I
The Rev. S. J. Stone, M.A., was the author of two hymns that are
known wherever the English tongue is spoken, one the beautiful Lenten
litany of love, trust and repentance, “Weary of earth and laden with
my sin”; the other that soul-stirring triumph-song, “The Church’s One
Foundation,” which--set as it is to majestic battle-march music that
fires the imagination--has become, as it were, the Marseillaise of
the Church militant and victorious.
When Stone died, and where he wished to die, in the Charterhouse, the
busy world learned that the Rector of a City Church, who had done
memorable work in an East End parish, and was the author of some
famous hymns, had passed away. Those who knew and loved him were
aware that a great soul, a hero-heart, a rarely beautiful spirit, had
gone to God.
In my little life, the years of which are fast approaching
threescore, it has so happened that I have known, sometimes
intimately, a number of so-called “eminent” women and men. I have
known not a few who in intellectual power, in the brilliance of
their gifts, their attainments and achievements, or in what is
called “fame,” stood immeasurably higher than Stone. I have known
none who, judged by the beauty, purity, and nobility of life and
character, was half as great as he. I do not say this, be it noted,
under the emotional stress which follows the death of a dearly-loved
friend. In such an hour of bitter self-reproach when in retrospect we
think of the kindly act which, had it been done (alas, that it was
not done!) would have helped our friend through a time of trouble;
the generous word which had it been spoken (alas, that it remained
unspoken!) might have heartened him when we knew him to be most cast
down--these and possibly our poignant sense of remorse, it may be for
an actual wrong done, not infrequently cause us to lose our sense of
proportion. For the time being at least we over-estimate what was
good in him, and under-estimate what was indifferent, or worse.
It is not so that I write of S. J. Stone. Sixteen long years, in
which life has never been, nor will be, quite the same, missing
that loved presence, have passed away since he was laid to rest in
Norwood Cemetery; and to-day with my own life’s end nearing I can
say, not only for myself, but for many others who knew him, that so
brave of heart was he as to make possible for us the courage of a
Cœur de Lion, so knightly of nature as to make possible the honour of
an Arthur or a Galahad, so nearly stainless in the standard he set
himself, in the standard he attained, as to come, as near as human
flesh and blood can come, almost to making possible the purity of the
Christ.
I am not unaware what will be in the mind of many who read these
words. Some will suspect me if not of insincerity, at least of the
foolish use of superlative and hyperbole. Not a few will hold my
last comparison as scarcely reverent. And all the while there will
not be a single woman or man, with any intimate knowledge of Stone,
who, reading what I have written, will not say, at least of what is
wholly appreciative (many will resent what I have hereafter to say of
his temperamental weaknesses and human defects), “All this is truth,
sober and unexaggerated, and yet the man himself was in many respects
infinitely greater than he is drawn.”