DEDICATORY PREFACE

When this book was first published I was Principal of the Working Men’s College in London, and had in my mind the students there, who came as a rule from poorer homes, and had grown up under different surroundings and influences from those in and under which I had myself been brought up at Rugby and Oxford. It is now twelve years since I have retired from vithe principalship of the W. M. C., and, except occasional visits at Christmas to attend the anniversary meetings of the Old Students’ Club, my direct connection with the College has practically ceased, though my interest in its special work is as strong as ever. On the other hand, in the last few years my direct connection with Rugby has been revived in an unexpected manner. At the request of Dr. Percival I have delivered “Layman’s Sunday evening addresses,” to the School in the course which he, wisely in my opinion, established three years since. Judging by my own case, it is a very healthy, and rather pathetic, experience for an old man to be thus viibrought back into touch with that far-away time in his own life,

“When all the world was young, lads,

And all the trees were green.”

At any rate it has been so with me, and has revived a wish I had long entertained, in a fitful sort of way, of drawing somewhat closer the bonds which connect the beginning and end of a long life, now that the end is so well in sight. That wish came upon me again when, at the request of the school, I agreed to print the first address of 1891, and more strongly when the same request was renewed as to those of 1892 and 1894, and with it the question whether I might viiinot put them in some less ephemeral shape than that of pamphlets of ten pages, printed by the School bookseller. While I was correcting the proofs of my last address an unexpected offer came from Messrs. Macmillan for a new edition of The Manliness of Christ, which has been for some time out of print.

This offer seemed to give me just the opportunity I was in search of. In all human likelihood this is the last book I shall ever publish, and on reading it again I cannot but think that the three addresses now added are in harmony with, and fit well enough into, the text and argument of the book. Of this at any rate I am sure, that no ixbetter specimen of true Christian manliness has appeared in my day than that of my old schoolfellow William Cotton Oswell. So these three addresses have been added, and they give me some excuse for gratifying my wish, and dedicating this enlarged edition of the book to my young schoolfellows of this last decade of the century and the students of the Working Men’s College. If, as I hope, it should lead to some alliance or connection between the school and the Working Men’s College, and should incline Rugby boys who settle in London, either as professional or business men, to join the College and take part in its xeducational work, I believe that both School and College will benefit. There remains one point upon which I feel bound to say a few words, and which I have had to reconsider carefully before consenting to the republication of this book. On reading the Second Charge of the Bishop of Oxford, published last year, I found that he insists strongly on the omniscience of Christ being of the essence of His human personality, and that He did not divest Himself of His almightiness or all-knowledge on becoming man. My respect—I may say my reverence for Bishop Stubbs both as a theologian and a man, is so deep that I hesitated before allowing a xibook of mine to go forth again which assumes the opposite view; viz. that He did so divest Himself, and that when He became man He became man in all things like as we are, which of course excludes omniscience. After the best consideration I could give, I found that I could not abandon my old belief, in the face of Christ’s own sayings, and above all of that last cry on the cross of “Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani.” However, the Bishop says truly in this same charge, “the Church has lived patiently for 1900 years without having other mysteries solved or explained,” and I venture to think that this of Christ’s omniscience while in the flesh is one xiiof those as to which it can safely be left for each of us to hold the faith which best approves itself to his own conscience.

THOMAS HUGHES.

1894.

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