Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/275

 .V.MARCH 24, 1906.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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the church of St. John, Smith Square. This in the altered condition of the parish has long been needed, but only small progress can be reported to the close of the year. However, it is now rapidly going forward. Before leaving what may not inaptly be styled the Millbank area, it must be noted that a hitch had occurred in the negotiations concerning the possession of the premises of the Westminster Electric Supply Corpora- tion. As the premises at this spot had the advantage of a river frontage, while the new site offered for the erection of another generating station in Horseferry Road has not, it is not unlikely that the aid of the law may be invoked to determine if the site suggested can be considered as equivalent to the one of which the company is being dispossessed.

Proceeding along Millbank Street, we come to Grosvenor Road, formerly Millbank, and it still remains a mystery why that historic name should have been "displaced for one of which there are already too many in London. Perhaps the old name may be restored when better counsels prevail. In Bulinga Street the new buildings of the Army Hospital are complete, and, I believe, in use. At the far end of this street the buildings of the Alex- andra Military Nursing Home (so named by express desire of Her Majesty) were, as the year closed, making substantial progress ; and in Atterbury Street, on the south side of the Tate Gallery, a good show had been made with another important pile of build- ings, which will be devoted to the require- ments of the Army Military College. With reference to Vauxhall Bridge, it can only be said that the work was still going on, and completion early this year is looked for.

W. E. HARLAND OXLEY.

Westminster.

(To be continued.)

G. J. HOLYOAKE AS A LECTURER. (See ante, pp. 80, 126, 156, 191, 212.)

I HAVE been very glad to read the interesting notes which have already appeared in ' N. & Q.' concerning this remarkable man. I once had the pleasure of hearing him speak, and as the occasion was unique I think perhaps a few extracts from the notes then made in my diary may not be unacceptable.

Twenty years ago (27 Feb., 1886) I was passing by South Place Institute, Finsbury, and saw that Mr. Holyoake was to give the address there the next (Sunday) morning. I made up my mind to attend, and accordingly

found myself seated among the audience that assembled on that occasion. The sub- ject of his address was ' Some New Aspects of Toleration.' He had previously read by way of lesson a chapter from the Book of Esdras, and also outlined a kind of prayer which he said would be like what he should wish to say were he sure there was a God " who was a gentleman." He also stated that he read the same form in the Memorial Hall, Boston, U.S.A., a place conducted on similar lines to South Place Institute. When he commenced his discourse he said it was- about forty-six years ago, in the year 1841, that he sat in one of the seats in the gallery (pointing to a seat on his right), and wished he could some day speak something which he then thought of from that platform. Now the time had come, and he should give the subject-matter of those early thoughts, pro- bably put into better language than he could have used forty-six years earlier. He also mentioned the fact that Mr. W. J. Fox^ who was then at South Place, read out to his hearers a few Sundays afterwards a letter which he had sent to him from a distant jail, where he was then undergoing six months' imprisonment for his opinions. During his discourse he quoted the following words, which he said Richard Baxter had taken from an obscure German treatise : "In necessary things, unity; in doubtful things, liberty ; in all things, charity.' 7 Though not believing in the Bible himself, he was tolerant of those who did. For in- stance, when his old mother's eyes grew dim he did not hesitate to read to her from that book, because he knew its words comforted her. He also pleaded guilty to buying an old lady a pair of spectacles in order that she might see the pages of her Bible better, and to subscribing towards procuring a curate to preach in the church of the parish in which he lived. The whole of the dis- course was memorable in many respects, and when Mr. Holyoake finished some of his hearers broke into cheers, a thing apparently unusual. After we had sung a hymn Mr. Holyoake said that in his opinion there was no passage in the whole Bible finer than that which ended with the words, "But the greatest of these is charity." My diary gives the following notes on his appearance and methods :

"He looks to be a man something past sixty years of age. His face is not unlike that of Robert Browning. He wears the same pointed beard, but his hair is straight and is worn low on the neck behind. Its colour is iron-grey. He appears to suffer from weak eyesight. Apparently he knows almost by heart his MS. from which he professes to