The British and Foreign Bible Society is a bond of social, as well as religious, union. A dinner at Mr. George Moore’s house, Palace Gardens, was, at that time, an annual institution, and after the Exeter Hall meeting in May, the committee, speakers, and other friends, met under his hospitable roof. The host appeared at his very best, frank, generous, and kind—no affectation, no assumption; only a rich vein of English geniality. On his right hand at such occasions, usually sat Lord Shaftesbury, on the left perhaps the Archbishop of Canterbury. Without flattery, but in homely ways of recognising service, the master of the table would call up one after another of his guests, and after we left the dining-room, we had family prayer together, a bishop and a Dissenter taking part in conducting the worship.
In 1871 the Dean of Canterbury was suddenly taken to his rest. The tidings gave great sorrow; and I felt it was due to his memory that some Dissenting brethren should attend the funeral. Harrison, Baldwin Brown, Newman Hall, and others did so; I was invited by the family to be one of the pall bearers. Dr. Stanley, Dr. Merivale, Dean of Ely, and others, met in the good man’s library, where his picture of St. Michael’s Mount,—on which he had spent some of his last hours—stood upon the easel, and Walton’s Polyglot lay open at the Book of Exodus, where Dr. Alford had been reading just before his death. Slowly and sadly we walked into the cloisters, where places were assigned us, and the procession moved into the cathedral. There Mrs. Alford, with wonderful composure, joined in the solemn service. Shops were shut, and the streets lined with people, as we were conveyed to St. Martin’s Churchyard, where we joined in singing one of his hymns, “Ten thousand times ten thousand,” etc. He had expressed a wish to be interred there, and wrote the following memorandum: “When I am gone, and a tomb is to be put up, let there be, besides any indication of who is sleeping below, these words only: _Deversorium viatoris Hierosolymam proficiscentis_—_i.e._, the inn of a traveller who is on his way to Jerusalem.”
In a letter which I received from Canon Robertson, he said, in reference to this inscription: “Perhaps Mr. Bullock may be able to tell you, that some one has discovered the source of the words engraved at the bottom of the tombstone. My own inquiries have been fruitless.” I have not been able to ascertain their origin.