Divested of the superstitious wonders with which his memory afterwards became associated, it is certain that he was in many respects a model bishop. Although he exercised his rule with a certain quaint, fatherly severity, he was always full of sympathy for the poor and suffering among his flock. A characteristic anecdote is related of his charity. On one occasion his steward told him that his rents were insufficient to supply all its demands. "Is it just," he replied, "that you and I should eat and drink out of gold and silver vessels, while Christ, in His poor, is perishing with hunger? "So the plate was sold, and a valuable palfrey the bishop prized, that he might have the wherewithal to give to the poor.
Tempora mutantur: in this mediaeval inn, sacred to such old Catholic memories, the theological food dealt out to the modern wayfaring guest is not simply Protestantism, but Calvinism of the extremest type. The evening we spent under its hospitable roof, we had no friends but the books which loaded the window-sill of this little parlour. They were mostly hyper-Calvinistic magazines; nevertheless we found one which proved to be interesting. It was the life of a man struggling towards light amongst people of these views, and who himself subsequently became a minister among them. For a long period he appears to have been in great and distressing doubt as to whether he was among the saved, but he relates how much this doubt was removed by the text, "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." What a lesson Joseph Tanner, the hyper-Calvinist preacher, here teaches Christian people! And the answer will be that of the old Scribe—"And who is my brother?"
This little Plantagenet hostel is old—the grey weather-beaten motherly church is older,—but Alfriston contains a symbol older than either, telling of a better welcome than the hostel can afford, of a larger unity than the Church dares to speak of. In the centre of the village, beneath the shadow of a tree, is an old stone cross, a relic of those days when men were taught as much by the eye as the ear; but still, if we rightly think of it, witnessing to us of the same great truths as it did to them; above all, witnessing that there is a great uniting power in the world, able, if men will only permit it, to reconcile them to God and to one another. This
