THE SKETCHER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2578, 12 August 1903, Page 65

THE SKETCHER.

« BROTHER BOB."

(T. P.'s Weekly.)

Dolling is not a man to discuss from the point of view of nationality. He was so broad, so loving, so catholic a creature; above all, he was so unworldly, that it is narrowing him down to identify him with any nationality — one might almost say, in «pite of his very pronounced religious views, with any creed 1 ; in spite of his .strong patriotism, with any race. He was one of those beings whose sympathies were so wide and so profound that no human being could be anything to him but a brother. Truly, Dolling was one of the supreme Christians of his time.

I. But though Dolling is thus raised above the ordinary limitations, it was perhaps to his advantage that he was born in Ireland, and learnt in the surroundings of that island' some of the heartiness, good humour, .geniality, and Bokemianism which. were the chief weapons in liis large armoury for influencing others. Though in some respects the most Irish of Irishmen, Dolling nevertheless had little Celtic blood in his veins ; his ancestry were either French Huguenot or Scotch Puritan. But as Mr Osborne, his biographer, himself also an Irishman, notes, there is in Ireland a "mental and spiritual atmosphere which penetrates all her children," and Dolling had breathed that atmosphere for 30 years before hs settled down in England. For one of the curiosities of this remarkable career is that Dolling, who almost from childhood was destined for the priesthood of humanity, was 30 years of age before he took on HolyOrders. It will also come doubtless as a surprise to many people to hear that this man, who loved the poor more than any man of his time, began life in the somewhat unpromising occupation of an Irish land ' agent. An Irish land agent collecting rents at the close of the seventies and the beginning of the eighties fell upon all the storm and anarchy of the last great struggle between landlord and.' tenant, and, therefore, was about as plea^santlv situated as the tax collector who survived to the beginning of the French Revolution. But even as an Irish land agent, Dolling's character and career were different from those of any other man. In the hottest times, in visiting the most disturbed districts, he always refused to oarry a revolver, always got on well with the tenantry ; indeed, seems to have been otten as much adored by them as he was in later years by the dwellers in the slums.

11. Mr Gladstone's "Land Act of 1881" influenced the life of Dolling, like that of many others, a.nd he gave up land agency, .and came to live permanently in England. He was, as I liave said, then 30 ; but fill Ms life, almost from tlie cradle, had been but the preparation and the graduation for the work he was about to do. While he •was a tiny child he was remarkable for unselfishness ; if he had a bit of cake he would insist that everybody, down to the people in the kitchen, should have their share of it. It was also characteristic of him -that he shoud have held religious services with his little brothers and sisters when they wfre all still toddlers. As a mere youth.' he began to form classes for the boys of the little Ulster village in which he lived, and. as ever throughout his life, the classes were directed as much to amusement, athletics, all the joyous and physical side of life, as to spiritual instruction. The boys would be taught to swim, to sing ; would be taken on trips to the seaside, mainly at the expense of their generous friend ; would get great treats ; and it was in the intervals of such healthy amusement that Dolling would lead them gently to thoughts of the supreme religious interests of existence.

in. One story from that Iri-h period of Dolling's life has pnrticularlv ftnuk me. Some old woman was reported as in poverty ; at once he would announce a charity dance in her district ; would go off there with the boys he had trained and a violin player ; and he himself would lead the dance," and then hand over to the poor old lady the 50s which he had thus gathered for her relief. This absence of all self-conseious-ne&s. this superiority to any dread of being thought ridiculous, was one of the many things in +he character of Dolling which gave him his extraordinary influence over human, beinr?.

IV. This craving to tome to the relief of suffering, this desire especially to influence and help the young, are the dominant notes of Dolling's whole career. He was not, as Mr O^borne says over and over again, a recluse or a great religious thinker, or a m;ui of study ; he was eminently a human creature, that loved h's fellow man ; was never hawpy unless he vra* in the midst of them, laughing with them, weeping with them, praying with them, playing with them, making himself one of them in everything — joy, sorrow, amusements. Wheiever lie was Dolling, aa Mr O-borne says, was "the centre of a group." '"Of all men of any power, there never wa<s one less alone, all thioujh his life. t-Sian Robert Doi'iug. Troons of friends encompa«sed him from firs-t to last."

v. Before 1881 Dolling had already made some start with his work in England. He iised to spend weeks at a time in London. He went at once to the centre where such sifts and aptitudes as his were wanted. St. Albans was then the centre of one of the fierce conflicts between High and Low Church. But St. Albans had another life beside tlut known to the outside world — a life of continuous exertion among the working masses for their physical and spiritual betterment. Among these work 5 !

of St. Albans a club for postmen, known as the Postmen's League," was one of the most important. Down in the not very cheerful region- of the Borough rood there was a branch of the Postmen's League, and there Dolling betook himself. There he started thaf extraordinary work of redeeming sinners — the thief, the drunkard, the broken-down in fortune, in health, and in j morals — which was the best of his life ! work. These lads, thus rescued, often j turned out fine citizens, and they often | entered the army ; and healthy, well-fed, sober, honest, they presented a curious i contrast to the starving and desperate

j wretches they were before they had come i under the influence of Dolling. Of the many •stories given by Mr Ot'borne as proof of Dolling's extraordinary hold, I choose this one:

"«A poor labourer lay dying in a London hospital. The nurse who attended him, •having hinted to him that he had but- a few hours to live, asked him if there was anyone whom he would specially wish to see. He replied that he had lrnown nothing of any of his relatives for some time past, and that the only friend he had was a chap they call 'Brother Bob.' He added, 'He was very good to me, and I want so much to see him. but I don't know where' he is now.' In an hour or so Dolling was at his side, and shortly after the poor fellow died happily in the arms of his friend." VI.

No wonder Dolling was loved ; how could anybody help loving one who, as one of h's many friends has said of him, found "the source and centre of his power" in "the great love that filled his heart." It was this which enabled him to "enter into the lives of the poorest and the most miserable with a fulness and wealth of (sympathy almost ■beyond imagination." "In order/ says this same friend, the Rev. Mr Otley, 'to en-ter into closest union with them, he stooped, he sacrificed himself to the uttermost. To get near them, to identify himself with his people, he gladly cast aside every comfort ; he gladly went short at times even of the necessaries of life." Here, indeed, is true Christian heroism. VII.

If ever there was a man marked out for the priesthood, then, by temperament and by training, it was Dolling ; but when he came to seek orders he had to go thiough the formality of attending a theological college at Salisbury. Dolling was essentially a man of action, and cared little for books. He was no sooner settled in the college than he forgot all about the studies he was supposed to be absorbed in ; he was attracted irresistibly by some back courts and alleys in the cathedral city which were in■liabited by a .set of rough, uncivilised

youths, to whom Christianity was not even a name. There, and not in the study of the | Fathers, Dolling found his natural sphere and interest.

VIII. St. Martin's Mission — the scene of Dollhig's first labours after he had taken Holy Orders — was situated in Maidman ; treet, off the Burdetl i - oad, one of "the mean streets" of ihe East End. The mission house itself was a curiosity ; it was thoroughly characteristic of Dolling's ideas and methods of work. It was just like a warehouse. It consisted of several large rooms ; a big dining room, a room for a men's club, where they had a '"sing song," several cubicles lor the scaff and the various and hetereogeneous guests whom Dolling used to entertain; and then, right on top, the little chapel. The guests of Dolhng were chosen without regard to anything but their need; and you" might find* yourself seated at the rough meal next a thief that had just- left prison, or some poor wretch that was slowly ascending from the hell of delirium treineus. Here is one of many which illustrates the theory and practice of Dolling. A young thiei, who .was a friend of the lads in the Mission house, broke the window and tiied to commit a burglary. He woke up the layhelper, took fright, and fled, leaving his boots behind him. Father Dolling kept the boot«, and ultimately d.scovered through than the thief. But he declined to prosecute, and the boy became a steady member of the s-ocietv. "

IX. The mission came to an end — like so many other things in Dolling* s life — owing to the failure of the Bishoi/of London of that time (Dr Temple) to "realise and appreciate Dolling. Ie was almost immediately after that Dolling began the greatest work of his life, the famous ten years in the Portsmouth slums, the record of which, by Dolling himself, will remain among~the permanent annals of {spiritual warfare. The district of St. Agatha's, Landport, where Dolling did hK great woik. was, when he took it up, one of the most unpromising in thp world.

" A huddled mass of m serablv small and overcrowded dwellings, a sort of municipal Cinderella, sitting in rage amid its better-cared-for sisters of the borough. Its slaughterhouses were scented from afar, especially those contiguous to St. Agatha's pargoniicre. It had no less than 51 'publics' — an enormous proportion to the population \5000) of the district— met of them with 'smg-song' 1 rooms of a low type. The many houses of ill-fame, those nests of nameless evil, which were so foul a feature of certain of the streets in the district in Dolling's time, and most of which he succeeded in uprooting ; the utter want of restraint or discipline of any k ; nd in the entire life of the place ; the unmeasured use of a language displaying often an ingenuity if inventiveness in its profanity — all served to present neculiar temptations to the thoughtless and the young.

x. But then the evil of the place was of the kind which a man of Dolling's tvne loves to battle It was rich in life and movement, for it was crowdpd with soldiers and sailors, and the rnW'-iins population, male aud female,whicli thes.e classes always at-

tract. Dolling loved the soldier and the sailor, and he had friends among them by the thousand, but they added much to the difficulties of h's mission. But Dolling never shrank from the task ; indeed, there never was a period of his life when he so heartily c-njoyed existence. The record of his labours makes one almost dizzy ; he worked from 6 o'clock in the morning till 10 at night, with an hour or two's .interval for a walk. He was the intimate and the friend of everybody about him. A curious instance of the hete'rogeneousness of his work is given by one of the many charming pictures Mr Osborne has drawn of Dolling's own life. He would be sitting with a tall dragoon smoking a pipe and talking over old times when the dragoon was a lad under Dolling's care. Suddenly a lady would come in, evidently anxious for spiritual advice. "Now., sonny," Dolling would say, "I want to talk to "this lady. " Put- on your cip and take a walk down the Commercial road, and if you are in for tea I- will take you and some of the gymnasium fellows to the theatre." The dragoon would go, and Father Dolling would lav aside his pipe, put on his biretta. and listen to the penitent that sought his help. XL

Father Dolling had, after much effort, built a new church and opened it with much of the pomp and rich ritual which he loved ; it was the happiest day of his life. Btit it was also one. perhaps, of the last happy days of his life. " There were things in the practices of the new church which Dr Davidson, then just created Bishop of Winchester, found hiui«elf unable to sanction, and in the end Doiiing left Landport, and his great day was over. He was not idle, however, for he visited many places, America among others. I know nothing more characteristic of him than the description of his feelings in Chicago. "He seemed to love Chicago from the first," it is said of him. And then comes this delicious insight into the whole nature of the man.

r- He was corstantly seen in the early morning in the streets of Chicago, when on his way to church, gazing eagerly down Clark street, or other notorious regions, as if longing to be at work in them."'

Finally he got a mission in Poplar ; it was such a mission as he liked, for ifc was among the poor ; hut it was not Landport. He did his best, -but the results were not equal to his work, or. perha.ps, h's hopes. 1 have only to add that the biography of Father Doiiing is written by one who knew him well, who worked with him, who understood and loved him. It is one of the most charming; ?nd touching biographies I have ever read.