Samuel Wilberforce Quotes (1805-1873)

“Walked twice with Lord Aberdeen, he talked a good deal, reckoned that he had planted about 14 millions of trees in his time. Nothing when he came to it at Haddo but the limes and a few Scotch firs.”

“He was the first of the Bishops of the Victorian age to show what the duties of a bishop were. He may truly be said to have recast the whole idea of the Episcopate, and to have successfully raised the tone of clerical life.”

“The bench of Bishops has in its time contributed much to the eloquence, as well as to the appearance and dignity of the Upper House. During the last half century its most noted orator was Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford and Winchester, whose eloquence was of a very high order and, like his character, suggested the great ecclesiastical statesman rather than the divine. He leaped into fame by a speech on the Corn Laws in June, 1846, of which his biographer says that it ought to have been heard rather than read.”

“I admired and liked him most before he became a Bishop, and before he leant so much to those High Church views which did harm.”