as I turned from the house,’ he said, and he was not effusive.  In a letter to Mrs. Murray he describes this unlucky interview,—a discouragement caused by a manner which was strange to Murray, rather than by real unkindness,—and he describes it with a delicacy, with a reserve, with a toleration, beyond all praise.  These are traits of a character which was greater and more rare than his literary talent: a character quite developed, while his talent was only beginning to unfold itself, and to justify his belief in his powers.

Robert Murray was the eldest child of John and Emmeline Murray: the father a Scot, the mother of American birth.  He was born at Roxbury, in Massachusetts, on December 26th, 1863.  It may be fancy, but, in his shy reserve, his almost farouche independence, one seems to recognise the Scot; while in his cast of literary talent, in his natural ‘culture,’ we observe the son of a refined American lady.  To his mother he could always write about the books which were interesting him, with full reliance on her sympathy, though indeed, he does not often say very much about literature.

Till 1869 he lived in various parts of New England, his father being a Unitarian minister.  ‘He was a remarkably cheerful and affectionate child, and seldom seemed to find anything to trouble him.’  In 1869 his father carried him to England, Mrs. Murray and a child remaining in America.  For more than a year the boy lived with kinsfolk near Kelso, the beautiful old town on the Tweed where Scott passed some of his childish days.  In 1871 the family were reunited at York, where he was fond of attending the services in the Cathedral.  Mr. Murray then took charge of the small Unitarian chapel of Blackfriars, at Canterbury.  Thus Murray’s early youth was passed in the mingled influences of Unitarianism at home, and of Cathedral services at York, and in the church where Becket suffered martyrdom.  A not unnatural result was a somewhat eclectic and unconstrained religion.  He thought but little of the differences of creed, believing that all good men held, in essentials, much the same faith.  His view of essentials was generous, as he admitted.  He occasionally spoke of himself as ‘sceptical,’ that is, in contrast with those whose faith was more definite, more dogmatic, more securely based on ‘articles.’  To illustrate Murray’s religious attitude, at least as it was in 1887, one may quote from a letter of that year (April 17).

‘There was a University sermon, and I thought I would go and hear it.  So I donned my old cap and gown and felt quite proud of them.  The preacher was Bishop Wordsworth.  He goes in for the union of the Presbyterian and Episcopalian Churches, and is glad to preach in a Presbyterian Church, as he did this morning.  How the aforesaid Union is to be brought about, I’m sure I don’t know, for I am pretty certain that the Episcopalians won’t give up their bishops, and the Presbyterians won’t have them on any account.  However, that’s neither here nor there—at least it does not affect the fact that Wordsworth is a first-rate man, and a fine preacher.  I dare say you know he is a nephew or grand-nephew of the Poet.  He is a most venerable old man, and worth looking at, merely for his exterior.  He is so feeble with age that he can with difficulty climb the three short steps that lead into the pulpit; but, once in the pulpit, it is another thing.  There is no feebleness when he begins to preach.  He is one of the last voices of the old orthodox school, and I wish there were hundreds like him.  If ever a man believed in his message, Wordsworth does.  And though I cannot follow him in his veneration for the Thirty-nine Articles, the way in which he does makes me half wish I could. . . . It was full of wisdom and the beauty of holiness, which even I, poor sceptic and outcast, could recognise and appreciate.  After all, he didn’t get it from the Articles, but from his own human heart, which, he told us, was deceitful and desperately wicked.

‘Confound it, how stupid we all are!  Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Unitarians, Agnostics; the whole lot of us.  We all believe the same things, to a great extent; but we must keep wrangling about the data from which we infer these beliefs . . . I believe a great deal that he does, but I certainly don’t act up to my belief as he does to his.’

The belief ‘up to’ which Murray lived was, if it may be judged by its fruits, that of a Christian man.  But, in this age, we do find the most exemplary Christian conduct in some who have discarded dogma and resigned hope.  Probably Murray would not the less have regarded these persons as Christians.  If we must make a choice, it is better to have love and charity without belief, than belief of the most intense kind, accompanied by such love and charity as John Knox bore to all who differed from him about a mass or a chasuble, a priest or a presbyter.  This letter, illustrative of the effect of cathedral services on a young Unitarian, is taken out of its proper chronological place.

From Canterbury Mr. Murray went to Ilminster in Somerset.  Here Robert attended the Grammar School; in 1879 he went to the Grammar School of Crewkerne.  In 1881 he entered at the University of St. Andrews, with a scholarship won as an external student of Manchester New College.  This he resigned not long after, as he had abandoned the idea of becoming a Unitarian minister.

No longer a schoolboy, he was now a Bejant (bec jaune?), to use the old Scotch term for ‘freshman.’  He liked the picturesque word, and opposed the introduction of ‘freshman.’  Indeed he liked all things old, and, as a senior man, was a supporter of ancient customs and of esprit de corps in college.  He fell in love for life with that old and grey enchantress, the city of St. Margaret, of Cardinal Beaton, of Knox and Andrew Melville, of Archbishop Sharp, and Samuel Rutherford.  The nature of life and education in a Scottish university is now, probably, better understood in England than it used to be.  Of the Scottish universities, St. Andrews varies least, though it varies much, from Oxford and Cambridge.  Unlike the others, Aberdeen, Glasgow, and Edinburgh, the United College of St. Leonard and St. Salvator is not lost in a large town.  The College and the Divinity Hall of St. Mary’s are a survival from the Middle Ages.  The University itself arose from a voluntary association of the learned in 1410.  Privileges were conferred on this association by Bishop Wardlaw in 1411.  It was intended as a bulwark against Lollard ideas.  In 1413 the Antipope Benedict XIII., to whom Scotland then adhered, granted six bulls of confirmation to the new University.  Not till 1430 did Bishop Wardlaw give a building in South Street, the Pædagogium.  St. Salvator’s College was founded by Bishop Kennedy (1440-1466): it was confirmed by Pius II. in 1458.  Kennedy endowed his foundation richly with plate (a silver mace is still extant) and with gorgeous furniture and cloth of gold.  St. Leonard’s was founded by Prior Hepburn in 1512.  Of St. Salvator’s the ancient chapel still remains, and is in use.  St. Leonard’s was merged with St. Salvator’s in the last century: its chapel is now roofless, some of the old buildings remain, much modernised, but on the south side fronting the gardens they are still picturesque.  Both Colleges were, originally, places of residence for the students, as at Oxford and Cambridge, and the discipline, especially at St. Leonard’s, was rather monastic.  The Reformation caused violent changes; all through these troubled ages the new doctrines, and then the violent Presbyterian pretensions to clerical influence in politics, and the Covenant and the Restoration and Revolution, kept busy the dwellers in what should have been ‘quiet collegiate cloisters.’  St. Leonard’s was more extreme, on Knox’s side, than St. Salvator’s, but was also more devoted to King James in