JAMES BRYCE

1838-1922

I had the privilege of knowing James Bryce for many years and enjoyed many long and delightful conversations with him. Beyond all other great men I have known he impressed me as most eager for broad and deep knowledge both of men and of nature. He gained more by travel and direct observation than by reading the works of others.

Although an address was carefully thought out, the following was entirely extemporaneous, because I was suddenly called upon to deliver it in the pulpit of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine-quite a contrast to the customary platform of the college and university lecturer! I felt compelled by the surrounding religious atmosphere to use a text, which was happily afforded by the choir as it sang Newman's beautiful hymn as a processional.

I am speaking here by invitation of the Bishop and the Dean of this Cathedral on the life of James Bryce as a student of man and of nature. I find in the opening of the beautiful hymn sung by the choir on entering this Cathedral the words which I cannot resist paraphrasing as the central thought of what I am about to say: Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling confusion.

"Lead, Kindly Light," was the inner motive of the life of James Bryce-the kindly light of the genial nature of a man of faith and confidence, of a man of rugged resolution and constant determination, who never faltered in his efforts, whether it was a physical, or social, or intellectual, or political problem, to throw upon it the light of most careful and thorough examination.

Then another line of the same beautiful poem of John Henry Newman,

O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent,