Page 16 - KBHA BULLETIN 3
P. 16

13


               till I heard that he had arrived in Cape Town, as it was the last he then possessed. To me it

               was  doubly  valuable  as  his  last  mite.  His  noble  and  generous  nature  must  never  be
               forgotten.” (One of his priests, recounted in Anderson-Morshead, p. 204.)


               “Another reminiscence shows the playful manner in which he sometimes treated his clergy.

               On  the  day  when  he  opened  the  new  buildings  at  Zonnebloem  he  noticed  one  of  his

               Archdeacons looking ill. He was a devoted man who had taken the pledge to help the hard-
               drinking navvies, and his health was suffering much from it. The Bishop poured out a glass of

               port, and insisted on his draining it. ‘I not only give you a dispensation from the pledge,’ he
               joyously  cried,  ‘but  I  require  and  charge  you  on  your  Canonical  obedience  to  break  it

               forthwith, and at once to swallow that glass of wine, and if you resist with contumacy, I shall
               make  two  Canons  hold  you,  and  myself  administer  the  dose.’”  (recounted  in  Anderson-

               Morshead, p. 205.)


               As an equal:


               “I  cannot  forget  …  [the]  genuine  hospitality,  the  kindness,  the  pleasant  walks  in  the

               afternoons, generally over Wynberg Hill, after many hours of work and consultation … --  it
               was wonderful in those early days of his episcopate, which were full of cares and anxieties, to

               see  his  cheerfulness,  his  kind  consideration  for  others,  his  enjoyment  in  the  climate  and

               scenery,  his  interest  in  everything  round  him.”  (Bishop  Welby,  recounted  in  Anderson-
               Morshead, p. 213-214.)


               “When the Bishop visited his clergy, he threw himself into the ways of each household, and

               one  rector’s  wife  remembered  that  when  he  was  with  them,  shortly  before  his  death,  he
               insisted on going into the dining-room to help her give the children their tea, and cut the

               bread and butter.” (Anderson-Morshead, p. 215.)


               As an animal lover:

               “He  was  very  fond  of  his  horses,”  writes  another,  “and  tried  to  spare  them  as  much  as

               possible. It was a pleasing sight to watch him pluck the leaves and gather tit-bits to feed them

               on the way. Often his voice - walking before them up a steep hill - was the only incentive to
               make the faithful creatures struggle up a mountain. Many a time I have seen him take a pear

               from dessert, and go down to the paddock to give it to a favourite horse; while if a horse were
               very ill or dying, the sympathetic master lost his sleep.” (Anderson-Morshead, p. 44.)
   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21