'Mr. Robinson was no less marked off from the majority of men by the stress which he laid upon the reality and power of prayer. We used from time to time to have long talks together on this subject, so { 195} that I can speak with some little knowledge of the place which he assigned it in his life. With characteristic modesty he not infrequently distrusted himself in his active contact with men. His very anxiety to help others towards the ideals by which his own life was dominated led him to see the risk of placing hindrances in their way by an injudicious intrusion into the secret places of their hearts. Drawn in different directions, therefore, by his passionate desire to win men for Christ and his cautious fear lest untimely words of his should hinder rather than help, he found refuge in giving himself up to earnest prayer on their behalf. And prayer to him meant more than a light repetition of words. He used often, I believe, to spend as long as half an hour at a time in seeking blessing for a single man. We cannot doubt that, in the strong influence which he himself exerted upon so many of those who knew him, such persistent prayer received at least a part of its own answer.
'The last element in your brother's individuality which always impressed me was his restrained, but genuine, mysticism. In the few accounts of his life that I have read I do not remember any allusion to this characteristic. That he possessed it, however, and this to no usual degree, seems to my mind quite patent; in fact, it was this suggestion of mysticism that first attracted me to him. The mysticism one sees around one is often so unregulated and so ignorant that it was refreshing to find a mystic who was also an enlightened scholar and thinker. It confirmed the feeling, instinctive in one's heart, that, despite the abuse of caricature, a deep, intelligent { 196} apprehension of unseen realities is of the essence of the fulness of religion. Mr. Forbes Robinson appeared to possess an unusually certain cognisance of the unseen world. How well I remember the way in which, again and again, tea over and our pipes lighted, he would curl himself up in one of his or my own big chairs and discuss questions of interest to us both with a far-away look in his eyes altogether suggestive of a genuine otherworldliness! And this familiarity with unseen verities seemed to run through all those parts of his life with which I was acquainted, and indeed to be to him the most real fact of all existence. To use the simple language of olden days, I believe that "he walked with God": and that explains his life.