Memoirs of James Robert Hope Scott, Volume 2 by Robert Ornsby

R >> Robert Ornsby >> Memoirs of James Robert Hope Scott, Volume 2

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22

This is the first and the broad view I am led to take of him. He was,
emphatically, a friend in need. And this same considerateness and sympathy
with which he met those who asked the benefit of his opinion in matters of
importance was, I believe, his characteristic in many other ways in his
intercourse with those towards whom he stood in various relations. He was
always prompt, clear, decided, and disinterested. He entered into their
pursuits, though dissimilar to his own; he took an interest in their
objects; he adapted himself to their dispositions and tastes; he brought a
strong and calm good sense to bear upon their present or their future; he
aided and furthered them in their doings by his co-operation. Thus he drew
men around him; and when some grave question or undertaking was in
agitation, and there was, as is wont, a gathering of those interested in
it, then, on his making his appearance among them, all present were seen to
give to him the foremost place, as if he had a claim to it by right; and
he, on his part, was seen gracefully, and without effort, to accept what
was conceded to him, and to take up the subject under consideration;
throwing light upon it, and, as it were, locating it, pointing out what was
of primary importance in it, what was to be aimed at, and what steps were
to be taken in it. I am told that, in like manner, when residing on his
property in France, he was there too made a centre for advice and direction
on the part of his neighbours, who leant upon him and trusted him in their
own concerns, as if he had been one of themselves. It was his
unselfishness, as well as his practical good sense, which won upon them.

Such a man, when, young and ardent, with his advantages of birth and
position, he entered upon the public world, as it displays itself upon its
noblest and most splendid stage at Westminster, might be expected to act a
great part, and to rise to eminence in the profession which he had chosen.
Not for certain; for the refinement of mind, which was one of his most
observable traits, is in some cases fatal to a man's success in public
life. There are those who cannot mix freely with their fellows, especially
not with those who are below their own level in mental cultivation. They
are too sensitive for a struggle with rivals, and shrink from the chances
which it involves. Or they have a shyness, or reserve, or pride, or self-
consciousness, which restrains them from lavishing their powers on a mixed
company, and is a hindrance to their doing their best if they try. Thus
their public exhibition falls short of their private promise. Now, if there
was a man who was the light and the delight of his own intimates, it was he
of whom I am speaking; and he loved as tenderly as he was beloved, so that
he seemed made for domestic life.

Again, there are various departments in his profession, in which the
particular talents which I have been assigning to him might have had full
play, and have led to authority and influence, without any need or any
opportunity for those more brilliant endowments by which popular admiration
and high distinction are attained. It was by the display of talents of an
order distinct from clearness of mind, acuteness, and judgment, that he was
carried forward at once, as an advocate, to that general recognition of his
powers, which was the response that greeted his first great speech,
delivered in a serious cause before an august assembly. I think I am right
in saying that it was in behalf of the Anglican Chapters, threatened by the
reforming spirit of the day, that he then addressed the House of Lords; and
the occasion called for the exercise, not only of the talents which I have
already dwelt upon, but for those which are more directly oratorical. And
these were not wanting. I never heard him speak; but I believe he had, in
addition to that readiness and fluency of language, or eloquence, without
which oratory cannot be, those higher gifts which give to oratory its power
and its persuasiveness. I can well understand, from what I knew of him in
private, what these were in his instance. His mien, his manner, the
expression of his countenance, his youthfulness--I do not mean his youth
merely, but his youthfulness of mind, which he never lost to the last,--his
joyous energy, his reasonings so masterly, yet so prompt, his tact in
disposing of them for his purpose, the light he threw upon obscure, and the
interest with which he invested dull subjects, his humour, his ready
resource of mind in emergencies; gifts such as these, so rare, yet so
popular, were necessary for his success, and he had them at command. On
that occasion of his handselling them to which I have referred, it was the
common talk of Oxford, how the most distinguished lawyer of the day, a
literary man and a critic, on hearing the speech in question, pronounced
his prompt verdict upon him in the words, 'That young man's fortune is
made.' And, indeed, it was plain, to those who were in a position to
forecast the future, that there was no prize, as it is called, of public
life, to which that young man might not have aspired, if only he had had
the will.

2. This, then, is what occurs to me to say in the first place, concerning
the dear friend of whom we are now taking leave. Such as I have described
were the prospects which opened upon him on his start in life. But now,
secondly, by way of contrast, what came of them? He might, as time went on,
almost have put out his hand and taken what he would of the honours and
rewards of the world. Whether in Parliament, or in the Law, or in the
branches of the Executive, he had a right to consider no station, no power,
absolutely beyond his reach. His contemporaries and friends, who fill, or
have filled, the highest offices in the State, are, in the splendour of
their several careers, the illustration of his capabilities and his
promise. But, strange as it may appear at first sight, his indifference to
the prizes of life was as marked as his qualifications for carrying them
off. He was singularly void of ambition. To succeed in life is almost a
universal passion. If it does not often show itself in the high form of
ambition, this is because few men have an encouragement in themselves or in
their circumstances to indulge in dreams of greatness. But that a young man
of bold, large, enterprising mind, of popular talents, of conscious power,
with initial successes, with great opportunities, one who carried with him
the good-will and expectation of bystanders, and was cheered on by them to
a great future, that he should be dead to his own manifest interests, that
he should be unequal to the occasion, that he should be so false to his
destiny, that his ethical nature should be so little in keeping with his
gifts of mind, may easily be represented, not only as strange, but as a
positive defect, or even a fault. Why are talents given at all, it may be
asked, but for use? What are great gifts but the correlatives of great
work? We are not born for ourselves, but for our kind, for our neighbours,
for our country: it is but selfishness, indolence, a perverse
fastidiousness, an unmanliness, and no virtue or praise, to bury our talent
in a napkin, and to return it to the Almighty Giver just as we received it.

This is what may be said, and it is scarcely more than a truism to say it;
for, undoubtedly, who will deny it? Certainly we owe very much to those who
devote themselves to public life, whether in the direct service of the
State or in the prosecution of great national or social undertakings. They
live laborious days, of which we individually reap the benefit;
nevertheless, admitting this fully, surely there are other ways of being
useful to our generation still. It must be recollected, that in public life
a man of elevated mind does not make his own self tell upon others simply
and entirely. He is obliged to move in a groove. He must act with other
men; he cannot select his objects, or pursue them by means unadulterated by
the methods and practices of minds less elevated than his own. He can only
do what he feels to be second-best. He proceeds on the condition of
compromise; and he labours at a venture, prosecuting measures so large or
so complicated that their ultimate issue is uncertain.

Nor of course can I omit here the religious aspect of this question. As
Christians, we cannot forget how Scripture speaks of the world, and all
that appertains to it. Human society, indeed, is an ordinance of God, to
which He gives His sanction and His authority; but from the first an enemy
has been busy in its depravation. Hence it is that, while in its substance
it is divine, in its circumstances, tendencies, and results it has much of
evil. Never do men come together in considerable numbers, but the passion,
self-will, pride, and unbelief, which may be more or less dormant in them
one and one, bursts into a flame, and becomes a constituent of their union.
Even when faith exists in the whole people, even when religious men combine
for religious purposes, still, when they form into a body, they evidence in
no long time the innate debility of human nature, and in their spirit and
conduct, in their avowals and proceedings, they are in grave contrast to
Christian simplicity and straightforwardness. This is what the sacred
writers mean by 'the world,' and why they warn us against it; and their
description of it applies in its degree to all collections and parties of
men, high and low, national and professional, lay and ecclesiastical.

It would be hard, then, if men of great talent and of special opportunities
were bound to devote themselves to an ambitious life, whether they would or
not, at the hazard of being accused of loving their own ease, when their
reluctance to do so may possibly arise from a refinement and unworldliness
of moral character. Surely they may prefer more direct ways of serving God
and man; they may aim at doing good of a nature more distinctly religious,
at works, safely and surely and beyond all mistake meritorious; at offices
of kindness, benevolence, and considerateness, personal and particular; at
labours of love and self-denying exertions, in which their right hand knows
nothing that is done by their left. As to our dear friend, I have already
spoken of the influence which he exercised on all around him, on friends or
strangers with whom he was connected in any way. Here was a large field for
his active goodness, on which he did not neglect to exert himself. He gave
others without grudging his thoughts, time, and trouble. He was their
support and stay. When wealth came to him, he was free in his use of it. He
was one of those rare men who do not merely give a tithe of their increase
to their God; he was a fount of generosity ever flowing; it poured out on
every side; in religious offerings, in presents, in donations, in works
upon his estates, in care of his people, in almsdeeds. I have been told of
his extraordinary care of families left in distress, of his aid in
educating them and putting them out in the world, of his acts of kindness
to poor converts, to single women, and to sick priests; and I can well
understand the solicitous and persevering tenderness with which he followed
up such benevolences towards them from what I have seen in him myself. He
had a very retentive memory for their troubles and their needs. It was his
largeness of mind which made him thus open-hearted. As all his plans were
on a large scale, so were his private charities. And when an object was
public and required the support of many, then he led the way by a
munificent contribution himself. He built one church on his property at
Lochshiel; and another at Galashiels, which he had intended to be the
centre of a group of smaller ones round about; and he succeeded in actually
planting one of these at Selkirk. Nor did he confine himself to money
gifts: it is often more difficult to surrender what we have made our own
personally, than what has never come actually into our tangible possession.
He bought books freely, theological, historical, and of general literature;
but his love of giving was greater than his love of collecting. He could
not keep them; he gave them away again; he may be said to have given away
whole libraries. Little means has any one of determining the limits of his
generosity. I have heard of his giving or offering for great objects sums
so surprising, that I am afraid to name them. He alone knows the full
measure of his bounties, who inspired, and will reward it. I do not think
he knew it himself. I am led to think he did not keep a strict account of
what he gave away. Certainly I know one case in which he had given to a
friend many hundreds, and yet seemed to have forgotten it, and was obliged
to ask him when it was that he had done so.

I should trust that, in what I am saying, I have not given any one the
impression that he was inconsiderate and indiscriminate in giving. To have
done this would have been to contradict my experience of him and my
intention. As far as my opportunities of observing him extended, large as
were his bounties and charities, as remarkable was the conscientious care
with which he inquired into the nature and circumstances of the cases for
which his aid was solicited. He felt he was but the steward of Him who had
given him what he gave away.

He gave away as the steward of One to whom he must give account. There are
at this time many philanthropic and benevolent men who think of man only,
not of God, in their acts of liberality. I have already said enough to show
that he was not one of these. I have implied the presence in him of that
sense of religion, or religiousness, which was in fact his intimate and
true life. And, indeed, liberality such as his, so incessant and minute, so
well ordered, and directed too towards religious objects, almost of itself
evidences its supernatural origin. But I insist on it, not only for its own
sake, but also because it has a bearing upon that absence of ambition
which, in a man so energetic, so influential, is a very remarkable point of
character. Viewed in itself, it might be, even though not an Epicurean
selfishness, still a natural temper, the temper of a magnanimous mind, such
as might be found in ancient Greece or Rome, as well as in modern times.
But, in truth, in him it was much more than a gift of nature; it was a
fruit and token of that religious sensitiveness which had been bestowed on
him from above. If it really was the fact that his mind and heart were
fixed upon divine objects, this at once accounts for what was so strange,
so paradoxical in him in the world's judgment, his distaste for the honours
and the pageants of earth; and fixed, assuredly they were, upon the
invisible and eternal. It was a lesson to all who witnessed it, in contrast
with the appearance of the outward man, so keen and self-possessed amid the
heat and dust of the world, to see his real inner secret self from time to
time gleam forth from beneath the working-day dress in which his secular
occupations enveloped him.

I cannot do justice by my words to the impression which in this respect he
made on me. He had a tender conscience, but I mean something more than
that--I mean the emotion of a heart always alive and awake at the thought
of God. When a religious question came up suddenly in conversation, he had
no longer the manner and the voice of a man of the world. There was a
simplicity, earnestness, gravity in his look and in his words, which one
could not forget. It seemed to me to speak of a loving desire to please
God, a single-minded preference for His service over every service of man,
a resolve to approach Him by the ways which He had appointed. It was no
taking for granted that to follow one's own best opinion was all one with
obeying His will; no easy persuasion that a vague, obscure sincerity in our
conclusions about Him and our worship of Him was all that was required of
us, whether those conclusions belonged to this school of doctrine or that.
That is, he had deep within him that gift which St. Paul and St. John speak
of, when they enlarge upon the characteristics of faith. It was the gift of
faith, of a living, loving faith, such as 'overcomes the world' by seeking
'a better country, that is, a heavenly.' This it was that kept him so
'unspotted from the world' in the midst of worldly engagements and
pursuits.

No wonder, then, that a man thus minded should gradually have been led on
into the Catholic Church. Judging as we do from the event, we thankfully
recognise in him an elect soul, for whom, in the decrees of Omnipotent
Love, a seat in heaven has been prepared from all eternity--whose name is
engraven on the palms of those Hands which were graciously pierced for his
salvation. Such eager, reverential thoughts of God as his, prior to his
recognising the Mother of Saints, are surely but the first tokens of a
predestination which terminates in heaven. That straightforward, clear,
good sense which he showed in secular matters did not fail him in religious
inquiry. There are those who are practical and sensible in all things save
in religion; but he was consistent; he instinctively turned from bye-ways
and cross-paths, into which the inquiry might be diverted, and took a
broad, intelligible view of its issues. And, after he had been brought
within the Fold, I do not think I can exaggerate the solicitude which he
all along showed, the reasonable and prudent solicitude, to conform himself
in all things to the enunciations and the decisions of Holy Church; nor,
again, the undoubted conviction he has had of her superhuman authority, the
comfort he has found in her sacraments, and the satisfaction and trust with
which he betook himself to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, to the
glorious St. Michael, to St. Margaret, and all saints.

3. I will make one remark more. I have spoken, first, of his high natural
gifts, of his various advantages for starting in life, and of his secular
prospects. Next, in contrast with this first view of him, I have insisted
on his singular freedom from ambition, and have traced it to that
religiousness of mind which was so specially his; to his intimate sense of
the vanity of all secular distinction, and his supreme devotion to Him who
alone is 'Faithful and True.' And now, when I am brought to the third
special feature of his life, as it presents itself to me, I find myself
close to a sacred subject, which I cannot even touch upon without great
reverence and something of fear.

We might have been led to think that a man already severed in spirit,
resolve, and acts from the world in which he lived, would have been granted
by his Lord and Saviour to go forward in his course freely, without any
unusual trials, such as are necessary in the case of common men for their
perseverance in the narrow way of life. But those, for whom God has a love
more than ordinary, He watches over with no ordinary jealousy; and if the
world smiles on them, He sends them crosses and penances so much the more.
He is not content that they should be by any common title His; and, because
they are so dear and near to Him, He provides for them afflictions to bring
them nearer still. I hope it is not presumptuous thus to speak of the
inscrutable providences of God. I know that He has His own wise and special
dealings with every one of us, and that what He determines for one is no
rule for another. I am contemplating, and, if so be, interpreting, His
loving ways and purposes only towards the very man before us.

Now, so it was, there was just one aspect of this lower world which he
might innocently love; just one in which life had charms for a heart as
affectionate as it was religious. I mean that assemblage of objects which
are included under the dear name of Home. If there was rest and solace to
be found on earth, he found it there. Is it not remarkable, then, that in
this, his sole earthly sanctuary, He who loved him with so infinite a love
met him, visited him, not once or twice, but again and again, with a stern
rod of chastisement? Stroke after stroke, blow after blow, stab after stab,
was dealt against his very heart. 'Great and wonderful are Thy works, O
Lord God Almighty; just and true are Thy ways, O King of ages. Who shall
not fear Thee, O Lord, and magnify Thy name? for Thou only art holy.' I may
speak with more vivid knowledge of him here than in other respects, for I
was one of the confidants of his extreme suffering under the succession of
terrible inflictions which left wounds never to be healed. They ended only
with his life; for the complaint, which eventually mastered him, was
brought into activity by his final bereavement. Nay, I must not consider
even that great bereavement his final one; his call to go hence was itself
the final agony of that tender, loving heart. He who had in time past been
left desolate by others, was now to leave others desolate. He was to be
torn away, as if before his time, from those who, to speak humanly, needed
him so exceedingly. He was called upon to surrender them in faith to Him
who had given them. It was about two hours before his death, with this
great sacrifice, as we may suppose, this solemn summons of his Supreme Lord
confronting him, that he said, with a loud voice, 'Thy will be done;'
adding his favourite prayer, so well known to us all: 'Fiat, laudetur,
atque in aeternum superexaltetur, sanctissima, altissima, amabilissima
voluntas Dei in omnibus.' They were almost his last words.

We too must say, after him, 'Thy will be done.' Let us be sure that those
whom God loves He takes away, each of them, one by one, at the very time
best for their eternal interests. What can we, in sober earnest, wish, save
that very will of God? Is He not wiser and more loving than we are? Could
we wish him back whom we have lost? Who is there of us who loves him most
but would feel the cruelty of recalling to this tumultuous life, with its
spiritual perils and its dark future, a soul who is already rejoicing in
the end and issue of his trial, in salvation secured, and heaven begun in
him? Rather, who would not wish to have lived his life, and to have died
his death? How well for him that he lived, not for man only, but for God!
What are all the interests, pleasures, successes, glories of this world,
when we come to die? What can irreligious virtue, what can innocent family
affection do for us, when we are going before the Judge, whom to know and
love is life eternal, whom not to know and not to love is eternal death?

O happy soul, who hast loved neither the world nor the things of the world
apart from God! Happy soul, who, amid the world's toil, hast chosen the one
thing needful, that better part which can never be taken away! Happy soul,
who, being the counsellor and guide, the stay, the light and joy, the
benefactor of so many, yet hast ever depended simply, as a little child, on
the grace of God and the merits and strength of thy Redeemer! Happy soul,
who hast so thrown thyself into the views and interests of other men, so
prosecuted their ends, and associated thyself in their labours, as never to
forget, there is one Holy Catholic Roman Church, one Fold of Christ and Ark
of salvation, and never to neglect her ordinances or to trifle with her
word! Happy soul, who, as we believe, by thy continual almsdeeds,
offerings, and bounties, hast blotted out such remains of daily recurring
sin and infirmity as the sacraments have not reached! Happy soul, who by
thy assiduous preparation for death, and the long penance of sickness,
weariness, and delay, hast, as we trust, discharged the debt that lay
against thee, and art already passing from penal purification to the light
and liberty of heaven above!

And so farewell, but not farewell for ever, dear James Robert Hope-Scott!
He is gone from us, but only gone before us. We then must look forward, not
backward. We shall meet him again, if we are worthy, in 'Mount Sion, and
the heavenly Jerusalem,' in 'the company of many thousands of angels, the
Church of the firstborn who are written in the heavens,' with 'God, the
Judge of all, and the spirits of the just made perfect, and Jesus, the
Mediator of the New Testament, and the blood which speaketh better things
than that of Abel.'

J. H. N.

APPENDIX II.

_Words spoken in the Chapel of the Ursulines of Jesus, St. Margaret's
Convent, Edinburgh, on the 7th day of May, 1873, at the Funeral of James
Robert Hope-Scott, Q.C. By the Rev. William J. Amherst, S.J._

My Dear Brethren,--In complying with the request which has been made to me,
to say a few words on this solemn occasion about one who was so
immeasurably my superior in everything, I feel as a child would when
suddenly asked to give an opinion on some abstruse question which it could
not comprehend. But when asked to address you, however sensible I might
have been of my own inferiority, I could not, even in thought, entertain a
reluctance; I could not show the slightest hesitation to speak the praises
of one whom I admired so much, to ask your prayers for one whom I so much
loved.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22