the inauguration of the Cambridge mission to Delhi, the institution of the Church Society (for the discussion of theological and ecclesiastical questions by the younger men), the meetings for the divinity faculty, the organization of the new Divinity School and Library and, later, the institution of the Cambridge Clergy Training School, were all, in a very real degree, the result of Westcott’s energy and influence as regius professor. To this list should also be added the Oxford and Cambridge preliminary examination for candidates for holy orders, with which he was from the first most closely identified. The success of this very useful scheme was due chiefly to his sedulous interest and help.
The departure of Lightfoot to the see of Durham in 1879 was a great blow to Westcott. Nevertheless it resulted in bringing him into still greater prominence. He was compelled to take the lead in matters where Lightfoot’s more practical nature had previously been predominant. In 1883 Westcott was elected to a professorial fellowship at King’s. Shortly afterwards, having previously resigned his canonry at Peterborough, he was appointed by the crown to a canonry at Westminster, and accepted the position of examining chaplain to Archbishop Benson. His little edition of the Paragraph Psalter (1879), arranged for the use of choirs, and his admirable lectures on the Apostles' Creed, entitled Historic Faith (1883), are reminiscences of his vacations spent at Peterborough. He held his canonry at Westminster in conjunction with the regius professorship. The strain of the joint work was very heavy, and the intensity of the interest and study which he brought to bear upon his share in the labours of the Ecclesiastical Courts Commission, of which he had been appointed a member, added to his burden.
Preaching at the Abbey gave him a valued opportunity of dealing with social questions. His sermons were generally portions of a series; and to this period belong the volumes Christus Consummator (18S6) and Social Aspects of Christianity (1887).
In March 1890 he was nominated to the see of Durham, there to follow in the steps of his beloved friend Lightfoot, who had died in December 1889. He was consecrated on the 1st of May at Westminster Abbey by Archbishop Thompson (of York), Hort being the preacher, and enthroned at Durham cathedral on the 15th of May. The change of work and surroundings could hardly have been greater. But the sudden immersion in the practical administration of a northern diocese gave him new strength. He surprised the world, which had supposed him to be a recluse and a mystic, by the practical interest he took in the mining population of Durham and in the great shipping and artisan industries of Sunderland and Gateshead. Upon one famous occasion in 1892 he succeeded in bringing to a peaceful solution a long and bitter strike which had divided the masters and men in the Durham collieries; and his success was due to the confidence which he inspired by the extraordinary moral energy of his strangely “prophetic” personality, at once thoughtful, vehement and affectionate. His constant endeavour to call the attention of the Church to the religious aspect of social questions %vas a special note in his public utterances. He was a staunch supporter of the co-operative movement. He was practically the founder of the Christian Social Union. He continually insisted upon the necessity of promoting the cause of foreign missions, and he gladly gave four of his sons for the work of the Church in India. His energy was remarkable to the very end. But during the last two or three years of his life he aged considerably. His wife, who had been for some years an invalid, died rather suddenly on the 28th of May 1901, and he dedicated to her memory his last book. Lessons from Work (1901). He preached a farewell sermon to the miners in Durham cathedral at their annual festival on the 20th of July. Then came a short, sudden illness, and he passed away on the 27th of July.
Westcott was no narrow specialist. He had the keenest love of poetry, music and art. He was himself no mean draughtsman, and used often to say that if he had not taken orders he would have become an architect. His literary sympathies were wide. He would never tire of praising Euripides, while few men had given such minute study to the writings of Robert Browning. He followed with delight the development of natural science studies at Cambridge. He spared no pains to be accurate, or to widen the basis of his thought. Thus he devoted one summer vacation to the careful analysis of Comte’s Politique positive. He studied assiduously The Sacred Books of the East, and earnestly contended that no systematic view of Christianity could afford to ignore the philosophy of other religions. The outside world was wont to regard him as a mystic; and the mystical, or sacramental, view of life enters, it is true, very largely into his teaching. He had in this respect many points of similarity with the Cambridge Platonists of the 17th century, and with F. D. Maurice, for whom he had profound regard. But in other respects he was very practical; and his strength of will, his learning and his force of character made him really masterful in influence wherever the subject under discussion was of serious moment. He was a strong supporter of Church reform, especially in the direction of obtaining larger powers for the laity.
He kept himself aloof from all party strife. He describes himself when he says, “The student of Christian doctrine, because he strives after exactness of phrase, because he is conscious of the inadequacy of any one human formmula to exhaust the truth, will be filled with sympathy for every genuine endeavour towards the embodiment of right opinion. Partial views attract and exist in virtue of the fragment of truth—be it great or small—which they include; and it is the work of the theologian to seize this no less than to detect the first spring of error. It is easier and, in one sense, it is more impressive to make a peremptory and exclusive statement, and to refuse to allow any place beside it to divergent expositions; but this show of clearness and power is dearly purchased at the cost of the ennobling conviction that the whole truth is far greater than our individual minds. He who believes that every judgment on the highest matters different from his own is simply a heresy must have a mean idea of the faith; and while the qualifications, the reserve, the lingering sympathies of the real student make him in many cases a poor controversialist, it may be said that a mere controversialist cannot be a real theologian” (Lessons from Work, pp. 84-85). His theological work was always distinguished by the place which he assigned to Divine Revelation in Holy Scripture and in the teaching of history. His own studies have largely contributed in England to the better understanding of the doctrines of the Resurrection and the Incarnation. His work in conjunction with Hort upon the Greek text of the New Testament will endure as one of the greatest achievements of English Biblical criticism. The principles which are explained in Hort’s introduction to the text had been arrived at after years of elaborate investigation and continual correspondence and discussion between the two friends. The place which it almost at once took among scientific scholars in Great Britain and throughout Europe was a recognition of the great advance which it represented in the use and classification of ancient authorities. His commentaries rank with Lightfoot’s as the best type of Biblical exegesis produced by the English Church in the 19th century.
The following is a bibliography of Westcott’s more important writings, giving the date of the first editions:— Elements of the Gospel Harmony (1851); History of the Canon of First Four Centuries (1853); Characteristics of Gospel Miracles (1859); Introduction to the Study of the Gospels (1860); The Bible in the Church (1864); The Gospel of the Resurrection (1866); Christian Life Manifold and One (1869); Some Points in the Religious Life of the Universities (1873); Paragraph Psalter for the Use of Choirs (1879); Commentary on the Gospel of St John (1881); Commentary on the Epistles of St John (1883); Revelation of the Risen Lord (1882); Revelation of the Father (1884); Some Thoughts from the Ordinal (1884); Christus Consummator (1886); Social Aspects of Christianity (1887); The Victory of the Cross: Sermons in Holy Week (1888); Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (1889); From Strength to Strength (1890); Gospel of Life (1892); The Incarnation and Common Life (1893); Some Lessons of the Revised Version of the New Testament (1897); Christian Aspects of Life (1897); Lessons from Work (1901). Lives by his son B. F. Westcott (1903), and by J. Clayton (1906). (H. E. R.*)
WESTERLY, a township of Washington county, Rhode
Island, U.S.A., in the extreme S.W. part of the state, about 44 m. S.S.W. of Providence, separated from Connecticut on the W. by the Pawcatuck river, which forms the northern boundary
