Frederick Denison Maurice, in Memoriam

Macmillan's Magazine, May 1872.

On Friday, the fifth of April, a noteworthy assemblage gathered round an open vault in a corner of Highgate Cemetery. Some hundreds of persons, closely packed up the steep banks among the trees and shrubs, had found in that grave a common bond of brotherhood. I say, in that grave. They were no sect, clique, or school of disciples, held together by community of opinions. They were simply men and women, held together, for the moment at least, by love of a man, and that man, as they had believed, a man of God. All shades of opinion, almost of creed, were represented there; though the majority were members of the Church of England -- many probably reconciled to that Church by him who lay below. All sorts and conditions of men, and indeed of women, were there; for he had had a word for all sorts and conditions of men. Most of them had never seen each other before -- would never see each other again.