Untitled - Electric Scotland

272 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [CH. xi.
fess to be a strong man, and at times I am obliged to take great
care ; but certainly I am much stronger than I was six years ago,
when I first entered on the duties of the London diocese, and
from my peculiar temperament I have no particular reason to
think that the work does me any harm. On the other hand, I
have had to consider that a very great assistance to me in the
performance of my present duties is derived from the complete
knowledge of the details of my work in London, which six years
experience of the diocese has secured that I might find the
distant and untried work of York less congenial, and, though less
pressing, more difficult for me that, without some very strong
counterbalancing reason, it is* not desirable that I should leave
plans which I have begun, but scarcely matured, in London.
"
I am sure, when your Lordship reads this, you will not
think that I have lightly set aside the offer made and renewed to
me, or that I should be justified in now altering my decision.-
Believe me to be, with renewed thanks, my dear Lord, your
faithful and obliged servant,
He was encouraged and cheered by
A. C. LONDON."
the chorus of
approval with which his decision was greeted in London.
Men of all sorts wrote to him to express their satisfaction.
"
Our great fear," wrote one friend,
"
was that some who might
succeed you in London would be drawn more and more by the
pressing calls of parochial activity, meetings, etc., away from the
more difficult work of influencing public opinion, whether legisla
tion, or religion, or theology."
"
For you to give up London for York," wrote Lady Wake,
"would have seemed to me like a man making a second marriage
while the first wife and family were not only yet living, but
possessed all the husband s thoughts and affections."
The following extracts from his journal give a picture
of what had passed in his own mind :-
"DOUGLAS HOTEL, EDINBURGH, nth Sept. 1862.--The Lord
Advocate and Sir Harry Moncreiff to dinner, discussing the
accounts of the dear Archbishop s death. Good old man !
Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the