Page:Memoir of Edward Lord Bishop of Salisbury.djvu/16

12 apostolic devotion to his duties into public notice, and, in spite of himself, into general public admiration.

The Bishop was entertaining at his hospitable palace the members of a scientific body, then holding their meeting at Salisbury, when suddenly the terrible plague of the cholera smote the city of Salisbury in all its wrath. The Bishop immediately dismissed his guests, and from that moment until the departure of this appalling pestilence—in every murky street and wretched house, wherever disease was rifest and danger most imminent—there were to be found the consolations of religion, ministered by the chief pastor of the diocese; and strange to say, in spite of the weakness of his constitution, he escaped untouched. It seemed that "Sarum's good Bishop," like his illustrious brother of Marseilles, a century ago—

The Bishop's career in Parliament was eminently episcopal. He spoke upon almost all questions of a religious character which were discussed in the House of Lords, and upon such questions only (with one exception), and always with so much gravity, wisdom, dignity, and piety, that the opinions of no one on the episcopal bench had greater weight in that illustrious assembly.

The one exception was, a reply which he thought