The two youths who were in juxtaposition at the rostrum were not to meet again. Daniel Wilson was ordained to the curacy of Chobham, under Mr. Cecil, an excellent master for impressing hard study on his curates. He writes: "What should a young minister do? His office says, 'Go to your books, go to retirement, go to prayer.' 'No,' says the enthusiast, 'go to preach, go and be a witness.'"
"'A witness of what?'
"'He don't know!'"
While Wilson worked under Cecil, Heber, who was still too young for the family living of Hodnet, in Shropshire, after taking his bachelor's degree, obtaining a fellowship at All Souls College, and gaining the prize for the prose essay, accompanied John Thornton on a tour through northern and eastern Europe, the only portions then accessible to the traveller; and, returning in 1806, was welcomed at home by his brother's tenants with a banquet, for which three sheep were slaughtered, and at which he appeared in the red coat of the volunteer regiment in which he had taken an eager share during former years.
It was his last appearance in a military character, for in 1807 he was ordained, and entered on his duties as Rector of Hodnet. Two years later he married Amelia Shipley, the daughter of the Dean of St. Asaph. Floating thus easily into preferment, without a shoal or rock in his course, fairly wealthy, and belonging to a well-esteemed county family, connected through his brother with the very elite of literary society, it seemed as though, in the laxity of the early part of the century, Reginald Heber could hardly have helped falling into the indolence of learned ease, the peril of the well-beneficed clergy of his day, especially among those who had not accepted the peculiarities of the awakening school of the period.
But such was not the case. He was at once an earnest parish priest, working hard to win his people, not only to attend at church, but to become regular communicants, and to give up their prevalent evil courses. We find him in one letter mentioning the writing of an article on Pindar in the Quarterly Review, planning for a village-school on the Lancastrian principle, and endeavouring to improve the psalmody. "At least," he says, "I have a better reason to plead for silence than the Cambridge man who, on being asked in what pursuit he was then engaged, replied that he was diligently employed in suffering his hair to grow."
These "endeavours to improve the psalmody" were a forestalling of the victory over the version of Tate and Brady. The Olney Hymns, produced by Cowper, under the guidance of John Newton, had been introduced by Heber on his first arrival in the parish, but he felt the lack of something more thoroughly in accordance with the course of the Christian year, less personal and meditative, and more congregational. Therefore he produced by degrees a series of hymns, which he described as designed to be sung between the Nicene Creed and the Sermon, and to be connected in some degree with the Collects and Gospels for the day. Thus he was the real originator in England of the great system of appropriate hymnology, which has become almost universal, and many of his own are among the most beautiful voices of praise our Church possesses. We would instance Nos. 135 and 263 in "Hymns Ancient and Modern,"-that for the 21st Sunday after Trinity, a magnificent Christian battle-song; and that for Innocents' Day, an imitation of the old Latin hymn "Salvete flores Martyrum." They were put together, with others by Dean Milman and a few more, into a little volume, which Heber requested Dr. Howley, then Bishop of London, to lay before the Archbishop, that it might be recommended for use in churches, but the timidity of the time prevented this from being carried into effect.
A deep student of church history, his letters show him trying every practical question by the tests of ancient authority as well as instructive piety, and, on these principles, already deploring the undue elevation of the pulpit and debasement of the Altar to which exclusive preference of preaching had led. Missions had, since the days of Carey's first opening of the subject become so predominant a thought with the Nonconformist bodies, and were often conducted so irregularly, that there was certain dread and distrust of them among the sober-minded and orthodox; but Heber was one of the first English churchmen who perceived that to enlarge her borders and strengthen her stakes was the bounden duty of the living Church. He was a fervent admirer of Henry Martyn, whose biography was published soon after the news of his death reached England, and his feeling found vent in that hymn so familiar to us all-"From Greenland's icy mountains."
He was meantime rising in influence and station,-Canon of St. Asaph, Preacher at Lincoln's Inn, Select Preacher before the University. He was beloved by all ranks: by the poor for his boundless charity and sympathy; and by his equals, not only for these qualities, but for his sunny temper, bright wit, and playfulness, which showed in his conversation, his letters, and in many a droll, elegant, and scholarly jeu d'esprit, thrown off by a mind that could do nothing without gracefulness. All this prosperity was alloyed only by such domestic sorrow as might be fitly termed gentle chastening. The death of his next brother, Thomas, who had acted as his curate, was a severe loss to him; and in the desire to make every affliction a stepping-stone in Christian progress, he began, from that date, a custom of composing a short collect-like prayer, veiled in Latin, on every marked occurrence in his life. The next occasion was, after several years of marriage, the birth of a little daughter, whom (in his own words) "he had the pleasure of seeing and caressing for six months," ere she faded away, and died just before the Christmas of 1817. He never could speak of her without tears, and (his wife tells us) ever after added to his private prayers a petition to be worthy to rejoin his "sinless child." His grief and his faith further found voice in the hymn, each verse of which begins with "Thou art gone to the grave, but we will not deplore thee," and which finishes-
"Thou art gone to the grave, but we will not deplore thee,
Whose God was thy ransom, thy Guardian and Guide.
He gave thee, He took thee, and He will restore thee,
And death has no sting, for the Saviour has died."
Such had been the training of Reginald Heber, through the pleasant paths of successful scholarship and literature, and of well-beneficed country pastorship; a life perilous to spirituality and earnestness, but which he kept full of the salt of piety, charity and unwearied activity as parish priest, and as one of the voices of the Church. Such had been his life up to 1822, when, on the tidings of the death of Dr. Middleton, Bishop of Calcutta, his friend Charles Williams Wynn, President of the Board of Commissioners for the affairs of India, offered him the appointment.
To a man of his present position, talents, and prospects at home, the preferment was not advantageous: the income, with the heavy attendant expenses, would very little increase his means; the promotion threw him out of the chances of the like at home; and the labour and toil of the half-constituted and enormous diocese, the needful struggles with English irreligion and native heathenism, and the perils of climate, offered a trying exchange for all that had made life delightful at Hodnet Rectory. A second little daughter too, whom he could not of course look to educating in India, rendered the decision more trying. But in his own peculiarly calm and simple way, he wrote: "I really should not think myself justified in declining a situation of so great usefulness, and for which, without vanity, I think myself not ill adapted, either from a love for the society and friendship of England, or from a hope, which may never be realized, of being some time or other in a situation of more importance at home." At first, however, the fear for the child's health induced him to decline, but only if anyone else equally suitable could be found; and finally he accepted it, with apparent coolness, veiling the deep spirit of zeal and enthusiasm that glowed within. It was not the ardent vehemence that enables some to follow their inward call, overcoming all obstacles, but it was calm obedience to a call from without. "After all," he wrote, "I hope I am not enthusiastic in thinking that a clergyman is, like a soldier or a sailor, bound to go on any service, however remote or undesirable, where the course of his duty leads him, and my destiny (though there are some circumstances attending it which make my heart ache) has many, very many, advantages in an extended sphere of professional activity, in the indulgence of literary curiosity, and, what to me has many charms, the opportunity of seeing nature in some of its wildest and most majestic features."