When evening
waned he would turn to Epictetus, and then to a well-thumbed New
Testament. It was the hour of meditation.
'I have studied the New Testament in various languages,' he said, 'thus
getting more insight of it than I could have got through a single
language. Never, during my early exploring work, was I without my New
Testament to comfort and sustain me. The Sermon on the Mount is the great
charter of mankind, its teachings the highest wisdom for all times and
all climes. It and other pieces, which I might select, are of exceeding
beauty and full of guidance and counsel. They inculcate in the human
heart a love of one's fellows, irrespective of colour.'
He read that teaching into the happier London which greeted him, after an
absence of more than twenty-five years. At last, the museums and art
galleries were really open to the people, who thronged them, drinking in
knowledge. He noted the children playing in the parks, and they were
better dressed, the parks themselves better kept. You can judge a nation
by the state of its children's boots, and these had fewer holes. The poor
London had, and ever would have, but she was not the callous mother of
other years. She felt for those who were down.
Sir George would ride by 'bus, except, indeed, when in pursuit of some
volume for that beloved library at Auckland.
Pages:
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32