Holland had what Tertullian calls the anima naturaliter Christiana, and it had been trained on the lines of the Tractarian Movement.  When he went up to Oxford he destined himself for a diplomatic career, but he now realized his vocation to the priesthood, and was ordained deacon in 1872 and priest two years later.  He instantly made his mark as a preacher.  Some of the sermons preached in the parish churches of Oxford in the earliest years of his ministry stand out in my memory among his very best.  He had all the preacher’s gifts—­a tall, active, and slender frame, graceful in movement, vigorous in action, abundant in gesture, a strong and melodious voice, and a breathless fluency of speech.  Above all, he spoke with an energy of passionate conviction which drove every word straight home.  He seemed a young apostle on fire with zeal for God and humanity.  His fame as an exponent of metaphysic attracted many hearers who did not usually go much to church, and they were accustomed—­then as later—­to say that here was a Christian who knew enough about the problems of thought to make his testimony worth hearing.  Others, who cared not a rap for Personality or Causation, Realism or Nominalism, were attracted by his grace, his eloquence, his literary charm.  His style was entirely his own.  He played strange tricks with the English language, heaped words upon words, strung adjective to adjective; mingled passages of Ruskinesque description with jerky fragments of modern slang.  These mannerisms grew with his growth, but in the seventies they were not sufficiently marked to detract from the pure pleasure which we enjoyed when we listened to his preaching as to “a very lovely song.”

Judged by the canons of strict art, Holland was perhaps greater as a speaker than as a preacher.  He differed from most people in this—­that whereas most of us can restrain ourselves better on paper than when we are speaking, his pen ran away with him when he, was writing a sermon, but on a platform he could keep his natural fluency in bounds.  Even then he was fluent enough in all conscience; but he did not so overdo the ornaments, and the absence of a manuscript and a pulpit-desk gave ampler scope for oratorical movement.

I have mentioned Holland’s intellectual and moral debt to T. H. Green.  I fancy that, theologically and politically, he owed as much to Mr. Gladstone.  The older and the younger man had a great deal in common.  They both were “patriot citizens of the kingdom of God”; proud and thankful to be members of the Holy Church Universal, and absolutely satisfied with that portion of the Church in which their lot was cast; passionate adherents of the Sacramental theology; and yet, in their innermost devotion to the doctrine of the Cross, essentially Evangelical.  In politics they both worshipped freedom; they both were content to appeal to the popular judgment; and they both were heart and soul for the Christian cause in the East of Europe.  Holland had been brought up by Tories, but in all the great controversies of 1886 to 1894 he followed the Gladstonian flag with the loyalty of a good soldier and the faith of a loving son.