CHAPTER IX.

"The work of our Church, freighted with truths so broad, so rational, so satisfying alike to the intellect and the heart, is to put the thought of God as a living power, as no other Church can, into the life of this eager, restless, worldridden time." Our New Departure.

IN the old church at Roche d'Andeli, hard by the Chateau Gaillard's fast-rising walls, Cœur de Lion sat, a kingly worshipper at holy mass. In a great chair just at the entrance to the choir, and with the Bishops of Ely and Durham at either side, sat the monarch, abstracted and thoughtful, hearing the priestly voices, but regardless of the priestly words— anger in his heart, and a dark frown clouding the royal brow. Through the arched and pictured windows above him streamed the bright sunshine, tinging with many changing hues the faces of kings and prelates, priests and people, and lighting with something of its radiant glory the dark old Norman church. Without, it illumined the quiet beauty of one of fair Normandy's fairest landscapes, where, with a broad bend to the north, the Seine, sparkling with its silvery gleam, flows through the picturesque valley of Les Andelys, past sharply rising chalk cliffs, green, low-lying meadows, and thickly wooded hill-slopes, on toward Rouen's ancient walls and the northern seas. Through all the words of the priests and the solemn music of the choir, King Richard thought only of his own concerns-his feud with Philip of France, his empty coffers, and, beyond all, of the realization of his great desire, the speedy completion of "his saucy castle," which with fluted citadel and massive donjon towers overtopped the quaint roofs and gables of Roche d'Andeli, and which, once completed, could hold all France at bay. Straitened for means to complete the fortress, with an exhausted treasury in England and an exhaustive war-drain

in France, he laid upon the English bishops a certain impost for pretended arrears, and an individual demand for the equipment of men for service in France. Awed by the magic of the great name of the crusader king, and fearful of the royal wrath, man by man, prelates and nobles acceded to these extortionate demands. One alone stoutly refused compliance, and stood upon the vested rights of the Church, which until now no monarch had dared invade-the Bishop of Lincoln, Hugo of Avalon. Fearless of kingly greed and kingly threat, the stout old bishop resisted the enforcement of the demands upon him, and threatened to excommunicate any man who dared to execute the royal mandate. Then, upon a second direct demand from Richard, which threatened death as the penalty of disobedience, the Bishop Hugo went over-sea to face the king and persist in his refusal. Disregarding all the warnings and appeals of friends who met him at Rouen, Hugo pushed on to where, chafing at the delay in his needed supplies, Richard was superintending the completion of his pet scheme-the Chateau Gaillard—at Roche d'Andeli. Thus, then, in the old church sat the Lion Heart, and a whisper from the Bishop of Ely apprised him of the arrival of Hugo. The frown deepened on the kingly brow until the hot flush of his fierce and restless temper flamed above the frown. Through the press the Bishop Hugo, attended only by a single follower-the Abbot Adam-advanced toward the king. He made the customary obeisance, and calmly awaited the kingly kiss, which was then the due of the lords spiritual. The stern face of the angry king was averted from the bishop, and no word of welcome came from the monarch's lips. Once-twice was the kiss of greeting demanded, in response to which came naught but a sullen Non meruisti," growled through the kingly lips. Then, with a sudden movement, and while priests and people gazed in mute horror at the almost sacrilege, the determined bishop seized the great king by his broidered vest and shook him roundly. Kiss me, my lord king!" he demanded; "kiss me, for it is my right, and I am deserving of it." The unprecedented

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audacity of the action more than amazed the king-it conquered him. His own courageous heart claimed kindred with all undaunted souls, and he recognized the moral bravery of the defiant and intrepid priest. The kiss was given, and the bishop, without another word, passed on to the altar and joined in the service. In the very shadow of his castle walls, Richard was forced to acknowledge the justice of the Bishop Hugo's assertion, that the demand of the king was against the liberties he had sworn to defend, and he would rather die than betray them." If all bishops were like my lord of Lincoln," he said, not a prince among us could lift his hand against them." In the trenches at Chaluz, Richard the king died pardoning with knightly generosity the archer whose arrow stilled forever the heart of the bravest of the Plantagenets; to his honored tomb at Lincoln, Hugo the bishop was borne by kings and archbishops, while prelates and nobles wept above his bier; but while through the green Norman valley flows the silvery Seine, and while above Lincoln Cathedral linger these legends of the blameless Bishop Hugo, still will the memory of his high and stalwart integrity, which braved death and defied the kingly extortions, be held in reverence by every lover of justice, while he stands exalted, "one of the true builders of a nation's greatness."

One contented with what he has done," says Bovee, "stands but small chance of becoming famous for what he will do. He has lain down to die. The grass is already growing over him." And how truly this remark of the old divine applies to the men and women of our work-day world it needs not to demonstrate. It is a truth that is axiomatic. "To let well enough alone" is but a lame precept that halts far behind the nobler truths of life.

It was in much this spirit that in the fall of 1859 Mr.

Brooks was moved to consider and finally accept a call to a new and distant field of labor. Passing through the city of New York on his way to and from the session of the General Convention at Rochester, N. Y., he had supplied for two Sundays, not as a candidate but as a reciprocal accommodation, the vacant pulpit of a young and struggling society—the Sixth Universalist Society in New York. The flavor of the metropolis stole into his life; the opportunities for doing loyal service for Christ with a band of determined workers amid the crowding interests of a great city drew him on; and when, two weeks after his visit, the invitation came, all unlooked for and, unexpected though it was, it found him ready to consider, although loath to leave. The question, What is my duty? again pressed hard upon him; he considered, hesitated-accepted, and left New England forever. "I came to Lynn," he writes at this time in his record book," with the thought of making it a permanent home. I have all along regarded it as my home, and have said No! to all solicitations to leave. But a new field has invited, and the pointings of Providence seem to indicate that I should go into it."

With this conscientious man, next to his duty to his Master stood his loving duty to his family. Always tender, considerate, and true, he made his home the shrine of the most sacred earthly affections—a shrine consecrated ever by the unselfish devotions of a loving nature and an exemplary life. So, in this decision to remove to New York, the influence which the change would have upon his family occupied no small share of his consideration. 'It will benefit them," he reasoned; "it will broaden their minds, increase their possibilities for advancement, and enrich their lives; and these considerations are surely to be borne in mind." At the same time he fully appreciated the importance of the step to be taken; and with this in his thoughts he wrote to the society in New York: I venture to accept the office to which you call me. I do it, conscious how important a step it is both to you and to myself, and with no little shrinking from a position so responsible. My heart lingers here, too, amid

these friends whom I love so well, and who would fain retain me with them. It is no light thing, I find, to break these nine years' ties; I tremble when I think what it is to become a Universalist minister in the metropolis of the country. But you have called me, brethren, and I trust you. I think I see that the field is one not only of responsibility, but of promise, and I come to you hoping and expecting to find friends as sympathizing and as constant as I leave, for your sake. I come not to labor for you, but to labor with you, assured that you call me to a free Christian pulpit, and that you want me to be faithful in it as a man and a minister of Christ. Remember, I pray you, what I surrender, and what I place at stake in thus coming to you, and give me your hands and your hearts, as I try to be such a man and such a minister among you."

Trust and pledge thus solemnly entered were sacredly kept by him, and through all the stormy years that followed, when many a church went down and many a society was lost in the crash of far-reaching disaster, he stoutly held his ground, guided the struggling society safely through the breakers and past the danger line, and left it at last purged of all internecine strife, united in a generous purpose for Christian work, and fully prepared to assume the proud position, which, under the governance of his honored successor, it now holds among the foremost churches of our faith in America.

It was with no little regret and heart-soreness that this loyal son of the soil turned his steps away from that dear New England that he loved so devotedly. No man is stable in these shifting days, when fresh fields and pastures new draw many a loved one from the old home-circle. We change our homes as unconcernedly as our garments. The whole world pours its thousands into our almost boundless domain, and the broad Western prairies drain our Eastern cities of their restless and ambitious life. But with all, the dear home feeling ever lingers glorious and radiant with memories of the earlier days-memories which time and