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 . so at 3 p.m the car drove up to the Hall , and out of it stepped our Bishop with the Archbishop of Canterbury ! Dr Davidson said he would go for a walk over the fields while we attended to our business . 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 . he seemed rather indignant , but we took the episode without a smile till afterwards . the Hall proved most useful , especially in winter when the distance to the church deterred many from coming to Sunday evensong . 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 . in 1910 Dr Talbot was translated to Winchester , and Dr Hubert Burge became Bishop of Southwark . 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 . 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 . there was a somewhat shocked atmosphere in some quarters , until I explained that my church was 800 feet high above the sea level ! the work was growing pretty heavy , and we managed to get a stipendiary layman who could help among the children and young people . it was while I was at Tatsfield that I first visited Oberammergau in Bavaria to witness the passion play . the place and its people were to play an important part in my life . 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 . 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 . 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 . towards the end of my five and a half years &apos; incumbency I was asked if I would start a village choral society and conduct it . this opened up a new interest , and we plunged into it . first of all simple part-songs : I found only one member who had any idea of reading music . this was the village doctor who was an old school friend at Clifton . he could sustain the tenor part quite well and lead the others . as for basses and altos the conductor had to teach by singing the parts with them . 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 . then we went to work on Coleridge Taylor &apos;s Hiawatha &apos;s wedding feast . 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 . friends from Limpsfield , in addition to the villagers , came up , and we were all happy . 5 . St Mark &apos;s , Woodcote , 1913-1922 . in 1913 Dr Burge , Bishop of Southwark , asked me to go as Vicar of St Mark &apos;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 . as Bishop Talbot had told me that I ought not to spend many years in Tatsfield , we held great family consultations . 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 . Dr Burge was not able to be present at the institution and induction service in St Mark &apos;s . this was taken by the suffragan Bishop of Woolwich , Dr John Leake , who lived at Blackheath , and was a close friend of ours . but what a change from the dear little old church at Tatsfield to the great modern church of St Mark &apos;s at Purley . one felt at Tatsfield that , small as the church was , it had its own atmosphere , and for centuries had been a House of prayer . I could not but feel the chilliness of the new church , beautiful as it was and is . when we had found a group of people who gladly co-operated , we made the little side chapel a place of daily prayer . I suggested to the congregation that it needed warming up by constant prayer and worship , and we found many to help . 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 . in time we received similar gifts for the high altar , and large east and west windows . 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 . it is quite possible to put beautiful things into a beautiful church and yet spoil the building with ornaments unsuitable to the environs . we also had a little mission Hall leading off the Brighton Road , in a street full of small houses . this was called Ellen Avenue when I first went there , but was soon changed into the better-sounding name of Lansdowne Road . there were lots of children there , and we had a flourishing Sunday school and an evening service . I soon saw that the parish needed more help both at the church and mission district . 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 . 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 . a great blow disturbed all our efforts in the following year , 1914 , when war broke out . very soon Chaplains for the forces were urgently needed , and I felt clearly that one of us must volunteer . the Bishop , Dr Burge , did not wish me to go then , as I had barely been in the parish for a year . 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 . meanwhile in Purley there was much activity and much co-operation especially with the other Christian communities . 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 . at first , the main work was to help wives and relations of the soldiers to get their separation allowances , but soon , alas ! , 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 . 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 . this task involved a very great deal of detailed work for the committee . we had a splendid body of local residents , and a series of excellent honorary Secretaries . our committee met once a week in the evenings , and included professional men from every walk of life . very soon we managed to get a hut in Purley where soldiers were very welcome and the ladies organized a canteen . life was in those years more than busy . 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 . on hearing that I was to leave Tatsfield and come to Purley she offered to come and look after me . 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 . I have now long lost sight of the boy , but he was lucky to be trained in domestic duties by Mrs Everett . and that brings me to say something about the children . 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 . 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 . each child had a picture given them and the lesson was largely based on this . 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 ! 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 &apos;s Church on Sunday afternoon . 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 . 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 . when I went to St Mark &apos;s , the first contact I made was with the Vicar &apos;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 . 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 . 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 . their homes - for since those years they have lived on in Purley - have always been havens of rest , and the welcome has never failed . their three boys , now successful men , were in our children &apos;s Church from the outset , and when we do n&apos;t see one another we do not forget . in those early years 1914-18 , life was very full both in the parish and in the wider war activities . 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 . 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 . I could at once notice the great antagonism between the Bavarians and the Prussians who openly scorned these more simple country folk . 