1808.]

MARIA MILLIS.

21

would say:-"The memory of that place makes me shudder; it is repulsive to me even now. I think there never was such a wicked school before or since. The place was bad, wicked, filthy; and the treatment was starvation and cruelty."

Young Ashley had not been long at the Manor House School when a great trouble befell him. Maria Millis, the faithful servant and friend, the one who alone in all the world had sympathised with his simple childfaith, and had been the means of giving it increased vitality, was called to her rest.

It was his first great grief, and it came at a time when he was least able to bear it. Boyish sorrow, although often very real and passionate, is commonly resisted and overcome by a nature full of life and of life's fresh and vivid interests. But Ashley was feeling deeply the loneliness of a school life amidst uncongenial associates and under a system that offered no alleviation to one so tender and sensitive. He clung to his old friend, for she was the only grown-up person in the world he really loved; the only one to whom he had dared to speak of the misery of his school life; the only one with whom bright and beautiful memories of his earlier years were associated. And now that she was gone, there was no one to whom he could unbosom the great sorrow her loss had brought to him; his parents were not cast in a tender mould, they ruled by fear and not by love, and his three sisters were too young, and lacked the opportunity, to give him help. He felt that with his old nurse his last chance of happiness had gone; he mourned for her "with a grievous mourning," for she was more to him than all the world beside, and he felt a terrible loneliness which sent a chill through his life. Without a soul on earth to whom he could go for comfort, he turned with a child's simple faith to the old Book that she had loved, and spread his sorrows before the Heavenly Friend whom she had taught him to regard as full of pity and tenderness.

In her will she left him her watch-a handsome gold one-and until the day of his death he never wore any other. He was fond even to the last of showing it, and would say, "That was given to me by the best friend I ever had in the world."

In one less earnest and resolute, the spiritual life, thus deprived of its accustomed support, and left to be lived apart, might have been in danger of decline. But, throughout the five years during which he remained at the Manor House, he persevered in his habit of praying and reading the Bible, despite the sneers and opposition of his fellows; and he never forgot the lessons he had learned from Maria Millis.

Of all the social changes of this century of change, perhaps there is none more remarkable than that which has come over the relationship of parents and children. It was once the almost universal practice for parents to rule their children by severity and fear, now the opposite extreme prevails; respect and reverence for parents have perhaps decreased, but affection has undoubtedly increased. In the case of many, the severity of home was bearable,

inasmuch as it was of short duration, and the return to school was hailed with delight as a welcome relief. In young Ashley's case there was neither joy in going back to school, nor joy in coming home. His parents had a mistaken idea of education, of parental authority, rights, and obligations; and the fear with which Ashley regarded his schoolmaster and the bullies of the school was less than the fear with which he regarded his parents. There was no sympathy of any kind between them; no exhibition, in any way, of affection. His heart sank within him when the day came for him to go home for the holidays, and it sank within him when he had to return to school. Nor was it only the presence of his parents in the home that made life oppressive; their absence had exactly the same effect, for then he was left with his sisters, to the tender mercies of the servants, and he knew, times without number, what it was to be kept for days without sufficient food until he was pinched with starvation; and could recall many weary nights in winter when he lay awake all through the long hours, suffering from cold.

It is not well to dwell upon these details-it may be considered unwise to have referred to them at all. But they are necessary to the right appreciation of his subsequent career. No one who knew Lord Shaftesbury could fail to observe in him an air of melancholy, a certain sombreness and sadness, which habitually surrounded him like an atmosphere. It was no doubt to be attributed, in great measure, to the scenes of suffering and sorrow which were continually before him; but it was also largely due to the fact that there had been no light-heartedness in his childhood, and that the days to which most men look back with the keenest delight were only recalled by him with a shrinking sense of horror. But it is important to the understanding of his life in another aspect that this record of his unhappy childhood should be given. Those early years of sorrow were the years in which he was graduating for his great life-work. He had suffered oppression; henceforth his life would be devoted to fighting the battles of the oppressed. He had known loneliness, and cold, and hunger; henceforth he would plead the cause of the poor, the lonely, the suffering, and the hungry. He had known the loss of a happy childhood; henceforth he would labour, as long as life should last, to bring joy and gladness to the hearts and homes of little children.

At the age of twelve there came a change, a welcome change, in the life of young Ashley. He was removed from the Manor House School, sent straight to Harrow, and placed under the care, and in the house, of Dr. Butler, the Head Master. He soon found himself associated with a gentlemanly set of fellows, among whom was Sir Harry Verney, who, as is well known, has greatly distinguished himself by his large-hearted philanthropy.

No freed slave ever rejoiced in his emancipation, no over-worked factory hand ever hailed his "protection," no rescued outcast ever delighted in a newly-found "Home" more heartily than did young Ashley rejoice in his transfer to Harrow. It was the beginning of a new life to him; whatever

1813.]

AT HARROW.

23

might happen now in vacation-time he would at least be able to look forward with pleasure to his return to school.

He was still, however, without those influences which are sometimes thought to be of first importance in the formation of a religious character; his conduct was regulated by Christian instincts, but not by any settled principles; he had floating impressions of good, but no fixed and steadfast purpose. Yet his eyes and his heart were opening gradually, and meanwhile he could say, as regarded the letter of the moral law, "all these things have I kept."

In speaking of these times to the present writer he said:- 'I distinctly remember how often it was impressed upon my mind that the Bible Society, which was founded when I was three years old, was an evil and a revolutionary institution, opposed alike to Church and State. I was brought up in the old high-and-dry' school, and believed it to be a meritorious thing to hate Dissenters. As to their doing any good in the world, the very idea seemed to be monstrous, if, indeed, it ever occurred to me. As to their having any views of their own worthy of consideration, it never crossed my mind, until one day I got hold of a copy of some Commentary, and after reading for a while with great interest, it suddenly struck me, 'The writer must have been a rank Dis. senter!" and I instantly shut up the book, recoiling from it as I would from poison. One of the first things that opened my eyes was reading of Doddridge being condemned as a Dissenter, and I remember exclaiming, 'Good heavens! how will he stand in the judgment, at the bar of God, as compared with Pope Alexander VI. ?' It was not till I was twenty-five years old, or thereabouts, that I got hold of 'Scott's Commentary on the Bible,' and, struck with the enormous difference between his views and those to which I had been accustomed, I began to think for myself."

Vast as was the improvement in his comfort at Harrow, the state of things was not in those days to be compared with these.

"A strange reminiscence of Harrow in the first thirty years of the nineteenth century was recounted by Lord Shaftesbury, when presiding at the Harrow Triennial Dinner, on June 18th, 1884. He recalled the case of a master who, being himself a bad sleeper, frequently called up his form-the Shell-at four o'clock on a winter's morning, and relieved the tedium of the night by this very early first school.' The venerable philanthropist also spoke with horror of the unpleasant state of Duck Puddle in his time, when it swarmed with insects, reform having been brought about by the Earl's own ingenuity in selecting the subject for Latin verse composition.” *

Although his father had succeeded to the Shaftesbury title and estates in 1811, it was not until some few years after that young Ashley paid his first visit to St. Giles's House. He went there from Harrow, to pass the summer holidays, and singularly happy days they were for him in comparison with those he had spent at the Richmond house, in summer, and the house in

"Harrow School and its Surroundings," by Percy M. Thornton, p. 264.