George Moore

I suppose there has not been a greater man in the profession of merchandise than George Moore in the City of London, and member of the firm of Copestake & Moore, in Bow Churchyard, Cheapside. Some seventeen years ago he was with his wife in the city of Carlisle, on his way to preside at a benevolent meeting, with 50 in his pocket to give to the collection, when two runaway horses were seen coming along the road. His friend who was with him stood on one side and fortunately escaped. George Moore was struck by one of the horses and fatally injured. In the course of a very short time he breathed his last. I have always held that a great business has a great history, and that if we could acquaint ourselves with some of the commercial institutions of London, we should see that underlying those institutions is very little of what is called luck or accidental fortune; but we should find very much of patience, industry, nous, thrift, perseverance, resoluteness, and other manly and noble

virtues.

George Moore was born on the 9th of April, 1806 — hborn at a little farmstead at Mealsgate, in the county of Cumberland. He had no fortune, was not born to great estate; he was born in comparative poverty, and it was tolerably evident that he and all connected with him would have, under God, to make their own way in the world. He had a Godfather, however, called also George Moore, who was able to promise to leave him a hundred pounds, of which he was to come into possession at the age of twenty-one. Not only a hundred pounds, but to a boy’s imagination there was also something considerable — a large hair trunk, which was well covered with brass nails, and the lid of which was adorned with two letters in brass-headed nails, and those two letters were the initials of his Godfather’s name and the initials of his own, G.M. George Moore thus has a hundred pounds before him at twenty-one years old, and. a hair trunk, which he was to have at once on his Godfather’s decease. His mother died when he was six years old, so he had to begin the world in a very pathetic sense — motherless. She was laid in one of the rooms downstairs, and the little lad went in to see her as she was laid out for burial. He had never seen death before, and he never wanted to see it again. He touched her, and the cold of that touch seemed never to leave him, There was such overflowing

GEORGE MOORE: HIS SCHOOLING. Zi

vitality in that man’s nature, that to the very last he shrank from the very mention of death as from something intolerably horrible. He never could throw off his recollection of that touch of his mother’s dead body.

Sooner or later you have to touch death. You can touch it with your finger, and be affrighted by its presence. You can look upon it and touch it, so to speak, with your faith, and enter into the very triumph of Christ in the presence of the last ghastly foe. But sooner or later every one of us will have to make his acquaintance with death. Blessed are they who, when they see him, can hail him as liberator and friend, or if they meet him as an enemy, can overthrow him in the name and strength of Christ.

There was not much schooling given to Cumberland boys in those days. At eight years of age George Moore went to a little Cumberland village school, and there he was under the care — I had almost unwittingly said — of Blackbird Wilson, who was so-called because of his great power of mimicking birds, and especially could mimic the blackbird so as almost to persuade persons who did not know who was making the sound that they were actually listening to the bird itself. Blackbird Wilson was nothing of a scholar. In those days it was considered quite sufficient qualification to be a schoolmaster to have no legs or arms, to be blind of one eye, or otherwise incapable of making a living. The moment a man was incapacitated from getting a living, he set up a school in some back room or underground kitchen. But what Blackbird Wilson was wanting in the matter of learning he made up in the matter of drinking. He was a wonderful drinker. And what he wanted in moral suasion and in moral force he endeavoured to make up by the very vigorous use of a black ruler, which he threw indiscriminately at the heads of the boys, letting it alight where it would, and inflict such injuries as it might be able to do.

In this school George Moore, the future head of one of the greatest mercantile houses in London, received early tuition. What was wanting in learning he made up in very exciting amusements. All Cumberland people are wrestlers; they love to wrestle; they are famed for wrestling. A Cumberland man is nothing if he cannot take hold of an antagonist and do something in the field. George Moore was a great wrestler as a boy; he was quite conspicuous in that respect. He was also particularly good at birds’-nesting; he would climb trees that other boys were afraid of. One had only to indicate that no boy in the neighbourhood dare climb a certain tree, than George Moore threw his arms around it and went up as if to the manner born. He liked birds’- nesting in old towers and difficult places, and he would have his arms slung in ropes and. be let down the towers where the jackdaws had their nests in the crumbling walls of Whitehall, Cumberland, which he said he would like to have for his own, and which, by the way, he afterwards bought. He was also great at marbles; no boy was anything like his equal. He was so magical at that game that the other boys said, “It is not you, it is the marbles,” and they bought George Moore’s marbles for a penny a piece, which he had bought at the rate of five for a halfpenny; he did not at all object to the bargain. The boys thought the whole mystery of their loss was in the marbles, and if they bought them, their little marble fortune was established at once. No, no, young friend; the magic is not in the marbles; it is in the finger and thumb, and in the way of getting hold of them. The bad workman always blames his tools. Do not blame your marbles, look to your finger and thumb and your own skill. It may be often a fault nearer home than in the marble.

Up to this time George Moore’s Godfather was paying six shillings and sixpence a quarter for his non-education — I ought to say for his going to school and learning nothing. But the time had come for putting forth a supreme effort. The six shillings and sixpence must give place to the higher sum of eight shillings per quarter. It did not matter much: George only went to this higherpriced school one quarter, and there also he had the satisfaction of learning nothing. So you see little George Moore yonder among the Cumberland hills. Who can tell what he will be? He has a strong fiery brown eye, large conspicuous eyebrows, such an eye as you rarely see. One old Cumberland woman described George Moore as having an eye “that would fetch a duck off the pond.” In that figure she exhausted her imagination, but gave a very graphic description of her subject.

At thirteen years of age George Moore says he began the battle of life. His father married a second time, and the arrangement was hardly satisfactory in the family, Neither the one party nor the other were wholly to blame, and perhaps nobody had been to blame in ‘the matter. George Moore, however, began the battle of life at thirteen years of age. Have you begun the battle of life yet? How old are you — five-and-twenty? Life has been no battle to you, sitting in the easy chair, having your slippers brought to you, and coddled by your loving mother, not allowed to go out in the fog, hardly permitted to look out of the window if your mother thinks it is likely to rain within another hour — why, you have not begun the battle of life, but T am quite amused to hear the very severe criticisms which you pass upon those idiots who have begun the battle.:

Wigton is a little town not far from Mealsgate, where George Moore was born. George Moore’s ambition was to be a draper, and therefore he was sent to bé with a man whose name was Messenger. He had also very large attainments in the way of drinking. George began the battle of life by taking his meals in a public-house. George’s master gave him ample scope for every talent he possessed — George had to make the fire — just imagine you doing that ! — George had to clean the windows — why, a boy from a ragged school would hardly do that, now: we hire ourselves out to places where the work is given out, and we make nothing of it. That is right — that is right. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Find a boy who is unwilling to light a fire, black a boot, clean a window, or go about what he calls the drudgery of life, and you will find him at the end just what you found him at the beginning — there is nothing in him, no stuff or pluck or fire or manhood. But it is very comical to hear his remarks upon hard-working people.

But George Moore soon left Wigton for London. You make all kinds of severe remarks upon our railway system. George Moore got upon a coach-top with his Godfather’s hair trunk, with the initials in brass nails on the lid, and came from Carlisle to London in something like two days and two nights; and he was set down at the ‘‘ Swan with Two Necks,” in Love Lane, Wood Street, Cheapside, — set down to do what he could in London, without money, without patronage. And there stood George Moore. The day was Thursday, and the next day happened to be Good Friday. All places of business were shut, and therefore George Moore could not push his way. Where did he put up? At the “Magpie and Pewter Platter” — a name that seems to have all kinds of histories and suggestions in it. There was a nice old motherly body who took to the Cumberland lad very much, and made him comfortable.

“To-morrow will be Good Friday; what shall I do? Our men are coming up from Cumberland to have their annual wrestling-match at Chelsea, I will find out where Chelsea is, and begin the battle of London to-morrow.” And away he went, and saw there two or three people he knew from his own neighbourhood. The wrestling proceeded, and the wrestling spirit got up in George Moore’s breast; and when he had an opportunity, giving his name, he stepped into the ring and addressed himself to the requirements of the hour. First man thrown; second man thrown. “Well done!” rang down the circle. Then steps in the champion wrestler, Disdain written upon his face. George and he meet and close, and George throws the champion wrestler over his head right into the dust. ‘ Well done!” from all sides. ‘“What is his name?” — ‘“‘George Moore.” Mighty hurrahing — great cheering; he is the champion of the hour. Afterwards he is quite the pet of the day; the young men get round about him, — any quantity of drinking, any extent of pleasure. He must try it again; he would be taken up by this and that patron of the wrestling-field, high betting would take place upon him — but George Moore said No, he had had enough of that engagement: he put his foot down, and all the men who were round about him huzzaing were silenced and dismissed — dismissed for ever.

Now how to tackle London. He called at place after place, and oh, the cold answers, the weary feet, the disappointed hopes, the days that brought no comfort and no satisfaction were indeed many and memorable. He was not gainly-looking; he was not metropolitan in his cast, in his mien, in his accent. His speech bewrayed him: he came from somewhere in the country, and that is a fatal drawback, in the estimation of the true Londoner, to any man, though his name be William Shakespeare. To have come from the country is to have come from the undefined, and the unmapped, and the unexplored. George felt this very much. He said the keenest cut of all was given him by Charles Meeking, of Holborn, who, looking at him, said — “Tg it a porter’s place you want?” ‘That stung George Moore. He had good blood in him: he answered insults of that kind with very deep feeling, though he might not put his wounded sensibilities into speech at the time.

Another week and nothing. Then said George Moore, “I will go to America.” London failed him, and America seemed to give him welcome. However, he would make one call on Swan & Edgar, and having called there, he was told that a gentleman named Mr, Ray, the head of a large mercantile house in Soho, had been asking if any one could tell him where George Moore was. He went to see Mr. Ray, and he was engaged at thirty pounds a year to be in Mr. Ray’s shop. You would like the thirty pounds a year in your shop? What have you — and-how do you spend it? George Moore shall talk to you upon this point.:

Having got his situation, his heart was as light as a feather. Down he came to the “Magpie and

Pewter Platter,” picked up his hair trunk, called in a costermonger from the street to take the hair trunk and go with it and with him to Soho. The whole thing was to cost five shillings. But London is a large place, and some of the streets are crowded, and accidents may happen in the best regulated lives, and George Moore at one point, looking around for his costermonger with the hair trunk, found that he could see neither of them. Poor Cumberland lad! His Cumberland associates might drink a good deal, still there was nothing but honesty amongst them — the hair trunk might have stood out all night in the street and nobody would have touched it. But now, costermonger and trunk gone, George Moore sat down upon a doorstep — mind you, week after week of failure having gone before — and cried. You who knew the great merchant prince of traders will know how to throw your minds back to that doorstep, and to that weary-hearted lad sitting upon it, crying because all the little worldly property that he could lay his hands upon was lost. Presently, however, looking round, behold there is the costermonger and the hair trunk, and the costermonger seized George Moore and scolded him well for his want of watchfulness. He said, “You should have kept your eye on me: here I have been seeking you for two hours, and at last have found you.” He was

an honest costermonger. Is there such an one? P

Scores. Men would be better if we better deemed them. George Moore took the scolding well; he had no time for anything but joy; and then taking all his wealth from his pocket, which amounted to nine shillings, gave them to the costermonger, saying, “Take it all.” “No,” said the other, “the bargain was for five shillings. I will take no more. There’s your box: mind what you are about.”

George Moore was now in Mr. Ray’s shop, and the young gentlemen who were there, not all being from the north, and hearing something exceedingly strange in the accent of this boy, and something strange in the accent of other boys from the north, agreed to.call George Moore and his fellow countrymen “the rude barbarians of the north.” That north has always been associated with something barbaric: we cannot get rid of it. Say “he is from the north,” and instantly you think of something austere, fierce, terrible. So George Moore and his fellow countrymen were called by their London-born associates in business, “the rude barbarians of the north.” Let a man come from anywhere north of Manchester, the Londoner immediately sets him down as a Scotchman, It is wonderful how far the Londoner brings Scotland southward. Perhaps he thinks he is in Scotland as soon as he passes Barnet. But he has a marvellous imagination for multiplying Scotland.

GEORGE MOORE: A “BARBARIAN.” 227

Business is proceeding in Mr. Ray’s establishment, and George Moore, seeing a lady with a little girl one day, the little girl coming in blithely and trippingly, asked, ‘Who is that?” and one of the Londoners said, “That is the governor’s wife and child.” And George Moore said, “If ever I marry, I will marry that little girl.” That was a speech for a rude barbarian from the north, and they passed this all round as the joke of the house. We do laugh at little things sometimes. George Moore going to marry some time? Perhaps George Moore will be hanged first. He comes very near it, for in those days hanging was not confined to murderers: hanging had a rather wide social range, and George Moore might have been hanged. Let me tell you how. Here is a lady in the shop — a lady of high degree. She asks for Mr. Ray, and charges one of his young men, Moore by name, with having taken her in to the extent of a pound. Her name is Lady Cunningham. The facts of the case are laid before Mr. Ray. Mr. Moore is summoned, and Mr. Moore, the rude barbarian from the north, is speechless. He knew he was honest, but he could not prove it. ‘There is what you wrote?” ‘Yes, I wrote that, and according to my own writing Iam wrong. I do not know how it is. I cannot explain it.” What could be the inference but that this rude barbarian from the north was one of a robber horde, who had come to pluck the innocent people of a remote metropolis? But George Moore was quick-witted. He said, “Can you remember how much money you had in the morning?” ‘Yes, I can, for Lord Cunningham gave me twenty pounds before he went out this morning: so much went to the butcher, so much to the baker, so much to this, so much to that —” and George Moore, who had been adding the sums up, found they came to twenty-one pounds! “Now,” said he, “how is this?” And the lady, being thus convicted out of her own mouth, flew into a rage. What else could any lady do? And she stormed again — she would not let the matter rest there, and she went out of the shop, giving them to understand that they would hear of the matter again. But she was a lady: she bethought herself: she went all over the proceedings of the day, and she wrote to Mr, Ray a most satisfactory letter, assuring him that the young man was wholly right, and that the mistake was due to her own carelessness alone. Nothing could have been more ample and satisfactory than the apology which Lady Cunningham made upon that occasion.

But George Moore would stop no longer in the shop. He would have gone before, but Mr. Ray said, “Prove your honesty by going behind the counter and working.” And his honesty and integrity being thus vindicated, he said, “I will leave retail business and go to the wholesale.’ Mr. Ray was a kind man. Although George Moore was leaving him, he went into the city to a large firm, at the head of which was Mr. Fisher, and spoke to Mr. Fisher for George Moore, and George Moore was engaged. Now, Mr. Fisher was a shrewd merchant. He saw that George Moore did not want accuracy, as was proved by that little incident, but that he wanted all his conceit taken out of him; and Mr. Fisher was a man with a keen, sharp tongue, and he exercised it pretty industriously upon this rude barbarian from the north, always upbraiding and reproaching him, and at last he succeeded in his endeavour, and George Moore got a better estimate of his own powers and abilities. A country boy grows slowly; a London boy grows in a night. I am sure that when I was nine years of age, if I had seen a Londoner I should have run behind a wall till he got past. I am a rude barbarian from the north. If I had met a London boy then, I am sure I should have thought myself the greatest boor and the most ignorant person, and the most uncivilised creature in the world, because he speaks so sharply, so keenly, so neatly, so pat, so nattily; he knows everything, and can tell what he knows, but the stupid boor from the north blushes and stumbles and runs away. But he grows; in some cases he comes to something.

George Moore was not content with Fisher’s business. He said, “‘This must be doubled;” and so George Moore undertook Lancashire and Ireland, and various other places, and he soon increased Mr. Fisher’s business very largely. And oh, what a favourite he was upon his commercial circuit! Everybody liked to see George Moore come into the hotels. The porters, servants, customers, fellow commercial travellers — everybody liked to see that honest ardent face of his, and people would stop up at nights to help him to pack and to unpack as the journey might require, and everything was done to show that George Moore was the favourite of the hour.

George Moore of course worked eight hours in the day, and out of the eight hours took half an hour to breakfast and a full hour to dinner? If he had done so, Mr. Fisher would have heard very little of him. George Moore said he would not give a button for a man who did not work sixteen hours a day; and George Moore was not a partner in the firm, he was Mr. Fisher’s servant. When I see a man sneaking away from his work five minutes before the time is up, and lounging back to it five minutes after the hour for recommencement has begun, I do not pity myself as his employer, I pity him, poor mean hireling. What can he come to? He counts the hours, he counts his labour, he longs for the release-bell to ring. Such men are the curse of any commerce and any civilisation. But George Moore must have a great deal of sleep? No, he gets upon the top of the coach along with the coachman, at the great risk of breaking his neck, and gets about two hours’ sleep during the night upon the coach-top. It is enough for George Moore. He wants to be at business; and everything is going well with him.

But something in the way of competition has been springing up, and in tracing it he finds that it comes from a man by the name of Groucock, and this is a long-headed, shrewd man, very difficult to beat in anything he takes up. And Groucock takes Moore’s measure, and they stand a little in awe of one another. Groucock is a principal, whereas Moore is only a servant. By-and-by Groucock invites Moore to meet him at supper, and asks him where he intends going to next week. Mr. Groucock was there before him, took all the trade out of the road, and left Moore nothing — but considerable emptiness. Moore, however, was equal to him. He found out where Groucock was going, and played the same game at the other end, and swept the trade out of his way. This would never do, and Groucock made some kind of apology. He then said to Moore, “If you will come to us we will give you five hundred pounds a year salary.” George Moore said, ‘“‘No; I will never be a servant elsewhere; nothing but a partnership will induce me to leave Fisher.” Groucock & Copestake made Moore an offer of a partnership, and somewhere about 1826 the firm was Groucock, Copestake & Moore. The premises were about five hundred yards long in imagination; in reality they consisted of one room above a trunkmaker’s shop, No. 7 Cheapside.

George Moore could not live long there; something must take place. Prosperity followed for a time, mingled with adversity. Trade was dull; it was difficult to make headway. ‘ George put his little money into the firm — five hundred pounds borrowed from his friends, and the one hundred left him by his Godfather, which had increased to one hundred and seventy pounds by interest accrued thereon — so that George Moore for a term of three years entered into the partnership, and put six hundred and seventy pounds into the capital. The prosperity of the firm attracted the attention of envious persons, who circulated remarks about the firm. ‘Do you think Groucock can pay?” ‘Why? do you suspect they are weak?” ‘There is something to that effect going about; we don’t say that exactly, but do you think everything there is fair and square, and twenty shillings in the pound to be got there?” Instantaneously a rush was made upon the room over the trunkmaker’s shop at No. 7 Cheapside. Groucock & Co. heard of these rumours, and were not the men to submit to them. They pursued the inquiry, found out the culprits, and after a considerable trial about the business, it ended in a verdict for the firm assailed, with three hundred pounds damages. ‘‘ Now,” said the firm, “we do not touch this money; we divide it among public charities, and we go our way.” So they did that with the three hundred pounds, and from that day people were very careful how they trifled with the reputation, commercial and financial, of Groucock, Copestake & Moore.

By-and-by you will see George Moore coming out of a church. The day will be August the 12th, the year will be 1840, and there will be upon his arm Ellen Flint Ray, the little girl that came in with the governor’s wife at Soho that day, when the rude barbarian of the north declared that if ever he married he would marry that little girl.

Now set in a course of business almost unparalleled in the history of London merchandise. The firm soon went over to Bow Churchyard — and every man acquainted with commerce knows what Bow

Churchyard is in extent, in vastness, in the complication of its projects, in its industry, in its discipline, in its internal management, in its moral influence, in its great influence upon all benevolent projects and enterprises — and George Moore was the heart, and soul, and head of one of the grandest trading enterprises not in London only, but, being in London, also of the whole world. George Moore used to write this upon his memorandum books, — read it, young men, write it in your own: “What I spent I had, what I saved I lost, what I gave I have.’ Pick up almost any one of George Moore’s memorandum books or pocket-books and you will find that at the front. Did George Moore hoard up his wealth? He gave it away with both hands. Did he give it away indiscriminately? Never. He searched into cases, found them out, was particular in the detail of his inquiry, and, having found the cases to be good, he answered the claim or the appeal with a most handsome lavishness, often saying, ‘The more I give, the more I haye.”

We are not just to our rich men in that particular. The rich man gives me a sum of money towards some project in which I am interested; what do I say? “He is so very rich,” I remark, “that really he won’t miss it. It is nothing to Mr. Moore, it is nothing to Mr. Morley, it is nothing to men of that kind to give you a hundred pounds or a thousand pounds.” That is an unjust and dishonourable criticism. If you will not give a halfpenny out of your three halfpence to Christ’s cause — the cause of charity and humanity — you would not give a pound if you were a millionaire, if you could escape the giving — if you were not borne down upon by the fear of public disapprobation and censure. These men, the Moores and Morleys of commerce, might amass their millions, rejoice in founding — great establishments, and handing down their names to a great posterity. On the contrary, they live for the poor, for the weak, for the helpless, for those who are diseased; they give as God has given to them; they are the salt of the earth, and save England from becoming a Sodom that could be disinfected only by the fire and the brimstone of divine judgment. God multiply their number, give them tenfold what they have, and bless them in basket and in store! There is hardly a hospital, asylum, school, in London, that is not indebted to the munificence of George Moore as Treasurer, Auditor, Subscriber, Chairman, directing spirit. You will find George Moore everywhere, and at the same time not neglecting his business. You find him also giving large chances to young men. He was so kind to them. The incident of Lady Cunningham he never forgot; therefore his motto became, when any little mishap occurred, “Give him another chance — try him again.” Thus his young men loved him: all employers should be loved, and employed should be loved and trusted. We should be one: if more than one, we are divided against ourselves, and the result must be pitiable failure.

George Moore, then, being so very much engaged and engrossed with benevolent affairs would have no more time to attend to his business. Things would be lumped up and dismissed in a hurry. Mr. Moore has to pass the accounts. There is a rule of the house that no money is to be paid without a voucher. Line by line they are examined, column by column. Here is.threepence for omnibus fare, and no voucher — the voucher is mislaid: he cannot pass it. “But it is only threepence, Mr. Moore.” ‘It cannot be passed,” and the book is closed. The chariot stands still because a little piece of paper is wanted to vouch for the expenditure of threepence. By-and-by it was found that somebody had been wanted in a great hurry to carry a fish to Euston station, and the porter got the threepence from the cashier to pay the omnibus fare, and there was no time, as they then thought, to give a voucher for the amount. The explanation was accepted, but a lecture was delivered on the subject, and the account was passed. That is business. Business is not a huddle-muddle, business is not a chaos, business is not tossing up and trusting to Providence, business is not putting up the shutters at any time, and taking them down anyhow — a mass piled here, and a screw yonder — business is science, business is a careful operation, business is governed by great laws. When a man comes in to me to complain of this, that, and the other having happened to him in business, I let the man tell his own tale — it will reveal the secret of the entire misfortune in a great majority of cases. I have known instances in which there was no blame apparently or accessibly traceable to the individual, but such cases are very rare indeed. George Moore. would never allow that he had been a lucky man, he detested that word luck when applied to his own prosperity. It was a question of law, of sowing and reaping, of cause and effect, of working and payment. He resented the notion that he had been lucky, and therefore should have pity on those whose luck was less than his own.

Then he goes down and buys Whitehall, the place where the jackdaws built their nests when he went bird-nesting, and a fine place he makes of it. He has all sorts of people there, archbishops and clergymen and dissenting ministers, and doctors and merchantmen; the house is filled from floor to ceiling, George Moore was never so delighted as when everybody in his house was enjoying every luxury he could provide, he himself sitting at the head of his own table, eating and drinking very simply, but always delighted to see other people enjoying themselves according to their notion of enjoyment. He writes in his memorandum book, “There is nothing like bringing men together.” Thus in his house at one time he had a canon, a writer of tracts, and Mr. Spurgeon, the ‘Baptist minister, and he writes, “Ryle and Spurgeon get on capitally together — nothing like bringing men together.” They actually found that they believed several things in common. What a marvellous, stupendous, prodigious fact! I once had that foolish and delirious notion myself, and therefore asked a clergyman to come and preach in my pulpit.

? and notice

“Certainly,” he said, “always ready,’ was given and placards sent out, and the Lord Bishop of London stepped in and said “No,” as he

had a legal right, some think, to say.

George Moore loved all things Cumbrian: he would reorganise the schools, he would have government inspection, he would have meetings of employers and employed, tea-meetings for children; when he put up the flag on Whitehall everybody in the neighbourhood was full of expectation and joyousness. Nobody there called him Mr. Moore, all the people down there called him George Moore. “Yes,” said one of his guests, “omitting the second word.” His name was George there. It was enough, it was history, it was tenderness, it was sympathy. He made the bishops look about them: he would have made us look about ourselves too. He would have put seven people in a pew where you put only five. He would have filled the pulpit. All things were possible to his energy, and yet up to nearly forty-four years of age he knew nothing about spiritual godliness, and oftentimes he writes down in his book that his works are greater than his faith. He reads the Bible — he does it as a duty. About forty-three or forty-four years of age he says, “I must get nearer the truth and the reality of things than this. What is it?” And then begins that process of self-inquest, which, properly conducted, often leads to great results. By-and-by he sees the divine meaning, and knows that nothing short of regeneration can make a man what he ought to be, in the sight of God. He sees Christ on the Cross, the atoning Son of God. He lays his sins on Jesus, and rejoices in the forgiveness of his guilt. And he was ashamed of his religion? Never. You went into George Moore’s warehouse, and you did not come out, if you saw him, until you had been made to feel that there was a secret there, dread, awful, yet beneficent. He was a godly man: he lived in the fear and love of God, and when he gave himself heartily to Christ, he gave all he had — he kept back no part of the

price.

He is now at this part of my story leaving his house to go to Carlisle. His wife is upstairs: he himself is at the foot, and he says, addressing her, “What is that passage in Matthew that I was speaking about?’ He had been making notes of his speech, and she said, ‘Do you mean, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one, of the least of these?” “No,” he said, ‘‘the other — what is it?” And she said, ‘“‘ Well done, good and faithful servant.” ‘That is it,” said he, and that was their last communication before the fatal accident. Reminded by his wife of those words, ‘‘ Well done, good and faithful servant,” which he was going to quote at the meeting at which he was prevented from presiding, he left for Carlisle, and in Carlisle he was killed.* A mournful end, one thinks. We cannot tell. He dreaded death, he dreaded a lingering dying — whether it was not merciful to such a man, who can say? We leave it. He died, and the gaiety of many a circle was eclipsed. No man heard of that death that did not

* It was on Monday, November 20, 1876, that he was knocked down, as already stated (ante, p. 215). He was taken to the Grey Coat Inn, the very house where he had stayed on his first journey

to London, On the following afternoon he passed away, in his seventy-first year.

thank God for that beautiful life. No man who knew him heard of the death without feeling his eye moisten with a tear. Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord. Well done, good and faithful servant. These men are the salt of the earth and the light of the world, and cities uplifted and seen afar. And I ask you young men to follow such examples. I know that many of you can never realise ideals so high, but their very pursuing shall itself be a religion, a discipline that shall have noble and elevating virtue in it. Study such lives: do not be lazy, set your heart upon a thing and do it, and when you begin to make your forty and fifty and a hundred a year, write in your memorandum book what George Moore wrote in his: “What I spent I had, what I saved I lost, what I gave I have.” O for a nobler race of men, true, pure, noble, generous, self-sacrificing. Fifty such men will save any city.