The vigorous humanity of the Very Rev. Canon Richard Sheppard won for him great following in the days of his incumbency of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields where he seemed to revive the authority of the pulpit in an especial degree at a time of deep national emotion and bewilderment. His wonderful courage in rising superior to bodily weakness was in itself a proof of the intense sincerity of his preaching. If it was not always possible to follow him entirely in his later enthusiasms for what appeared to many to be the counsels of despair, he somehow succeeded in retaining allegiances which ventured to differ profoundly from him on many matters of principle, Perhaps it is right to say that his great contribution to the Church was in his challenge to the rigidity of formal ecclesiasticism, He sensed the impatience of laymen at the lack of inspiration which appeared to afflict their accredited leaders in the Church, He made rebellion a manageable method of correction rather than the instrument of destruction and where he dared to raise the plea for the bottom dog he was setting an example which happily has not been neglected but has certainly stimulated self-criticism.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.