He very kindly accepted , adding in his letter that he would have a friend staying with him on that day , and would like to bring him over for the drive from Kennington .sx So at 3 p.m. the car drove up to the Hall , and out of it stepped our Bishop with the Archbishop of Canterbury !sx Dr. Davidson said he would go for a walk over the fields while we attended to our business .sx To my amusement , when we met at tea at the rectory after the Dedication , the Archbishop said he had been stopped by a farmer in a field .sx He seemed rather indignant , but we took the episode without a smile till afterwards .sx The Hall proved most useful , especially in winter when the distance to the church deterred many from coming to Sunday Evensong .sx We managed to furnish a table with cross and candles , and the people appreciated the Church Hall for worship as well as for more secular purposes .sx In 1910 Dr. Talbot was translated to Winchester , and Dr. Hubert Burge became Bishop of Southwark .sx Meanwhile I had been asked to do a bit of Diocesan work in connection with Higher Religious Education , and to become the Southwark Secretary of the Church Reading Union .sx This meant organizing lectures and courses of religious instruction through the Diocese , and I also found myself a member of the Diocesan Conference , where I remember introducing myself as the incumbent of the highest church in the Diocese .sx There was a somewhat shocked atmosphere in some quarters , until I explained that my church was 800 feet high above the sea level !sx The work was growing pretty heavy , and we managed to get a stipendiary layman who could help among the children and young people .sx It was while I was at Tatsfield that I first visited Oberammergau in Bavaria to witness the Passion Play .sx The place and its people were to play an important part in my life .sx For five years in succession till war broke out in 1914 , I spent my summer holidays there and became very intimate with the people and the environs .sx Every year between the Passion Plays , an interval of ten years , another play would be performed at the small theatre in the village , when new talent would be discovered and trained .sx After the First World War , 1914 , I did not visit Germany for ten years , by which time in 1924 I was in a different parish in Surrey .sx Towards the end of my five and a half years' incumbency I was asked if I would start a village choral society and conduct it .sx This opened up a new interest , and we plunged into it .sx First of all simple part-songs :sx I found only one member who had any idea of reading music .sx This was the village doctor who was an old school friend at Clifton .sx He could sustain the tenor part quite well and lead the others .sx As for basses and altos the conductor had to teach by singing the parts with them .sx It was very amusing , and by the end of a few months an enthusiastic choir of men and women could render simple part-singing tolerably well .sx Then we went to work on Coleridge Taylor's 'Hiawatha's Wedding Feast .sx ' Enthusiasm grew , and in a few more months we gave a concert at which the accompanist was the village schoolmaster , and the tenor solo 'Onaway awake' was sung by the Rector .sx Friends from Limpsfield , in addition to the villagers , came up , and we were all happy .sx =5 .sx ST. MARK'S , WOODCOTE , 1913-1922 .sx IN 1913 Dr. Burge , Bishop of Southwark , asked me to go as Vicar of St. Mark's , Woodcote , Purley , a new church built by the well-known architect Mr. George Fellowes Prynne , who was to become a very intimate friend , and I was later on joint executor of his estate with his solicitor cousin .sx As Bishop Talbot had told me that I ought not to spend many years in Tatsfield , we held great family consultations .sx My eldest brother was then living in Limpsfield with his family , and found a very suitable house nearby where my mother settled , and eventually died in 1926 at the age of 92 .sx Dr. Burge was not able to be present at the Institution and Induction Service in St. Mark's .sx This was taken by the Suffragan Bishop of Woolwich , Dr. John Leake , who lived at Blackheath , and was a close friend of ours .sx But what a change from the dear little old church at Tatsfield to the great modern church of St. Mark's at Purley .sx One felt at Tatsfield that , small as the church was , it had its own atmosphere , and for centuries had been a House of Prayer .sx I could not but feel the chilliness of the new church , beautiful as it was and is .sx When we had found a group of people who gladly co-operated , we made the little side chapel a place of daily prayer .sx I suggested to the congregation that it needed warming up by constant prayer and worship , and we found many to help .sx Gifts of candlesticks and stained-glass lancet windows- finally a new altar- helped to furnish the chapel as a little sanctuary for prayer and quiet .sx In time we received similar gifts for the High Altar , and large East and West windows .sx It was very interesting to have the privilege of filling such a beautiful building with suitable fittings ; I made a rule that all gifts should be submitted for approval to the architect , himself a fine artist .sx It is quite possible to put beautiful things into a beautiful church and yet spoil the building with ornaments unsuitable to the environs .sx We also had a little Mission Hall leading off the Brighton Road , in a street full of small houses .sx This was called Ellen Avenue when I first went there , but was soon changed into the better-sounding name of Lansdowne Road .sx There were lots of children there , and we had a flourishing Sunday School and an evening service .sx I soon saw that the parish needed more help both at the church and Mission district .sx The Church Army Captain had done very good work in the Lansdowne Road district , but I needed more help in the church for the full rota of services on Sundays and weekdays .sx Most fortunately I was able to engage the Rev. E. U. Evitt in 1913 soon after I had come , and he organized the Mission district and got to know , and be known by , many of the people of the parish .sx A great blow disturbed all our efforts in the following year , 1914 , when war broke out .sx Very soon Chaplains for the Forces were urgently needed , and I felt clearly that one of us must volunteer .sx The Bishop , Dr. Burge , did not wish me to go then , as I had barely been in the parish for a year .sx Mr. Evitt , however , was much less committed than his Vicar , and he was accepted at once and was very soon in France where he did splendid work until his health broke down and he had a bad attack of enteric fever .sx Meanwhile in Purley there was much activity and much co-operation especially with the other Christian communities .sx At a large public meeting we launched the project known as the 'Coulsdon and Purley Patriotic Fund' in whose counsels and committees I found myself deeply involved .sx At first , the main work was to help wives and relations of the soldiers to get their 'Separation' allowances , but soon , alas !sx , as casualties began and increased in the winter of 1914 and 1915 the matter of War Pensions became very urgent , and I was asked to be Chairman of the Committee in Coulsdon and Purley .sx Indeed , for the next seventeen years , during my time at Purley , and from 1922 at Surbiton , I was continuously Chairman of the local War Pensions Committee .sx This task involved a very great deal of detailed work for the Committee .sx We had a splendid body of local residents , and a series of excellent Honorary Secretaries .sx Our Committee met once a week in the evenings , and included professional men from every walk of life .sx Very soon we managed to get a hut in Purley where soldiers were very welcome and the ladies organized a canteen .sx Life was in those years more than busy .sx We now had a vicarage next to the church , and I was most fortunate in having for eight years a most able and devoted housekeeper whom I had known well in Limpsfield where she had a house next to the church .sx On hearing that I was to leave Tatsfield and come to Purley she offered to come and look after me .sx She was a real treasure , of yeoman stock and clever in all domestic things , a widow who knew how to look after the 'boy,' who was the only other occupant of the house when Mr. Evitt had gone .sx I have now long lost sight of the 'boy,' but he was lucky to be trained in domestic duties by Mrs. Everett .sx And that brings me to say something about the children .sx While the war dragged on and casualties increased , spreading sorrow into many homes , there was a great solace and joy in the work among the children .sx We gathered together a splendid Sunday afternoon service at the church , each child being given a number which , as they came into church , they could just whisper to the superintendent who filled in the register at her own home .sx Each child had a picture given them and the lesson was largely based on this .sx It was on a stamp which could be stuck in their book , and there was quite a clamour for back stamps if a child had to miss the Sunday Church from any cause which the Vicar considered justifiable !sx It was quite amusing to see how much the children enjoyed the service , and I heard of parents or faithful nurses threaten any naughty child with the penalty of not being allowed to come to the Children's Church on Sunday afternoon .sx I hope the threat kept them good in the week , but anyway they were a most delightful lot , and it is a great joy to meet them now fifty years afterwards when so many are parents or even grandparents , and one of the present churchwardens and several officials of the church still remember those days .sx Speaking of churchwardens and children leads me at once to chronicle a most intimate and lasting friendship begun in 1913 in Purley and continuing till old age to-day .sx When I went to St. Mark's , the first contact I made was with the Vicar's Warden , Mr. F. W. Charlton and his family , the youngest of whose three sons was just coming into the world in this year of 1913 .sx From then till now the acquaintance ripened into a very deep friendship which I have taken with me through all the many vicissitudes of a long ministry .sx Mr. and Mrs. Charlton have been from the first difficult years of war , when most lives were upset and some tempers were easily frayed , the most loyal and devoted friends .sx Their homes- for since those years they have lived on in Purley- have always been havens of rest , and the welcome has never failed .sx Their three boys , now successful men , were in our Children's Church from the outset , and when we don't see one another we do not forget .sx In those early years 1914-18 , life was very full both in the parish and in the wider war activities .sx The Bishop , knowing that I spent my holidays in Bavaria , asked me if I would do something for two wards at the Royal Herbert Hospital , full of war prisoners .sx I was very glad to help in this way , and visited them frequently , establishing at once a friendly contact with the Bavarian wounded who were delighted to find someone who knew their native villages .sx I could at once notice the great antagonism between the Bavarians and the Prussians who openly scorned these more simple country folk .sx