Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER HI BEXLEY HALL 1862-1864 DURING the summer of 1862 — spent, on account of the diocesan paper, in Gambier — Allen was joined by his brother Henry. He wrote to Guilford and to Geneva of his desperate homesickness: "Home is the centre round which all my thoughts radiate, and the only thing which I live for on earth. I am completely alone, and all the memories of the past are rushing over me continually." This was too much for Henry, who fled forthwith to Gam- bier, and wrote then to his father, "Zander represented his homesickness in such a touching light that I came immediately, and took him wholly by surprise." Together they moved Alexander's belongings to Bexley Hall, the theological seminary, which was at the other end of the long village street from the college. It was a somewhat gloomy transition. "The college world," he said afterwards, " seemed full of life and rich in interest, it lay to our imagination bathed in sunlight, while, for those who entered the dark seminary at the other end of the village, we felt, when in our kindliest mood, as the old Greeks may have felt for those who had entered the world of the dead; they had left the fullness and richness of life behind them, they had become objects of commiseration." The family at home were in dread lest the sons should be drafted for the War. Alexander wrote: "At present it does not appear to be my duty to volunteer, but should the draft come, it could be considered as no other than a providential dispensation. Properly I ought to be exempt onAN EDITOR 29 account of my sight, and no doubt I should be if I chose to apply, but I hardly feel willing to do so, when so many are evading on false excuses." The chief occupation of the summer was textit{The Western Episcopalian. He wrote to Bishop Bede...