In due course a legend arose
of such circumstantiality that the wise historian would
hesitate to attack it.
But a wise historian is precisely what the Rev. Robert
Strickland is not. He wrote his biography[3] avowedly to
"remove certain misconceptions which had gained currency" in
regard to the later part of his father's life, and which had
"caused considerable pain to persons still living." It is
obvious that there was much in the commonly received account
of Strickland's life to embarrass a respectable family.
I have read this work with a good deal of amusement, and upon
this I congratulate myself, since it is colourless and dull.
Mr. Strickland has drawn the portrait of an excellent husband
and father, a man of kindly temper, industrious habits, and
moral disposition. The modern clergyman has acquired in his
study of the science which I believe is called exegesis an
astonishing facility for explaining things away, but the
subtlety with which the Rev. Robert Strickland has
"interpreted" all the facts in his father's life which a
dutiful son might find it inconvenient to remember must surely
lead him in the fullness of time to the highest dignities of
the Church.
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