a fruit of the Incarnation, and how especially requisite and important it was in Penitentiary work. After this I did not again meet him until the beginning of 1873, when I had the privilege of renewing my acquaintance with him at Rome. I remember then especially a walk with him, on the Festival of St. Antony of Padua, to the church where on that day the animals are blessed, and the interest he took in the benediction service as we saw it then performed.

"The result of our intercourse at Rome was that on St. John the Baptist's Day, 1873, I went to Clewer as assistant curate of the parish, where I remained for rather more than two years. The clerical staff at Clewer in those days was a large one, the clergy of the parish and of the Sisterhood forming practically one body. We used to meet every Monday at the Rectory to settle the week's work, and when this had been done, the Rector, as he was then, used constantly to bring before us some matter connected with the Church questions of the day in which he was especially interested, and ask for our opinions about it. And I well remember how greatly I was struck by the breadth and largeness of view with which he was wont to take in all the aspects of the subjects which he proposed for our consideration, as well as by the patience with which he used to listen to the sometimes very crude expressions of opinion to which some amongst us, myself especially, gave utterance. Another point which at that time greatly impressed me was the intimate personal knowledge which the Rector had of many of his parishioners, so that although he did not then as a rule visit much in the parish, he was always ready himself to take up any case which I found especial difficulty in dealing with.

"I left Clewer at the end of 1875, and for the next nine years my opportunities of meeting Canon Carter were almost entirely limited to the annual visits which we used to pay to him on the occasion of the Commemoration Festival at the House of Mercy, an event which was always to me one of the red-letter days of the year. In 1883, however, he was kind enough to come to preach at the reopening, after restoration, of Market Drayton Church, of which I was then Vicar. Before he came, there was among the people a certain amount of prejudice against him on account of his reputation as one of the leaders of what was called 'the extreme High Church party.' But his presence and his sermon on 1 Cor. xiii. 12 quite dispelled the unfavourable feeling which had existed, and his visit was productive of the happiest result.

"In 1884 I returned to Clewer as Sub-Warden of the House of Mercy. The Warden was then in his 77th year, but was still as active, both in mind and body, as many a man of 60. His Sunday evening sermons he preached sitting, but without any notes; they were of the same deeply thoughtful and spiritual character as they had ever been, and for some time seemed to me to gain rather than fall off in lucidity and clearness of arrangement.

"For some years after I went to Clewer the Warden took his full share in all the services and other work connected with the Community. Only as regarded outside engagements and matters connected with the public life of the church did he gradually come to take a less active part. His last appearance on a public platform was, if I remember rightly, at the Church Congress at Birmingham.

"We at Clewer had feared that the effort of going to and speaking at the Congress would be too much for him, and tried to dissuade him from it. But he was quite decided that he ought to go, and the impression which he produced upon a large and somewhat excited audience was noticed at the time as being very remarkable. Though, however, he gradually withdrew from the position which he had held for so many years as a leader of the Catholic School in the English Church, Canon Carter's interest in all the current questions of the time continued to be as keen as ever. He would still, as of old, at our Monday morning meetings, talk over whatever subject was in the air,' and from time to time letters with the well-known signature used to appear in the papers, which showed how alive he was to everything which had to

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do with the maintenance of the Faith and Ritual of the Church.

"Thus the years went on so quietly and with such little outward change that we hardly realized when he reached and passed the limit of his four-score years. Not, I think, till after that did the necessity of trying to save him any unnecessary fatigue, whether of body or mind, really come home to us. And when it did so, we found it no easy task to carry out our duty in this respect. Many a time did it only come to light after the event that the Warden had, unknown to us, taken some piece of work from which, had we known of it in time, we should certainly have endeavoured to dissuade him. I think at times he found some pleasure and amusement in thus circumventing us. His weekly visits to the London Houses of the Community were among the first things which we prevailed upon him to give up. He came back one day from one of these expeditions with his face sadly cut from having fallen in trying to get into an omnibus while it was in motion. This, of course, alarmed us greatly. But all we could succeed in doing was to extract a promise that he would in future make the omnibus stop before attempting to get on it. Soon afterwards a carriage was provided for him by the kindness of an old friend, and for some time he continued this part of his work. But at last it became manifestly too much for him, and he quietly consented to relinquish it. In other respects he went on much as usual, celebrating always on Sundays, and at least on one day in the week. His sermons, however, gradually changed their character. He began to take his notes with him, and to read from them, and there was a marked growth of simplicity in what he said, so that the likeness which we always loved to trace in him to St. John, became in his old age more striking than ever as the burden of his exhortation became more and more the cultivation of Love and Unity one with another. It was not, I think, until after his return from his summer holiday in 1900 that the decline in his power became very marked. From that time he himself recognized his growing weakness, and quietly acquiesced in, though he very rarely suggested, the surrender of this or that portion of his work. He often spoke of his failing memory, and gently put aside matters which he felt he could no longer deal with, though still keeping his hold on much of his distinctively spiritual work. And not, I think, until the summer of 1901 did he give up celebrating on Sunday at the