4n Apostle of the North : Memoirs of Bishop Bompas.
By H. A. Cody, B.A. (Seeley and Co. 7s. 6d.) —William, Carpenter Bompas (son of the Serjeant Bompas who has obtained a curious immor- tality as. the " Serjeant Buzfuz " of "Pickwick ") went out to Canada in 1865. He had been touched by an appeal made by Bishop Anderson in the anniversary sermon of the Church Missionary Society in that year, offered himself as a volunteer to take up the work of a missionary in failing health, and started on June 30th. He had made up his mind to reach his destination, Fort Simpson, on the Mackenzie River, on Christmas Day, and he did it, arriving with dramatic propriety on the very morning of the day. Eight thousand miles in less than six months is not much when you have a great liner to travel in ; but in the North-West of Canada—and Fort Simpson is five hundred miles north-west of Lake Athabasca—it is a very serious matter. And it was done in winter, a thing not only never done, but never even thought of, before. In this region William Bompas laboured for more than forty years. He died at the age of seventy-two, and one wonders, as one reads the story of his labours in a climate which is as rigorous as that of any regularly inhabited land, that the tale of years was so long. We read on the title-page : " First Bishop,of Athabasca : First Bishop of Mackenzie River: First Bishop of Selkirk." That repeated "First" means much ; how much it is difficult to conceive. There is a map of the region given on p. 83. It has necessarily to be on a small scale—some four hundred miles to the inch—but the draughtsman has inserted "England on the same scale," and we see that England, which finds that thirty-four dioceses are not sufficient for her, could go into the country between twenty and thirty times. What the results of this work actually were it is not less, possibly it is even more, difficult to estimate. Another generation will have better means for doing it. Meanwhile it is impossible to speak too highly of the man's devotion. It is interesting to see that he was a student in the midst of these absorbing labours. The Syriac versions of the Bible were the subject to which this part of his life was mainly devoted.
Previous page
