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• YALJE-VMVIEIBSinnr-

Deposited by the
Linonian and Brothers Library
— ' 1908 

ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL TAIT

^J^-

LIFE

OF

Archibald Campbell Tait
arct)6i0f)op of Canterourg

BY
RANDALL THOMAS DAVIDSON, D.D.
BISHOP OF ROCHESTER, LATE 'DEAN OF WINDSOR
AND
WILLIAM BENHAM, B.D.
HON. CANON OF CANTERBURY

THIRD EDITION

IN TWO VOLUMES

Vol. I. , (i i i
'/I'll,',, vy
¦'¦;fS'P/

LONDON
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND NEW YORK
189I

First Edition , June 1891. Second Edition, July 1891.
Third Edition, December 1891.

PREFACE
THE position occupied by Archbishop Tait in the public
view made it inevitable that some biography of him
should, ere long, be published. It is now more than
eight years since he died, and if it be asked why these
volumes have not appeared more speedily, the answer
must be found in the extent and variety of the work
their preparation has involved. To give sustained atten
tion to the subject has been at times impossible, owing to
the constant pressure of duties of other kinds, and each
interval in which the book was laid aside has involved
fresh labour on its resumption. In place of the material
on which biographers can usually rely, Archbishop Tait
left behind him a mass of business correspondence, pre
served with care, and in some periods well arranged.
Valuable as these letters will become hereafter, as giving
a picture of the Church of England of our day, they are
of comparatively little service for such a book as this.
His letter-files contain about 62,500 letters. Not one in
a hundred of these is available for biographical purposes,
but it may be confidently hoped that their perusal has at
least put the writer of each chapter in touch with the

vi PREFACE
circumstances of the years he is recording, and has
secured him against mistakes of date, or misrepresentation
of important facts.
It would be impossible to thank publicly the many
correspondents who have contributed valuable remini
scences, or revised the account of episodes in which they
were themselves concerned, or permitted letters in their
possession to be used or read. Piquancy might doubtless
have been added to some chapters had a less strict rule
of reticence been observed, but mistakes in this direction,
if such there be, are mistakes upon the right side. What
has been attempted is the plain record of a busy and
eventful life, covering a period in the history of Church
and Nation the importance of which grows every year
more manifest.
Deanery, Windsor, Easter 1891.

CONTENTS CHAPTER I.
1811-1827. PAGE
Home and Parentage — Boyhood — School-days ... I
CHAPTER II.
1827-1833.
Glasgow University — Matriculation at Ballio! — Undergradu
ate Life at Oxford  25
CHAPTER III.
1834-1841.
Oxford— Baldon— Bonn . . . ... 52
CHAPTER IV.
1 841.
Oxford — Tract xc— Letter from Dean Lake .... 74

CHAPTER V.
1842-1850.
Rugby 

no

CHAPTER VI.
1849-1853-
Deanerv of Carlisle — Oxford University Commission . .149

viii CONTENTS
CHAPTER VII.
1852-1856. PAGE
Carlisle  .... 175
CHAPTER VIII.
March and April 1856 .  189
CHAPTER IX.
1856.
Entrance on London Episcopate  191
CHAPTER X.
Early Years of London Episcopate— 1856-60.
Divorce Act — Ritualism— Confession — St. George's in the
East   210
CHAPTER XI.
Evangelistic Work— 1857-59.
Open-Air Preaching — Exeter Hall Services — Westminster
Abbey and St. Paul's — Services in Theatres — Primary
Charge . .  250
CHAPTER XII.
1860-64.
' Essays and Reviews ' .  275
CHAPTER XIII.
1861-66.
The Colonial Church — Bishop Colenso  326

CONTENTS ix
CHAPTER XIV
1866-68.

PAGE

The Colonial Church {continued) — The Diocese of Natal —
The First Lambeth Conference ... . 365
CHAPTER XV.
Ritualism — 1 860- 1 868.
Discussions in Parliament and in Convocation — the Ritual
Commission — Correspondence — All Saints, Margaret
Street — St. Alban's, Holborn — St. Peter's, London Docks
—St. Michael's, Shoreditch— Charge of 1866 . . . 398
CHAPTER XVI.
The London Episcopate— 1863-1867.
The Bishop of London's Fund — The Ladies' Diocesan
Association — Sisterhoods — Cholera Epidemic of 1866
—St. Peter's Orphanage — Bishop's Illness — Third Dio
cesan Charge  . 444
CHAPTER XVII.
The London Episcopate {continued).
1 863- 1 867.
Definiteness of Belief — Diocesan Charges — Subscription to
Formularies  474
CHAPTER XVIII.
The London Episcopate {continued).
1863-1868.
Memoranda and Correspondence — Father Ignatius — Rev.
F. D. Maurice — The Speaker's Commentary — Arch
deacon Wordsworth — Religious Education — Purchase
of Stonehouse — Offer of the Primacy . 496

THE LIFE

CHAPTER I.
HOME AND PARENTAGE — BOYHOOD — SCHOOL-DAYS.
1811-1827.
On Thursday, February nth, 1869, Archbishop Tait was
presiding in the Jerusalem Chamber at Westminster over
a meeting of the Ritual Commission. Dean Stanley was
sitting by his side. In the course of certain works in the
adjacent Abbey a search had for some time been in
progress to discover, if possible, the unknown burial-place
of King James I. Just as the meeting closed, a messenger
entered the Jerusalem Chamber, and whispered to Dean
Stanley that the coffin had been discovered in one of
the vaults under Henry VII. 's chapel. The excited Dean
sprang up, and, inviting the other Commissioners to
accompany him, hastened to the spot. As they all drew
near, the Dean motioned them back. " It is fitting," he
said, "that our first Scottish Archbishop should lead the
way into the tomb of our first Scottish King."
Of pure Scottish blood both on his father's and his
mother's side, Archibald Campbell Tait, though he lived
for more than half a century in England, retained through
life his Scottish characteristics, Scottish interests, and
Scottish friends ; and some account of the facts and sur
roundings of his earliest days is essential, in a more than
ordinary degree, to the right understanding of his busy
life. It is not often that the early history of a life of three
vol. 1. A

2 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. i.
score years and ten can, when the life is closed, be recorded
in detail by a competent witness still alive and strong.
The biographers of Archbishop Tait have gratefully to
acknowledge the benefit of this unusual aid. The Arch
bishop's sister, Charlotte, Lady Wake, who was twelve
years his senior, and who survived him for six years, has
written in full and graphic detail her reminiscences of his
early life. Many of these reminiscences had in later years
the advantage of his personal correction, and such of them
will be quoted as are necessary to give a sufficient picture
of his home and boyhood.
" Two hundred years ago," says Lady Wake, " there
dwelt in Aberdeenshire — transplanted, however, from the
south of Scotland — a family valued for their worth, the
Taits1 of Ludquharn, of the class that used to be known
in Scotland by the name of ' bonnet lairds,' — honest men,
living on their own farms, and wearing the broad blue
' bonnet ' that marked the simplicity of rural and patri
archal lives far removed from the fashions and customs of
towns." The family had many branches, and some of its members
seem to have been active in other work besides the cultiva
tion of their farms. The ample records which remain of
Aberdeenshire life during the earlier Jacobite strifes picture
them as the leading builders and handicraftsmen, advancing
steadily in prosperity and social status in the country-side.
William Tait of Ludquharn was laid to rest, as the stone
over his grave records, "in the year of human salvation
1725, with Agnes Clerk his wife," and in the same grave,
in the parish churchyard of Longside, Aberdeenshire, rests
his son Thomas, whose merits are recorded in an elaborate
1 " Tait " is said to be an old Norse name, signifying affection. Some
curious legends connected with it are to be found in Ferguson's English
Surnames, chapter viii.

1811-27] THE TAITS OF LONGSIDE 3
Latin epitaph from the ready pen of his friend and pastor,
John Skinner, famous a hundred years ago as a controver
sialist, an historian, a scholar, and, above all, as the author
of ' Tullochgorum ' and other well-known Scottish songs.1
The district of Aberdeenshire to which Longside belongs
remained faithful to Episcopacy long after Presbyterianism
had been established throughout Scotland, and to this day
a large proportion even of its poorest inhabitants adhere
with unswerving loyalty to the Church system for which
their grandfathers endured indignity and wrong. To the
Episcopalians of Longside John Skinner ministered, in
sunshine and storm, for no less than sixty-four years, from
1742 to 1807, and the registers and other records of his
eventful pastorate, which extended right through the
' persecution period,' show that neither the imprisonment
of their minister nor the burning of his chapel was able to
detach any branch of the Tait family from a faithful
allegiance to their Church's cause.2 John' Skinner was
no Jacobite, but he and his flock had to suffer for the
Jacobite sympathies of their co-religionists elsewhere, and
for many years the scene of his quaint sermons and his
famous catechisings was the little yard of his poverty-
stricken cottage at Linshart near Longside. " There the
1 The epitaph, which is engraved with singular taste and vigour on a
huge sandstone slab, is as follows : —
SOB HOC LAPIDE CINERES GULIELMI TAIT CARPENTARII IN LUDQUHARN ET AGNETIS
CLERK EJUS CONJUGIS ILLE HUMANAE SALUTIS 1725 AETATIS SUAE 57 ILLA 1739
AETATIS 70 ANNIS OBIERUNT NEC NON JOANNIS GULIELMI ALTERIUS GULIELMI ET
AGNETIS TAIT SOBOLIS EORUM QUI IIS PRAEDECESSERUNT SEPULTI SUNT. HIC
QUOQUE CONDUNTUR EXUVIAE THOMAE TAIT IN THUNDERTON FILII S. D. GULIELMI
ET AGNETIS NATU MAXIMI QUI IN ARTE LAPIDARIA DUM POTUIT GNAVUS IN ALENDA
FAMILIA FAELIX MORIBUS PROBUS ANIMO .EQUUS VICINIS AMICUS TANDEM ANNORUM
SATUR FIDE^UE ET SPE FULTUS AD PATRES MIGRAVIT ANNO MDCCLXX AET. LXXIX.
R.I. P.
The final letters of the epitaph have a special interest; John Skinner being
one of those who were at that time contending vehemently in favour of the
doctrine and practice of prayer for the dead,
" a Many members of the Tait family still live in Longside and the neigh
bouring parishes, and are firm adherents of the Scottish Episcopal Church.

4 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. i.
congregation," we are told, " were obliged to sit, sometimes
under a heavy rain, sometimes with their benches or stools
planted in the snow, while he officiated and addressed them
from the window."1 Among these undaunted worshippers
was the large family of Thomas Tait, whose son John, on
leaving Aberdeenshire to settle in Edinburgh, must have
carried with him stirring memories of the Sundays of his
early years. Small was the encouragement or support
which these sorely pressed and gallant Churchmen received
from the great sister Church of England, and it would have
startled them indeed to learn that the grandson of John
Tait would be Archbishop of Canterbury.
Once settled in Edinburgh, John Tait was articled in
the office of Ronald Craufurd, a well-known Writer to the
Signet, in whose hands lay the legal business of many of
the foremost Scottish families, and there John received the
legal training of which he made good use in after life when
he succeeded, on Mr. Craufurd's death, to the increasing
business of the house. There is a portrait of John Tait,
by Raeburn, which well represents the calm good sense and
the spirit of manly enterprise which he inherited from the
'blue bonnets' of Aberdeen. He married, in 1763, a
lady of the singular name of Charles Murdoch, so called
after Prince Charlie, the hero of Scottish imagination, in
whose cause her family had suffered much. " She was,"
we are told, " well born, well educated, very pretty, and
very poor, and so independent was her spirit that, like
many of the Stuart ladies of the day, she supported her
widowed mother by the work of her own hands." Charles
Murdoch, Jacobite though she was, was a Presbyterian,
and drew her husband to the Established Church of Scot
land, into which their only son, Craufurd, was baptized.
Craufurd Tait's mother died when he was only sixteen.
1 See Walker's Life of John Skinner, p. 59.

1811-27] SIR ILAY CAMPBELL 5
" She had," says Lady Wake, " imparted to her son much
of the poetry of her own mind, and a love for the many
traditions of her ancestry.1 Perhaps it would have been
better if his father's practical sense had rather been the
prevailing element in his character."
The family house in Edinburgh was in Park Place, close
to 'The Meadows,' on the outskirts of the Old Town.2
It was next door to the house of Sir Hay Campbell,
Lord President of the Court of Session, the highest
judicial office in Scotland. He was a man as much
beloved for the straightforward simplicity of his character
as respected for his legal knowledge, and his house was
one of the most popular resorts in Edinburgh. Susan, a
younger daughter of Sir Hay Campbell, became, at the
age of eighteen, the wife of Craufurd Tait. In the year
1800, John Tait, the Archbishop's grandfather, died at the
age of seventy-three.
"He had been as happy in the tender care of the young
wife of his only son as if she had been his own child. His
death, though it came in the fulness of years, was a heavy
misfortune to the young couple, for his calm good sense was
a safer guide to his son than his own erratic genius. He left
1 The ravens which formed part of the armorial bearings of Arch
bishop Tait have their origin in the following legend: — "There dwelt in
the wilds of Galloway, in the days of Robert Bruce, a lady known as the
Widow of the Peak, whose three brave sons were devoted to the adventur
ous king. His hiding-places among the mountains had again and again
been discovered by means of three ravens who followed and hovered over the
little band. At length Murdoch, youngest son of the Widow of the Peak,
brought down the traitorous ravens with his arrows, and was rewarded by
the grateful king with the lands of Cumlodden."
2 The house has now been pulled down to make way for the new buildings
of the University of Edinburgh. In the wall of these buildings a bronze bust
of the Archbishop, by Raggi, stands in a sculptured niche, under which is the
following inscription : — " To commemorate in his native country the piety,
the virtues, ^nd the wisdom of Archibald Campbell Tait, Archbishop of
Canterbury 1868- 1882, friends and admirers in Scotland have erected this
monument on the site of the house in which he was born." The monument
was unveiled with public ceremonial on February 27th, 1885.

6 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. i.
to him the estate of Harviestoun in Clackmannanshire, with a
tolerably good house, and in addition to this, and to the house
in Edinburgh, a beautiful property on the shores of Loch
Fyne, which he had named Cumlodden, after the family place
of the Murdochs. This he had purchased with the express
intention of its being resold if ever the estate of Castle
Campbell, adjacent to Harviestoun, should be offered for sale
by its owner, the Duke of Argyll. The addition of this to
Harviestoun would make a consolidated instead of a divided
property. The unfortunate result was, that when his son became
the proprietor, he did indeed purchase Castle Campbell, but he
was so attached to the romantic shores of Loch Fyne that he
could not persuade himself to part with Cumlodden, and kept the
two, borrowing a large sum of money to enable him to do so."
At Cumlodden he threw himself with enthusiasm into
the improvements which his imagination already saw
transforming the habits and lives of the Highlanders.
He devised a new order of things, building model
cottages, and apportioning to each its garden and its four-
acre field of arable land. Immense sums of money were
thus spent in vain. The whole scheme was foreign alike
to the desires and the capabilities of those whom he tried
to benefit. The soil and its inhabitants successfully united
their efforts to baffle his plans, and he retired discomfited
and impoverished to Harviestoun. There, in like manner,
but on a more congenial soil, he lavished money on ' im
provements ' on the largest scale. The house was half
rebuilt. " The high-road," says Lady Wake, " ran too near the house,
so it was lifted, as if by magic, half a mile lower down the glen.
A garden was laid out with Milton's description of Eden for
the mode]. And surely no garden ever was like it ! Of
immense extent, it enclosed the lower part of the glen ; a dell
of green turf led right through it, while a bright and noisy burn
leaping from the rocks above danced merrily through its entire
length, speeding through ferns and wild-flowers till it suddenly
disappeared, to emerge with a bound from a cave many yards

1811-27] HARVIESTOUN 7
below. Our home was a very happy one ; our father, thoroughly
enjoying the society of his children, and seeing all his dreams of
picturesque beauty assuming tangible form, had no misgivings as
to the expense which attended the gratification of his tastes. It
never crossed his wife's mind that he could err in judgment, and
thus the ' improvements ' went on in rapid succession. Inventions
for farm and field, now in common use, were seen in their earliest
days - at Harviestoun — machinery for chopping and steaming all
manner of food for cattle, the kitchen spit turned by water-pressure
from the mountain burns, elaborate poultry-houses, the wonder of
the country-side,1 — these were among the least of the products
of his active brain, with which no thoughts about expense were
allowed to interfere.
"Qur father commanded the Clackmannanshire Yeomanry,
and I well remember our enthusiasm at the warlike feats of that
gallant corps as they performed a sham fight at Harviestoun on
the occasion of the jubilee of George in. in 1809. Our father,
mounted on one of the grey carriage-horses, was most magnificent
in our eyes, with his helmet adorned with a silver thistle, and
the motto, translated for us, ' For our country and our firesides.'
The whole land had been excited to a frenzy of patriotism by
Buonaparte's threatened invasion, and real as was our loyalty to
the King, our hatred for the French was more real still. Besides
the military ardour of the yeomanry, there was a quieter witness
close at hand that the French were expected, in the shape of an
immense ' caravan,' as it was then called,2 which had been built
by our father's orders, for the purpose of carrying us all to the
other side of the hills when the French fleet should appear in
1 "I remember them well. Story upon story of comfortable chambers
rose one above the other, reached by a series of little ladders, up which the
various inhabitants ascended with the utmost decorum, the cocks conducting
their hens to the highest story, the turkey-cocks and their ladies taking
possession of their apartment on the second floor, while the geese and ducks
waddled, well satisfied, into the lowest room. Once in the midst of one of
the absorbing and interminable arguments of which our father was so fond,
he was astonished by his brother-in-law, Lord Succoth, starting off in" a race
towards the poultry-house, where*, he stood agape watching the ascent of a
large old turkey-cock. ' Well, if I had not seen him, I never could have
believed that Bubbly-jock [the usual name in Scotland for a turkey-cock]
would have done such a thing,' was his speech, as he quietly turned back,
and took up the broken thread of his argument." — C. W.
2 " It would now be more modestly termed an 'omnibus,' but it was of
gigantic size and weight. " — C. W.

8 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. i.
the Forth. We secretly regretted that they never came, and we
rather grudged, as time went on, that the ' caravan ' had nothing
nobler to do than perform the peaceful duty of carrying us all
to church on rainy days. Our family was Presbyterian, and our
Sundays were strict indeed, and terribly irksome to us children,
who were too lively to be content with reading grave books
which we could not understand. Yet we could not but receive
abiding impressions from our gentle mother. Each night, when '
she knew her little ones were in bed, she would bend over us,
whispering the well-known verse —
' This night I lay me down to sleep,
And give my soul to Christ to keep ;
Sleep I now : wake I never,
I give my soul to Christ for ever. '
This became so fixed a habit with us all that in after years our
soldier brother used to tell that he never, even when sleeping
under arms on the ground, forgot to repeat this prayer.
"It was in 1811 that a heavy trouble came into our home.
We were now eight children in all,1 the youngest being a little
black-eyed boy, Hay Campbell by name, who was just two
years old. He was the plaything of the house. One night he
was restless and ill; in the morning it was found that in the
course of that night one limb had been completely paralysed.
The medical men said it was in consequence of cutting his
teeth. Our poor mother was grievously distressed. She could
not bear to think of the child's blighted life, for to her mind
the restoration of the withered limb seemed impossible; the
misfortune made too deep an impression on her, and cast a
shadow forwards.
1 Viz. :—
John, born 11 Feb. 1796. [Died 22 May 1877.]
Susan Murray (afterwards Lady Sitwell), born 2 March 1797. [Died 13 May
1 080. J
James Campbell, born 29 October 1798. [Died 18 Jany. 1879.]
Charlotte Murdoch (afterwards Lady Wake), born 9 June 1800. [Died 31
March 1888.] _
Anna Mary (afterwards Mrs. Wildman), born 15 Feb. 1804. TDied 22
Feb. 1879.]
Thomas Forsyth, born 20 Aug. 1805. [Died 16 March 1859.]
Craufurd, born 9 Sept. 1807. [Died 6 April 1828.]
Hay Campbell, born 1 June 1809. [Died 28 Feb. 1821.]

1811-27] PARK PLACE 9
"Shortly after this we were enjoined to be very still, for
that our mother was ill. The cause was soon made clear to us
by the arrival of the old nurse, in whose presence we always
took a mysterious pleasure. She had visited us about every
two years, telling us that she had brought a new little brother
or sister. Sometimes she had found it among the cabbage-beds,
sometimes below a rose-bush. Whatever she chose .to say we
believed, for while her short reign lasted her power was absolute.
By her permission alone we could see our mother, or make
whispering visits to the new baby's apartment, close to her.
Accordingly on the night of the 21st, or rather on the morning
of the 22d, of December 181 1, we perfectly understood why we
were to have a holiday on the usual condition of being very
quiet ; but we observed in the days that immediately followed
that something unusual had happened. There was some mystery
in the house, for there were grave looks and shakings of the
head, not only- among the servants, but among the lady friends
who came and went. There was not the usual gladsome tone
in all that was said, though we were kept at too great a distance
to hear the words spoken. At length, after some days, with the
connivance of the old nurse, I crept into my mother's room,
and through the darkened light saw her in earnest conversation
with the family doctor, George Bell. She had been crying; he
was comforting her with hopeful words. He said : ' You have
been thinking too much of poor little Campbell's leg; but I
hope we shall be able to set all to rights.' Catching sight of
me, as though glad of a diversion, he lifted me up, and placed
me on the bed. My mother gently kissed me, but told me not
to stay ; so I passed at once into her dressing-room, from which
was heard the wailing voice of the new-born baby, and for the
first time I saw my little brother. He lay on the old nurse's
lap, making a complaining noise — and no wonder ; for, poor little
thing ! instead of the lovely little feet that it had always been
our delight to kiss when a new baby was "brought among us,
the nurse showed me a mass of bandages. He was born
club-footed !
"Certainly the circumstances of his birth did not promise
the noble career of usefulness with which God blessed him.
Had he been born in poorer circumstances, or had his parents
been either careless or faint-hearted, he must have remained a
cripple all his days, for his poor little feet were found to be

io LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. i.
completely doubled inwards. However, the assurance was given
that there was good hope; they could in time be brought to a
proper shape. ' In time ! ' Alas ! it was over those words that
my poor mother wept, for she knew that they expressed a
suffering infancy, and a childhood debarred from childhood's
active enjoyment. She was full of faith and love, and perhaps
God whispered to her heart that by those very means He would
best form her child for the work He destined for him ; for
when she left her room to rejoin the little circle, which never
felt right when she was absent, she brought with her the usual
gentle cheerfulness ; and the only outward sign of the misfortune
was that the baby Archie was fondled and spoken of with an
inexpressible tenderness. She was the most submissive of
women, and so she found rest to the disquietude of her heart.
She knew her husband to be the most energetic of men, and,
thoroughly believing in him, she felt sure that all that could be
done would be done. Many were the visits the' baby received
before he was a month old in the little apartment in which the
old nurse held her court; but his first appearance in pubhc —
that is to say, his christening — was the event to which we, the
younger branches of the family, looked forward with the greatest
interest. At length the day appointed arrived — the ioth of
February 1812. Our mother was sufficiently recovered to receive
her friends, and the usual little circle was gathered round her,
while all her children, except the eldest, who had gone to
Harrow after the Christmas holidays, dressed in their best,
gazed with a little more than the usual amount of watchfulness
on the well-remembered ceremony which added a new member
to the visible Church of Christ and a new name to the chorus
which already filled the nursery. The mysterious large china
bowl occupied once again its conspicuous place in the drawing-
room, making the centre of the solemn group, where the father
held up his infant, Archibald Campbell, to receive his baptism
from the hands of the friendly minister of the Old Church of
St. Giles', Dr. Thomas MacKnight; who had come once more
to perform his loving office. The gentle mother 'and the seven
brothers and sisters encircled him. The newly named Archibald
Campbell was a lovely baby : his long robes hid the poor little
feet ; and if there was any difference in the welcome given to
him from that which greeted his predecessors, it was only that
it was more tender and loving ; and as our mother passed her

1811-27] SUSAN TAIT 11
treasure from friend to friend, admiring smiles saluted him, and
soothed the distress she had hid away in her heart.
"And thus she returned to the daily duties of her life,
bringing back with her the quiet influence that had on the
family all the effect of an absolute rule. On looking back to
her character, there shines out this remarkable difference
between her and other women,— that no one ever saw her in
the slightest bustle or fuss of any kind, nor can any one
remember her voice raised in anger. Her memory comes
back with a sort of moonlight radiance. Clouds in her daily
life there must have been ; but she passed through them
all, brightening them to others, and by them herself un-
dimmed. " I love to remember her kneeling in the large white old-
fashioned chair which belonged to her bedroom. She often
retired thither for private prayer; and among the memories of
earliest childhood her figure shines out as in a picture, kneeling
upon the cushion of the high-backed chair, her earnest face
lifted up to God; but she never prayed aloud. It was only
when we were very little children that she did not mind the
presence of one of us when she carried her distresses to the
Comforter. Everything she did was so quietly done that'
though we saw, when we were at Harviestoun, that she always
kept in her bedroom a little bunch of daisies, carefully tended
in a glass of water, not one of us knew until long afterwards
that she gathered them from our little brother Willie's grave,
and thus treasured them for his sake; yet he had died so long
ago that few of us had the slightest recollection of his birth,
and he had lived but for six months. She must have gone to
the grave quite alone in the early morning, for no one ever saw
her there.
" Dear mother ! She was so purely and innocently good.
The modern language of what is called the religious world was
unknown to her, but the true spirit of religion dwelt in her,
and her right hand did not know what her left hand had done.
Of her self-denying deeds of charity few were known until her
death caused them to be missed, and I cannot remember
ever to have heard her speak unkindly of a single human
being. I remember her sympathising in the remark made to
her by a poor woman, to whom she had lent a volume of
Blair's Sermons. To my mother's inquiry whether she liked

12 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. i.
them, the reply was : ' 'Deed, leddy, no that weel ; for in a'
that reading [turning over a number of pages] there 's neither
God nor Jesus Christ.' 1 Her good-natured charity was so well
understood by the poor around her country home that some of
them did not hesitate to encroach on it. I remember her
amusement at the answer made to her by a pensioner, as to
whether she would like to have money or oatmeal. 'Weel,
leddy,' she replied, with a curtsey, ' baith 's best.'
"The birth of Archibald was followed by two bright and
happy years in the family circle. The two eldest boys came
and went between Harrow and Harviestoun, the eldest daughter
was growing into womanhood, and the nursery was full of cheery
little faces.
" The winters were spent, as usual, in the Edinburgh home, the
summer and autumn at Harviestoun. Suddenly, on January 3,
1 8 14, our mother died, almost in a moment. The overstrained
heart had given way. We were summoned to her room, where
she lay dead upon the sofa, on the very spot where I can first
remember her. My earliest recollection is that of sitting, some
ten or eleven years before, upon a little stool beside that sofa,
pricking upon paper the outline of the chintz flowers on her
dress, while she laid her hand upon my head, and repeated in
a low voice Cowper's lines to his mother's picture. The two
scenes— the beginning and the end — are, even now, inextricably
blended in my mind. Dark and dreary were the clouds that now
fell upon the happy home in Park Place. While we children
crept about the house, and remarked to each other that the snow
was falling upon mother's grave, relations and friends were
anxiously discussing up-stairs what could be done for the best
with the nine children thus thrown suddenly upon our father's
care. Our father ! O how well I remember his constant pacing
up and down, care and grief altogether changing his countenance !
For now, at this very crisis, he had come to know that to this
crowning sorrow of his life were added other causes of perplexity and
trouble. While she was by his side there had been sunshine, and
one difficulty after another had seemed to melt. But now he had
to face the fact that, misled by his sanguine temperament, he had
embarked in, and even carried through, enterprises which, while
1 The criticism is severe, but it is worth noting that more than half
a century afterwards the Archbishop used frequently to describe a sermon
which had dissatisfied him as " a trifle Blairy."

1811-27] BETTY MORTON

13

benefiting many, had ruined himself. The children soon came to
understand that heavy trials lay ahead. The establishment was
to be broken up, the servants whom we loved must go, including
the dear old coachman whom we had known all our lives; his
grey carriage-horses were now to work upon the farm. The
schoolroom life came to an end. My younger sister and I were
sent to school, and household cares of every sort devolved upon
our eldest sister, Susan, who was barely seventeen years old. The
constant care that little Archie required endeared him specially
to us all. He soon became a well-grown child, with a touching
look of appeal that went straight to the heart. He was naturally
more lame than Campbell, who had only one limb affected, but
both boys were unable for climbing or games, and became
all in all to each other, while yet a complete contrast — the one
with bright black eyes and hair, his face all rippling with fun ;
the other — Archie — blue-eyed and fair-haired, watching the quicker
movements of his brother as though they were necessary parts of
his own existence."
The nurse, Betty Morton by name, was a person so
remarkable that she became almost the centre of the
family life. She ruled her nursery with a strictness only
equalled by her loyal devotion to the young mistress at
its head. But little Archie was of course her special
charge, and she was destined to take no unimportant part
in his education for the work of life. She was a strict
Sabbatarian, and the Sunday amusements were confined
mainly to a study of the absorbing pictures in an ancient
Family Bible, "dedicated to Catherine Parr, and full of
such illustrations as that of a man with a beam as large
as a rafter sticking straight out of his eye." To the
systematic nursery study of this Bible, however, both the
Archbishop and his sisters attributed in after years their
unusually thorough acquaintance with the details of
Scripture history. In the first three autumns after their
mother's death the younger boys were taken by Betty
Morton to Garscadden, a strange, weird old house, three

14 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. i.
miles from Sir Hay Campbell's home at Garscube near
Glasgow. The Archbishop frequently declared that this
quaint old house, with its wonderful turreted gateway,
its hideous carved faces grinning from every corner, and
its trim old-fashioned garden, was the very first recollec
tion of his life. His early reading-lessons were under
the charge, not only of his eldest sister Susan,1 whose
hands must have been more than full, but of Betty
Morton, no despicable instructress, and one rigidly accu
rate in exacting the daily quota of lessons.
In the autumn of 1818 Susan Tait was married to Sir
George Sitwell of Renishaw, near Chesterfield, and Archie
began a few months later to make acquaintance with the
beautiful Derbyshire home which was to be the scene of
many of his holidays for thirty years to come. Soon
after her marriage Lady Sitwell invited her four youngest
brothers to pay a long visit to Renishaw. Slow was their
method of conveyance thither. Under the faithful charge
of Betty Morton they were put on board a smack at
Leith. A dead calm soon came on, and seven days and
eight nights were passed upon the sea before the travellers
in hungry plight reached Hull, whence they had to journey
up the Humber to Gainsborough, and thence post. When
the visit came to an end, a plan was carried out, at Lady
Sitwell's instigation, which materially affected the whole
life of the future Archbishop. Time and skill had hitherto
done nothing towards curing the lameness of the two
little boys. Campbell's right leg was shrunk and feeble,
while Archie's feet were, to all appearance, hopelessly
deformed. Sir George and Lady Sitwell were bent on
sending the two children to Whitworth, in Lancashire,
where dwelt two doctors, famous for their general skill,
but especially for their cures effected upon twisted or
broken limbs. The father's consent was obtained, and
1 See vol. ii. p. 530.

1811-27] THE WHITWORTH DOCTORS 15
to Whitworth the little boys were sent, under the
guardianship of the faithful Betty.
Whitworth was then a small village — it is now a very
large one — three miles from Rochdale, in a wild and hilly
region. More than a century ago John Taylor, farrier
and blacksmith, carried on his profession in this village,
and was so successful therein that he began to practise,
as he expressed it, on 'humans.' Here also he succeeded
so well that his fame soon sounded throughout the neigh
bouring country, and his biped patients began to exceed
the quadrupeds in number, though he is said always to
have given the preference to the latter. His reputation in
the new branch of his profession was due mainly to his real
or supposed cure of cancers, and his skill in the setting
of broken bones, and in straightening twisted or con
tracted joints. Patients came to him from all parts of
England, and innumerable anecdotes testify, at the least,
to his shrewd common sense, his homely skill, his rough
independence, and his kindly heart. His charge was
eighteenpence a week for medicine and attendance. Any
further payment from his richer patients served to re
plenish the boxes from which the fees of those unable to
pay for his help were drawn. His fame advanced so
rapidly that before many years had passed he was sent
for by George III. to prescribe for the Princess Elizabeth,
whom he is said to have cured of some ailment which had
baffled all ordinary skill.
John Taylor had died before the two little brothers
were taken to Whitworth, but the business was carried on
by his son James and a nephew. James Taylor, who
is described as " a stout man in a blue coat, about fifty
years of age, having much the appearance of a well-to-do
farrier," seems to have inherited his father's eccentricities
as well as his skill. " He was often to be seen walking

16 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. i.
about before the house with an old hat slung before him by
a cord over his shoulders. In this hat he had a large lump
of some compound, which he rolled into pills as he walked
about. The hat was fairly saturated through and through
with the drug, and appeared to have been used for that
purpose for years."
His surgery is thus described by an eye-witness, who
visited Whitworth in this very year, 1819 : —
"There were more than a hundred patients in the village.
. . . Wretched invalids were to be seen on every side, some with
patched faces, some with an arm or a leg bound fast to a
board, some with splints on their arms, others moving slowly
along like spectres, in the lowest stage of physical exhaustion.
. . . The doctor's house was sufficiently pointed out by its
large size, and by the wooden machine standing in the street
before it, for fixing immovably horse patients when under their
hands. In the 'surgery' were some fifty patients waiting to
be dressed or examined. They were arranged in a row round
the room, and in one corner sat James Taylor, with his surgical
apparatus, consisting of the old shoeing-box of the blacksmith.
In this were a few bottles and pots of the invariable remedies
— ' keen,' a caustic ointment to which the Taylors had given this
name, 'green salve,' 'red-bottle,' some blisters and plasters
ready spread, a large wooden skewer or two, and some hurds.1
The patients came in succession before the doctor, and he
rapidly examined and dismissed them, ' flirting ' off the blisters
when necessary with the wooden skewers, or roughly dressing
with the ' keen.' Among his patients that morning was a stalwart
blacksmith, whose ill-set arm was in a primitive but effectual
fashion re-broken and re-set in the space of a few moments." 2
To James Taylor's care the little boys were now com
mitted, and the following account of his experiences was
dictated by Archbishop Tait himself fifty-two years after
wards : —
"No one but myself can give you the history of my life
1 Coarse undressed tow.
2 See A Biographical Sketch of the Whitworth Doctors; Rochdale, 1876.

1811-27] THE WHITWORTH DOCTORS 17
at Whitworth in 18 19. Camie and I, with dear old Betty,
lived in the Red Lion, a common public-house, but the best
in the place. Our sitting-room was the best parlour in the house,
with a sanded floor, adjoining the bar; our bedroom, a garret
up-stairs. In one iarge bed I slept with Betty, Camie in a
smaller one close to it. We soon made acquaintance with the
men who habitually frequented the house, — Jim o'Dick's and
Tom o'Simon's (their names being simply their Christian names
attached to their fathers') — the manners and customs of the
district being too simple to admit of a universal use of family
names amongst the working classes. The skittle-ground and the
tap-room were our places of conversation, yet I do not re
member much evil; probably we were too young to understand
or observe it, and certainly Betty kept a watchful look-out on
us. One great object of interest was, I remember, the court
ship carried on by young Lomax, the son of a farmer in the
neighbourhood, who was paying his addresses to Betty Lord,
the daughter of the fat old landlady of the Red Lion. This
was full of interest to us. We went to the doctor's every day
early to have the tin boots in which he kept our legs encased
properly arranged, and the progress of the cure attended to.
These tin boots hurt us very much, and I have often marvelled
how we were able to hobble about in them as we did all day
long, except the short time Camie had lessons from the village
schoolmaster, or read Latin with the clergyman of the parish,
Mr. Porter. I cannot recollect ever doing anything in the way
of lessons during the nine months I was there. I have since
been told I had writing ' lessons from this schoolmaster, but
either I have forgotten it, or he has confused me with my ,
brother. I do not remember ever reading story-books, but I used
to wander about with all sorts of mysterious thoughts, making
plays to myself out of them, and fighting all sorts of imaginary
enemies with my stick or whatever I could lay my hands
upon. Camie and I amused ourselves very well, and dear old
Betty was very kind to us, helping us in every way she could think
of. During the nights we were distressed by the tin boots, in
which we were obliged to sleep, but by degrees we got accustomed
to them. There was scarcely any one approaching to lady or
gentleman in the place, which was full of invalids of the lower
middle classes, chiefly with real or supposed cases of cancer,
or stiffened limbs, for the management of which the Whitworth
vol. 1. B

18 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. i.
doctors were famous. One of the brothers kept what he called
a pack of hounds, which were of course a continual source of
amusement. He went out with them after he had seen his
patients in the early morning, and in the evening, when the sport
was over, spent the hours in the midst of an admiring circle
in the tap-room of the Red Lion. This was the mode of life
of both the Taylors, yet to these men, under Providence, we
owed our restoration to the perfect use of our limbs. Probably
my brother's — dear Camie's — case was more difficult than mine,
for, though much deformed in shape, my feet were possessed,.
I imagine, of each bone and muscle in full vigour; therefore
they had only, as it were, to be formed into their proper
natural shape by continual gentle force, the force that comes
from constant pressure, while Campbell's limb had, from paralysis
while yet a baby, been weakened to that degree that its growth
had never kept pace with the rest of his body. Yet by the
strange treatment of these men it was perfectly restored, and
at the end of a year his lameness gradually wore off."
Returning to Edinburgh in amended health, Archibald
Tait was admitted in October 1821 1 to the celebrated
High School of the city. Up to the time of which we
write, and for many years afterwards, it was the habit of
most of the best-known families in Scotland to spend the
winter half of the year in Edinburgh, or, if not themselves
living there, to send their sons thither for education. It is
scarcely an exaggeration to say that almost every Scotch
man of literary or political eminence during the previous
century and a half had received his education within
the walls of the High School of Edinburgh. Of men
then living it may suffice to name Walter Scott, Henry
Brougham, Francis Jeffrey, and Henry Cockburn. At
the banquet given to Brougham on April 25th, 1825, the
future Lord Chancellor thus characteristically described
his former school : —
1 There is some little doubt about the precise date, and unfortunatelv the
High School Registers for these years have been lost. But the above is
probably accurate.

1811-27] EDINBURGH HIGH SCHOOL 19
"A school like the old High School of Edinburgh is
invaluable. And for what is it so? It is because men of
the highest and lowest rank of society send their children to
be educated together. The oldest friend I have in the world,
your worthy Vice-President,1 and myself were at the High
School of Edinburgh together, and in the same class, along
with others who still possess our friendship. One of them was
a nobleman, now in the House of Peers, and some of them
were the sons of shopkeepers in the lowest part of the Cowgate
of Edinburgh — shops of the most inferior description — and one
or two of them were sons of menial servants in the town.
There they were, sitting side by side, giving and taking places
from each other, without the slightest impression on the part
of my noble friends of any superiority, on their parts, over
the other boys, or any ideas of inferiority, on the part of the
other boys, to them ; and this is my reason for preferring the
old High School of Edinburgh to other, and what may be
termed more patrician, schools, however well regulated or con
ducted." It was here, and under these conditions, that Archibald
Tait received his first systematic education between the
years of nine and twelve. The Head-master, or Rector,
was Dr. Carson, and the number of boys in the school was
about 700. His education until his return from Whit
worth had been, as may be supposed, of the most desultory
and fragmentary sort.2 But his progress, once begun, was
very rapid. An extant poetical translation of some lines
from the second ^Eneid, done by him in Dr. Pyper's class
in the early months of 1824, would do credit to a much
older boy.
It was during his early school days that Archie ex
perienced his first great sorrow. Never, to the very
end of his life, was he able even to allude to it without
tears. His brother Campbell, who had been from earliest
1 Lord Douglas Gordon Hallyburton.
2 An extant letter to his sister, written June 15th, 1820, is more like the
handiwork of a boy of six than of eight and a half.

20 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. i.
childhood his inseparable companion, had always longed
to be a sailor. But his lameness had been such as to
render the fulfilment of the wish impossible. Now —
thanks to the Whitworth 'doctors ' — the lameness was.gone,
and the boy, to his unspeakable delight, was passed as fit
for service. He was to go to Portsmouth for the usual
training, and his departure was only delayed for a few
weeks because the attention of the household was taken
up by little Archie, who was sharply attacked with scarlet
fever. He rapidly recovered, however, and a farewell
party was given by Campbell to his school-fellows before
starting for Portsmouth. That evening, when the party
broke up, Campbell complained of feeling ill. Scarlet
fever in its most malignant form was upon him, and after
two days' illness he died. The shock to Archie, still weak
after his fever, was terrible, and he used himself to say in
later years that it had affected his whole life. The two
boys, whose strange experiences together at Whitworth
had forged a link between them of no ordinary strength
had become wholly dependent on one another. The loss
of his bright-eyed active brother was therefore the more
irreparable to Archie, who,unable to join in the rough games
of his school-fellows, was now more than ever thrown in
upon himself and his books for amusement and occupation.
In October 1824 Mr. Tait removed his son from the
High School to the newly founded ' Edinburgh Academy,'
where he took his place in the highest class. With this
important school he maintained through life so close a
connection that a few sentences seem desirable to explain
its origin and character.
Lord Cockburn, in the sparkling Memorials of his
Time}- writes of it as follows : —
" Leonard Horner and I had often discussed the causes and
1 Vol. i. p. 414.

1811-27] EDINBURGH ACADEMY 21
the remedies of the decline of classical education in Scotland.
... So one day on the top of the Pentlands — emblematic of
the solidity of our foundation and the extent of our prospects
— we two resolved to set about the establishment of a new
school. . . . [Sir Walter] Scott took it up eagerly. . . . We were
fiercely opposed, as we expected, by the Town Council, and (but
not fiercely) by a few of the friends of the institution we were going
to encroach upon.1 In 1823 the building was begun. It was
opened, under the title of 'The Edinburgh Academy,' on October
1st, 1824, amid a great assemblage of proprietors, pupils, and
the public. We had a good prayer by Sir Harry Moncreiff, and
speeches by Scott and old Henry Mackenzie, and an important
day for education in Scotland, in reference to the middle and
upper classes."
The school thus auspiciously founded rose at a bound
to the first rank of importance. Among its earliest
governors, or, as they were called, directors, were Sir
Walter Scott, Lord Cockburn, Francis Jeffrey, and Leonard
Horner. Its first Head-master, or Rector, was the Rev.
John Williams, Vicar of Lampeter, and afterwards, while
retaining his Scotch head-mastership, Archdeacon of
Cardigan. The character and work of the school are thus
described in a speech delivered by Principal Shairp on the
occasion of its ' Jubilee,' celebrated under the Archbishop's
presidency in 1874.
"Our founders,'' he said, "kept their eye on utility — little or
nothing on amenity. The situation they chose, the building they
erected, the six hours' continuous work by day, with nearly as
many more by night, required from the boys who stood near the
top, made the existence of most boys of my time somewhat too
unrejoicing. In vain you would look there for the green
' Playing-fields ' of Eton by the shining Thames, or even for the
green Close of Rugby with its venerable elm-trees, and all the
pleasant associations that gather round these. These things the
Academy did not affect. But it aimed at and affected careful
grounding, sound learning, and a most laborious work. And the
1 i.e. the High School of Edinburgh.

22 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. i.
result has been that no Academy boy ever learned any part of
scholarship there which he had afterwards to unlearn, go where
he might. Ten continuous months of as faithful teaching and
as hard a grind as any school in Britain ever knew, — this is my
impression in looking back to four years spent within the
Academy walls."
It was a day-school only. The boys lived at home
or boarded with Edinburgh families, their prepara
tion-work being carried on, in most cases, with the help
of a private tutor. But Archie had no such assistance.
His father's affairs were becoming more and more em
barrassed, and it was thought necessary to practise the
most rigid economy.
" In his earlier school-days," says Lady Wake, " the faithful
Betty was his only help in learning his lessons. She used to hold
the Latin books close to her eyes, diligently following each word
as he repeated page after page. ' Ay, it maun be richt ; it 's just
word for word, and it sounds like it,' was his encouragement, or
else a sudden lowering of the book, with 'Na, na, it's no that
ava',' would warn him that he was wrong. Of one principal part
of his education she was absolute mistress, and none could have
been better. She took care that he was out of bed early in the
morning, and allowed no relaxation on this point. This was no
unimportant help, for had he been left to himself, delicate as he
was, the little fellow would hardly have had the resolution
required." The school-year lasted from the beginning of October
to the end of July, and at its close the results of the year's
work and examination were announced, and the prizes
given by some public man, in the presence of an immense
assemblage of parents and friends. It is difficult for those
unacquainted with Scottish life, and especially the Scottish
life of fifty years ago, to realise the importance attached,
not in Edinburgh alone, but throughout Scotland, to the
doings and the speeches of this annual Exhibition Day.

1811-27] SCHOOL DAYS 23
At the close of his first year the name of Archibald Tait
stood third in order in the school, although the average
age of the upper boys was much higher than his own. In
his second and third years he obtained in each case the
gold medal as ' Dux ' of the whole school, besides carry
ing off prizes innumerable for Latin, Greek, English, and
French. The prize poems and essays, which were pub
lished at the time, attest alike the high efficiency of
the school and the vigour of the boy's own powers.
In particular, an English poem on the 'Conversion of
St. Paul,' and a set of Latin hexameters on American
Independence, are worthy of a more than ordinary prize-
poem immortality. On the 'Exhibition Day,' August
1st, 1827, the prizes were given by Lord Cockburn,1 whose
speech of earnest eloquence, addressed to the youthful
' Dux,' was long remembered by all who listened to it.
Tait's success on this occasion was remarkable. He had
secured no less than six of the foremost prizes in what
was already a school of the first order,2 and Lord Cockburn
was justified when he concluded his address in these
words : " Go forth, young man, and remember that where-
ever you go, the eyes of your country are upon you."
The pale-faced boy who stood forward as ' Dux ' and
prizeman in 1827 was called upon, as Dean of Carlisle, on
an 'Exhibition Day,' twenty-five years later, to give
away the prizes in the same room. His speech, too,
in addressing the ' Dux ' of the school, was one long
remembered, but probably no one present, except the
speaker, connected together at the time the speeches of
the two men, alike in earnestness of purpose, but char
acteristically different in tone. " I hope and believe that
1 By this name he is best known, but he was not made a Judge till 1834,
and in 1827 he was still Mr. Henry Cockburn.
2 The number of boys in the school in its first year was 372, in its second
year 440, and in its third year 519.

24 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. i.
you are going forth into life, not to seek the applause
which depends on the fleeting breath of your fellow-men,
nor that success which ends only in this life, but that you
-will remember that another Eye besides that of man is
upon you, and that a higher approbation is to be won
than that of your fellow-creatures."

CHAPTER II.
GLASGOW UNIVERSITY — MATRICULATION AT BALLIOL—
UNDERGRADUATE LIFE AT OXFORD.
1827-1833.
In October 1827 Archibald Tait matriculated as a student
of the University of Glasgow. FarTess change has been
wrought during the last half-century in the system of the
Scottish than of the English Universities. Now, as then,
the students in the University of Glasgow have but one
session in each year, lasting from the beginning of Novem
ber to the end of April. There is little which corresponds
to the college life of an English University. The students
live in lodgings where they will, and attend the professors'
lectures, the actual classes of each lecturer being very
much larger than is at all usual in any English University.
The expenses of a student can, in such circumstances, be
easily reduced to a far smaller sum than was possible,
until quite recent years, either at Oxford or Cambridge.
Scores of lads belonging to the working classes have, from
time immemorial, become students at the Scottish Uni
versities, earning enough money during the long summer
vacation, either by teaching or by manual labour, to pay
their way at Glasgow or Edinburgh during the six months'
session, and thus, living hard and straining every nerve,
to attain their desired end — a University education, and
admission, it may be, into the Scottish ministry.
In 1827 the number of students in the University of
Glasgow was about 1200. The Principal or resident

26 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. ii.
Glasgow was about 1200. The Principal, or resident
head, was Dr. Macfarlane, and the leading Professor was
Mr. Daniel Sandford,1 who occupied the Greek Chair.
Archbishop Tait used to maintain, in after years, that
Sandford was, from a professional point of view, the best
teacher he had ever known :
" He possessed in a wonderful degree the power of quicken
ing into life the latent intellect of his pupils. That he inspired
and kept alive the spirit of absolute enthusiasm which stimu
lated a class of three' hundred not very clever lads to press
forward in their studies, as in a race, is no slight evidence of
the ability and character of the man. To him and to Archdeacon
Williams I owe more than to any other teachers. I ought to add
that the Chair of Logic was held by another remarkable man,
Professor Buchanan, who, without any shining abilities, had a
peculiar power of developing the mind and intelligence of his
pupils by perpetually requiring them to arrange their ideas in
essays, which were read aloud and commented on in the pre
sence of the whole class. Some of the other Professors were
less capable, and the large classes of quite young lads were apt
to become boisterous. Some of the scenes I remember in the
Mathematical class would baffle description. ' Here, let off
these ! ' Henry Page called to me one day, handing me a bundle
of crackers. When I refused, he let them off himself, where
upon a student instantly fell down and pretended to be dead,
to the unspeakable terror of the simple Professor." 2
During the Glasgow sessions Tait had lodgings near
the College. There he was waited upon and tended with
motherly care by the faithful Betty Morton, who, having
1 He is commonly remembered as Sir Daniel Sandford, but he was not
knighted till 1830.
2 Tradition avers that the same Professor used to suffer terribly from the
pea-shooting propensities of his boisterous class, shouts of unmerciful laughter
greeting his plaintive remonstrances, "Gentlemen, gentlemen, this is verra
undignified; besides, it's sair." Even in the more decorous University of
Edinburgh the practice of pea-shooting has been not unknown on the
occasion of the installation of a Lord Rector, or, strange to say, even on the
occasion of the Principal's address at the opening of the session. The late
Principal Sir Alexander Grant used to describe his experience as that of
"peas with honour."

1827-33] GLASGOW UNIVERSITY 27
nursed him from his infancy, insisted upon remaining with
him throughout his Glasgow course. She guarded him
with keen vigilance, and his College friends had many
stories to tell of inexorable repulses from his door when
they ventured upon what she deemed intrusion into his
hours of study.
His father, who had throughout taken the warmest
interest in the precise details of his work, accompanied
him to Glasgow at the beginning of his first session, and
the following characteristic letter is only one among many.
In others of a similar sort he remarks that " four is a de
sperately early hour for rising " ; that he fears Archie
" does not take exercise enough " ; that he is to " continue
the excellent resolution of writing every essay and exercise
in the Logic class, for Jeffrey ascribes all his facility and
power of composition to doing so when he was at Glasgow."
The letters are full of shrewd and precise remarks about
books, politics, and the topics of the day.
Mr. Craufurd Tait to A. C. T.
"Edinr., 22 April 1828,
Tuesday forenoon.
" My dearest Archie, — I yesterday received your letter to ¦
James of Sunday's date, with the journal annexed. I rejoice
to observe that you have been continuing to go on regularly in
your studies, and that there has been no indolence or falling off
towards the end of the session. I am sure, my dear boy, the mode
you have conducted yourself since I took you to Glasgow in
October must be a source of pleasing reflection to yourself
in life, and in nothing more than the great happiness which
your excellent conduct has bestowed on me. The idea of your
keeping so particular a journal was a lucky thought of mine,
and I should advise you to continue to keep a similar one through
life; at least, in all events, until your education be completely
finished. All your journals I have preserved, and they should
be stitched together and kept. I noticed that you are to have
no exercise or reading at College after Saturday next; that the

28 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. ii.
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are to be employed in ad
judging the prizes;1 and that the exhibition on Thursday the
i st of May will conclude the session. I trust your fellow-
students will allot many prizes to you ; but at any rate I am sure
you deserve them. I agree with you that the boys are not always
strictly impartial, and I am told that there are many observations
on their conduct this year at the Edinburgh College. I hope,
however, you have a good chance for their votes ; for, indepen
dently of your attention and progress in your studies, I do not
think there can be anything in your manners unkind, or which they
could take offence at. You must write to me on the Thursday
night, and send to me the printed list by the coach or some safe,
attentive private hand. I suppose it will be printed on the Wed
nesday, and I trust your name will be often in it. During the -
three idle days at the beginning of the week, occupy your time
with walking a good deal, calling upon and taking leave of the
Lockharts, M'Farlanes, and all who have been kind to you, and
with reading some amusing English author. Have you read
Pope's Rape of the Lock, or Milton's L' Allegro or his Comus?
You have them with you. ... By the by, in little excursions
which you happen to make, as well as longer journeys, always
take with you some well-written, agreeable author, that you may
fill up pleasantly the broken hours which occur on such occa
sions. It might be a good thing for you and me to make out
a list with that view. By going on regularly, in taking one book
after another in such a list, it is wonderful what you may ac
complish without diminishing, but rather increasing, the pleasure
of your journeys. These are most proper and convenient times
to commit fine passages of the poets to memory.
" You know that I some time ago secured for you during the
summer an hour from Marriott 2 for Greek, and one for French
from Buquet.2 I have now also secured an hour three times
a week from Roberts for Elocution. The only others I wish
for you are one three times a week for Mathematics, and one
also three times a week for dancing. But I have not yet been
able to ascertain the best masters for these branches.
"Nothing this summer will give you hard work but the Greek.
Upon it, however, you must bestow great attention, and keep next
1 According to the custom in the University of Glasgow, the prizes are
adjudged by the votes of the students.
2 A master in the Edinburgh Academy.

1827-33] A DIARY AT GLASGOW 29
winter's Black-stone1 in your constant view. I am determined
you shall get it. I enclose a letter to Mr. Sandford, which you
will immediately deliver. It is asking him what Greek authors,
or parts of Greek authors, you should read during the vacation.
Mr. Marriott wished me to do this, and I am sure Mr. Sand
ford will give me good advice. God for ever bless you, my dearest
Archie, and I sincerely pray that He may enable you to pro
ceed as you have been going on, and that you may continue to
be the happiness, the pride, and the honour of your affectionate
father, Craufurd Tait."
The earliest portion of the " particular journal " to which
Mr. Tait alludes is not to be found, but the following
extracts, taken from that of 1829, will show that the
promise was faithfully kept : —
" 1829, Nov. 30, Monday. — Rose at 4\. 5-7, Aristotle.
Dressed. 7^-9!, College. Breakfast, etc. Read Spectator. Pre
pared Logic notes, n-12, Logic Class. Got ready, and went
out to walk (Botanical Gardens). Returned about z\. Till 4
revised difficulties in Euripides. Dined. \\-6\, read Euripides.
Tea, newspapers, etc. At i\ began again to read Euripides, but
did not get much done. Bed at 10.
" Dec. 1st, Tuesday. — Rose at 4\. 5-7, Greek verses. Dressed.
7-|-9-|, College. Breakfast ; Spectator (Addison on Wit). Pre
pared for examination in Logic Class. 11-12, College. 12^-2^,
with \ hour's interruption, difficulties in Euripides. Walked trill
dinner. Dined at 4.10. 4^-6J, Euripides with M'Kinlay. Tea,
etc. Went to Greek verses at *j\. Did not get on very well,
being tired. Went to bed at 10. . . .
"Deer, nth, Friday. — I have never found time to write my
journal for these few days. Have been working very hard at
Black-Stone preparation. On Wednesday I dined with Dr. Gibb,
but made amends by rising next morning at 3J, having gone to
bed by 9. This morning I rose at 20 to 5. Began to study at
1 Before entering any class, each student had to undergo an examination
on the subject of his last year's studies. This was called the " Black -stone "
examination, the name being derived from the fact that the candidates were
placed on a black stone seat. A prize was given to those who passed best.
The details are now somewhat different, but the name and the seat from which
it is derived are still in use.

3o LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. ii
S|. To \ to 7, Thucydides. Dressed. Prepared Herodotus
7^-9|, College. Breakfast; Spectator. Revised Logic notes.
11-12, College. Sat with Swinton for some time. \ to 2 to 25
to 4, Thucydides. Swinton came to me with my Logic notes and
sat till dinner. After dinner read three or four papers of the
Spectator. Journal. Began to read Thucydides about sf . Tea
for half an hour at 6|. Returned to Thucydides, and fagged
till \ past n with very little interruption. . . .
"15M Deer., Tuesday. — Rose about 4. From, I think, 4\
till 9, Thucydides. Dressed. Breakfast. Filled up notes. 11
to 1 2, Logic Class. Returned home. Studied till dinner. Studied
during evening. Lay down on my bed about 10. Rose again
at 12. To s| read Thucydides. Went to bed. Rose at 8|.
Dressed, breakfasted.
" Wednesday, i6tk. — At 10J returned to Thucydides. Con
tinued till 10 to 4. Swinton sat a few minutes with me. Dined.
At 20 to 5 returned to Thucydides. With 20 minutes' interrup
tion for tea, and about 20 again in the evening for two visitors,
worked till 5^ in the morning. Went to bed."
This was obviously exceptional work, at high pressure,
in immediate preparation for the coming examination.
But it gives clear evidence that there was now, at least, no
failure of working power.
His circle of intimate friends at Glasgow does not
appear to have been a very large one. Perhaps the most
intimate was Archibald Swinton, who had known him
from early boyhood, and had been his competitor and
friend at the Edinburgh Academy, where they were
together among the prizemen of the highest class.1
Another was Henry Selfe Page, who afterwards, as Mr.
1 To Mr. Swinton, who was Professor of Civil Law in the University
of Edinburgh from 1840 to i860, and was subsequently a candidate for the
representation of the University in Parliament, we are indebted for many
reminiscences. The intimate friendship remained unbroken till the Arch
bishop's death. The first act of Bishop Tait after his appointment to the
See of London was to marry his niece, Miss Sitwell, to Mr. Swinton, and
twenty-two years later Mr. Swinton's nephew married the Archbishop's
daughter.

r827-33] GLASGOW UNIVERSITY 31
Selfe, the well-known London magistrate, became the
Archbishop's brother-in-law. Among their fellow-students
were Archibald Smith of Jordanhill, who graduated at
Cambridge as Senior Wrangler, and a remarkable genius
named James Halley, son of the guard of the Perth stage
coach,1 who carried everything before him at Glasgow, and
whom Sir Daniel Sandford used in later years to introduce
as ' the man who beat Tait' 2
The triennial election of a Lord Rector by the votes of
the students makes all Scotch University students politi
cians. Political feeling ran high in Tait's Glasgow days,
and he seems to have been one of the foremost among the
orators and pamphleteers upon the Tory side. The Uni
versity Debating Society — the 'Athenseum' — had given
full scope for the exhibition of his already considerable
powers as a public speaker, and he took an active part in
an ineffectual endeavour to secure the Lord Rectorship in
1829 for Lord President Hope, the Tory candidate, against
Lord Lansdowne, the nominee of the Whig party, who had
held undisputed possession of the field for ten years. The
minutes of the Athenaeum Debating Society, of which
he was Secretary, and frequently President, exhibit him as
a less decided partisan. Among the causes he advocates
are Catholic Emancipation, Parliamentary Reform, the
maintenance of Church Establishments, and the inex
pediency of abolishing rotten boroughs. In 1829 he
became editor, with Swinton and Page, of a successful
1 See Our Little Life, by A. K. H. B., p. 145.
2 Another friend, five years older than himself, was John Morell Mac
kenzie, an English Nonconformist of very great ability. His compositions
distinguished him above all competitors in the Logic class, and were remem
bered by Professor Buchanan many years afterwards as standing entirely by
themselves. He became in 1833 a Congregationalist minister at Poole in
Dorsetshire, and subsequently held important charges elsewhere. He was
drowned in the wreck of the Pegasus off the Northumbrian coast on July
19th, 1853. See p. 53.

32 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. ii.
'College Album,' contributing to its pages both poetry
and prose.1
The students of the University had every opportunity
of becoming acquainted with any of the residents in or
near Glasgow who were disposed to show them hospitality,
and Tait had a special advantage in the fact that Sir
Archibald Campbell of Garscube, one of the chief
landed proprietors in the neighbourhood, was his uncle
and friend.2 His Sundays were frequently spent at
Garscube, and he used himself to declare that, as a
matter of fact, he owed his ' Snell Exhibition,' not to
any merits of his own, but to the ready and profuse
hospitality shown at Sir Archibald's table to the College
Professors, in whose hands the election lay.8 If such was
the case, it must at least be admitted , that the electors
were fortunate in the attainments of the nephew whom,
' to please Sir Archibald,' they decided to send to Oxford
upon the foundation of John Snell.4 Tait's career at
1 In a satirical account of the Debating Society which appears in the
Magazine, Tait is descr.bed as "a pale-looking youth, dressed in a single-
breasted drab greatcoat, black and white check pantaloons, and an oilskin
cap." 2 The somewhat confusing facts as to the Campbell family are as follows :
— Mr. Hay Campbell of Succoth and Garscube (Archbishop Tait's grand
father, see p. S) became in 1789 Lord President of the Court of Session, and
in accordance with Scottish custom took the title of ' Lord Succoth ' during the
tenure of his office as a judge. On resigning his judicial office in 1808 he was
made a baronet, and, dropping the title of Lord Succoth, was known as Sir
Hay (or Islay) Campbell till his death in 1823. In 1809 his son Archibald
Campbell became a judge, and adopted the same official title (Lord Succoth)
as had been held by his father. On his father's death in 1823 he succeeded
to the baronetcy, and, having resigned his judgeship in 1824, he was known
as Sir Archibald Campbell till his death in 1846.
3 In a speech at a Balliol dinner many years afterwards he referred to it
as a process of " natural selection."
4 John Snell had, in 1679, founded certain " scholarships or exhibitions
for the further education, at Balliol Colledge, Oxford, of schollars borne and
educated in Scotland, who shall each of them have spent three years, or two
at the least, in the colledge of Glasgow." The scholars were to be recom
mended to the authorities at Oxford by the Principal and Professors of
Glasgow.

1827-33] SNELL EXHIBITION

33

Glasgow had been uninterruptedly successful,1 and with
the single exception, perhaps, of James Halley, he
stood foremost among the students of the University.
Had it not been for this Exhibition, however, it would in
all probability have been impossible for him . to go to
Oxford. The clouds which had long darkened his father's
fortunes now burst forth in storm, and the family embar
rassments were such that no further funds were available
towards the expense of Archie's education.
His election as 'Snell Exhibitioner' did not relieve
him of the necessity of going to Oxford to matriculate.
"How well I remember," he wrote long afterwards, "the
gloomy journey through the deep snow, and my first impression
of Balliol. I slept at the ' Angel,' and next morning repaired to
Balliol at the hour Dr. Jenkyns, the Master of the College, had
appointed. Not feeling in high feather, I waited in the rooms,
afterwards so familiar, for the dreaded interview, and after a time
Dr. Jenkyns appeared, a little man, faultless in his academical
dress, with a manner that might be called finnikin, and speech to
match, his words seeming to be clipped as they left his lips. He
received me with a pompous kindness, saying, ' I will send for the
Senior Proctor,' a title which was intended to and did rather
overawe me, a freshman, not knowing that he meant simply
the tutor of the College, who happened then to hold that Univer
sity office. The Proctor shortly appeared in his black velvet
sleeves. I was invited to sit on a little sofa, and a book placed
in my hands. It was Lucan, a book of which I knew nothing, and
I was told to construe a passage that looked to me a mass
of difficulties. Catching, however, at the meaning of a few
words I saw that it was an account of Caesar in the boat
1 He obtained in 1828 the first prize in the Latin Black-stone Examina
tion ; in the Senior ' Humanity ' Class, first for Latin Verses, first for
English Verses, second for General Excellence, and second for Weekly
Exercises ; in the Junior Mathematical Class, third for General Excellence.
In 1829, first in the Senior Greek Class (Greek side). Lord Rector's
University Medal for best Latin poem, third prize in Senior Mathematical
Class. In 1830, first in Senior Greek Class (Logic side), first for Transla
tion from Thucydides, second in the Greek Black-stone Examination, third
prize in the Logic Class.
VOL. I C

34 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. ii.
between Brundusium and Dyrrachium, and with the courage
of the hero himself I dashed through the difficulties, and gave
a rapid, and providentially a correct, translation of Caesar and
his fortunes. The approbation of the Master and the Proctor was
very decided. 'And now, Mr. Tait,' said Dr. Jenkyns, in his
peculiarly clipped rather than polished English, 'allow me to ask
you with what view you come here ? ' This was rather a poser. I
knew nothing of the man who spoke, or of his peculiarities ; but
by a happy inspiration made reply : ' First, in order to study, and
also, I hope, to benefit by the society of the College.' I had hit
upon the very answer to please him. ' Mr. Tait,' he said, with an
approving smile, 'your answer is that of a very sensible young
man, and I am happy to welcome you to Balliol.' From that day
forward I always kept my place in the good books of the master.
While this process had been going on, little Oakeley, afterwards so
kind a friend, limped in to have a good look at his new pupil."
The matriculation over, Tait returned to Glasgow to
complete the session, paying a visit by the way to his
sister, Lady Sitwell, at Renishaw.
He was not yet nineteen years of age, and there is
nothing in the extant letters to show that he had as yet
announced or entertained any definite intention of taking
Holy Orders. It is, therefore, curious to find, in Lady
Sitwell's memorandum of this visit, that he was called
upon one Sunday evening at Renishaw, when the house
was full of visitors, to read prayers and give a short
address. He did so, and his sister's account says, " It was
a very striking sermon, and was listened to with pro
found attention. But he whispered to me at the close,
' I thought I should have fainted when I discovered that
there was no Lord's Prayer in the book. I really feared I
should break down.' "
This incident leads naturally to a short consideration
of what had been, up to this time, the religious training
and surroundings of the future Archbishop. For two
generations the family, as we have seen, had been Presby-

1827-33] 'THE LITTLE BISHOP' 35
terian, and into the Established Church of Scotland
Archibald Campbell Tait had been baptized. His father's
influence over him, admirable as it was in many ways,
had never been of a distinctly religious sort, and of his
mother he could have no remembrance. His earliest
education, both in religious and secular matters, had been
carried on by his elder sisters, Susan and Charlotte, with
the invaluable aid of the strict but faithful Betty Morton,
whose nursery regime has already been described. Desul
tory and unprofessional the teaching had necessarily been,
but of the loving motherly care bestowed by his sisters
on his early childhood he used all through life to speak
with earnest gratitude. Merry as he showed himself at
times, there seems to have been about the little boy from
the very first an almost pathetic seriousness. Certain it
is that, from whatever cause, or by whomsoever the name
was first given, he used to be called ' The little Bishop '
from the time he was six years old.
There was nothing precocious about those early years.
"In his first school-days," writes Lady Wake, "he and
Campbell used, during their holidays, to have some sort of
lessons in my room. They might easily have had a wiser
teacher, for, with a young girl's want of judgment, I gave them
the books I was most fond of myself, and was greatly disgusted
to find that they could not be appreciated. I still possess a
copy of Milman's beautiful poem, 'The Fall of Jerusalem,' in
which the passage beginning
' There have been tears from holier eyes than mine,
Poured o'er thee, Zion ! yea, the Son of Man,
This thy devoted hour foresaw and wept,'
is all blotted and blurred with dear little Archie's own tears,
caused not because he was stupid, but because his sister, who
was old enough to know better, was so foolish as to expect a
little child to understand it. When Dean Milman, long years
afterwards, had become the Bishop of London's intimate friend
he was much amused at hearing of the Bishop's first association
with his name and works."

36 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. ii.
Neither at the High School nor at the Edinburgh
Academy was any religious teaching of a denominational
sort given, the theory being that the religious instruction
of boys attending these day-schools would be amply cared
for at home. In Mr. Tait's family all such teaching was
in accordance with the doctrine and discipline of the
Established Church of Scotland, and the family ' sittings'
were in Old Greyfriars Church in Edinburgh, and, when
the household was at Harviestoun, in the parish church
of Tillicoultry. But before his studentship at Glasgow began, an
intimacy, which was to be life-long, had sprung up between
Archibald Tait and his cousin and school-fellow, Ramsay
Campbell, son of Sir Archibald Campbell of Garscube.
Sir Archibald's house, as we have seen, was next door
to Mr. Tait's in Park Place, and the children of the two
households were constantly together. The Campbells
were members of the Scottish Episcopal Church, and the
intimacy between Archibald Tait and Ramsay Campbell
had the effect of bringing the former, somewhat more
markedly than would otherwise have been possible, under
the influence of what then used, in Scotland, to be called
' the English Church,' and the two boys used, with Mr.
Tait's entire approval, to attend together the services in
St. John's Church in Edinburgh, of which the then incum
bent was Bishop Sandford.1
The following reminiscence must be given exactly as
it stands. It was found in the Archbishop's desk after
his death, written upon a sheet of foolscap, and folded by
itself :—
"fune 22, 1879. — I have been preaching to-day in Lambeth
Church on God's revelation of Himself in Jesus Christ, and
have dwelt on His revelation to individual souls, rousing them to
1 Bishop of Edinburgh, 1806 to 1830.

1827-33] 'REALITY OF THE WORLD UNSEEN' 37
think of heavenly things, and attend to the continued revelation
set before them in the Bible. The earliest recollection I have
of a deep religious impression made on my mind has often since
recurred to me with the vividness of having heard a voice from
above. I suppose I must have been some ten or twelve years
old. I had ridden over with my brother Craufurd from Harvies
toun to Glendevon to visit old Miss Rutherford, and stayed the
night in her house. I distinctly remember in the middle of the
night awaking with a deep impression on my mind of the reality
and nearness of the world unseen, such as, through God's mercy,
has never since left me. I have fallen into many sins of omission
and commission ; I have had many evil desires, and have gratified
them ; but this sense of the reality of the world unseen has re
mained with me through God's mercy. What the value of the
impression was it is •difficult to say, but that it was made by God
the Holy Ghost working on my soul I have no doubt. O Lord,
give me grace to preserve it to the end, and may that guiding
and guarding Spirit of holiness and purity, from Whom I believe
it came, ever be with me to give me an unfeigned repentance
for the sins which have defaced the holy image of God in my
soul, and worked on my natural corruption, leading me into
evil ! O Lord, keep me to the end, washing me in Christ's blood,
and making me fit for that glorious and holy presence, which
at that early age I faintly realised ! "
Ramsay Campbell did not accompany him to Glasgow
as a student, but his home, Garscube, was in the imme
diate neighbourhood, and Tait, as has been said, spent
many of his Sundays under Sir Archibald's roof. When
at Glasgow the church he usually attended was that
known as the Ramshorn Church. Its minister was
Dr. Welsh, who afterwards, as Moderator of the General
Assembly, headed, in 1843, the great Free Church
secession. The Archbishop, only a few days before
his death, more than fifty years later, spoke in terms
of the warmest thankfulness of the help he had re
ceived, as a student, from Dr. Welsh's earnest evange
lical preaching. Whether he was at this time a com
municant seems doubtful. He was certainly never a

38 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. ii.
communicant member of the Presbyterian Church, but it
is possible that, though neither of them was yet, for
some reason, confirmed, he and Ramsay Campbell may
together have occasionally received the Holy Communion
in the Scottish Episcopal Church both in Edinburgh and
Glasgow. As soon as his residence at Balliol began, Tait
applied to his tutor, Mr. Moberly, as a candidate for con
firmation, and after such preparation as was deemed
necessary, he was confirmed by the Bishop of Oxford.
His last session at Glasgow came to an end in
May 1830, and the months which intervened before he
began residence at Oxford seem to have been spent with
his father, partly in the Highlands and partly in Edin
burgh, where, at his father's desire, he attended lectures
on Chemistry, Botany, and other subjects. The friend
ship between father and son had always been very close,
and Mr. Tait evidently gave the most minute and pains
taking attention to the details of his son's education, and
looked forward to his future with characteristic confidence.
In October 1830 he went up to Balliol, furnished by
his father with all the introductions which forethought
could secure. On the way a week was spent in London
with Leonard Horner, who was not only the kindest of
friends to each and every member of the family, but
whose talents and character secured him the intimacy of
some of the foremost literary men of the day. The fol
lowing is the Archbishop's reminiscence, half a century
later, of his first introduction to London : —
" On board the steamer which carried us from Leith to London
was young Adair, returning from the moors with his father, Sir
Robert. We naturally made the sort of acquaintance one does
under such circumstances, and were together below when the
captain summoned us on deck with, 'Now, gentlemen, come
up, and you will see the finest sight in the world.' We instantly
followed him, and certainly it was a magnificent spectacle which

1827-33] BALLIOL 39
we beheld on entering the Thames towards sunset, — ships from
every quarter of the world, representing all nations, and the river
alive with boats. We steamed into the jostling crowd of vessels
of every size and description. It was quite dark when we reached
the Artichoke Stairs at Blackwall. For a moment I felt very
desolate, alone, and for the first time in great London. The
way to Leonard Horner's house in Gower Street seemed to me
interminable, but at length I found myself in the hospitable
home of my kind friends, with whom I was already intimate.
" In the morning I was provided with the names of the places
I ought to see, and with all necessary advice and directions ;
and in the next few days I lionised London far more thoroughly
than I have ever done since, even pushing my researches, for
the first and last time, into the ball of St. Paul's. I much en
joyed this week. I was but eighteen, but Leonard Horner treated
me as a man, asking pleasant people to dinner, and introducing
me to them. It was at this table that I first made the acquaint
ance of Herman Merivale, afterwards my life-long friend.
"Arrived at Oxford, I took possession of my rooms in the
top attics of Balliol, as completely a garret as could be imagined.
I was at once introduced to George Moberly, Tutor of Balliol,
whose favour had been bespoken for me. He asked me to break
fast with him next morning, which was Sunday. The party con
sisted of Herman Merivale — whom I had already begun to know,
— Manning, — whom I never did know well, — and Stephen
Denison. "Dr. Jenkyns followed up his first kindness by giving me
excellent advice, cautioning me as to the young Scotchmen from
Glasgow, who formed a set by themselves, not, in his fastidious
opinion, of the most desirable or creditable description, and
advising me to go in at once for the Balliol scholarship, which
was to be given in November. This advice I followed with
success, and the having obtained a scholarship after scarcely a
month's residence gave me an important standing in the College ;
and Jenkyns looked with increased benignity on the young
undergraduate, notwithstanding that he had been led to his
beloved Balliol by the helping hand of John Snell, to whom he
bore no good-will, looking upon his liberality in creating the
Glasgow exhibitions more as an impertinence than as a good
deed. "The scholars of Balliol, when I first joined them, were —

40 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. ii.
Payne, son of Sir Peter Payne of Bedfordshire (he had the first
of the open scholarships) ; Grove, who became Principal of Brase-
nose ; Whitaker Churton, afterwards Fellow of Brasenose ; Charles
Marriott, afterwards Fellow of Oriel ; Sir John Eardley-Wilmot ;
Elder, afterwards Head-master of Charterhouse; and Herbert,
a very clever man from Eton, strange and rough in his manner
— he was accidentally drowned when on a walking tour in Switzer
land. All these I found there. Blackburn was elected with me ;
he gained the first scholarship, I the second. The next year
came Lord Cardwell and Father Tickell of the Jesuits. After
them Vice-Chancellor Wickens and Dr. Holden, Head-master
of Durham; a little later came Arthur Stanley and Professor
James Lonsdale; then Lake, Dean of Durham, and Goulburn,
Dean of Norwich; Jowett, Sir Stafford Northcote, Arthur Clough,
Lord Coleridge, Chief-Justice of England, John Seymour, who
died early, and James Riddell. All these were my friends and
contemporaries ; but the men with whom I so habitually lived
that we acquired the name of ' the family party,' our rooms being
on the same stairs, were Bence Jones, Joseph Salt, Alexander.
Hall, and dear old John William Pugh, a truly Christian friend,
two years older than myself. This man, though never known
in public life, was one of the most saintly characters I have ever
met, and to me he was invaluable.
" I found my letters of introduction of the greatest use. One
was to Mills, the Professor of Moral Philosophy, who introduced
me to the acquaintance of Cramer, the head of New Inn Hall.
\Both Whately (at that time head of St. Alban's Hall, to whom
I had a letter from Sir William Hooker, Professor of Botany
at Glasgow) and Shuttleworth, afterwards Bishop of Chichester,
were in the habit of inviting me to their houses. No person of
any eminence ever came to Oxford without dining with Shuttle-
worth, and from his intimate relations with Holland House,
having been tutor to General Fox, Lord Holland's son, his
acquaintance was most extensive with all the intellectual lights
of the day. The invitations to his house, therefore, were of
the highest interest to a young undergraduate."

The Balliol scholarship won, and, his first term at
Oxford ended, he spent Christmas with the Sitwells at
Renishaw. The following is v/ritten thence : —

1827-33] BALLIOL SCHOLARSHIP 41
Mr. A. C. Tait to Mr. Archibald Swinton.
"Renishaw Hall, 19 Dec. 1830.
"My dear Swinton, — . . . These satirical hints and in
sinuations of yours were rather an agreeable variety. For, to
tell the truth, I am sick of letters of congratulation, written in
as high-flown . style as if I had been appointed Archbishop of
Canterbury at once, or been invited by the Poles on account of
my extraordinary merits to accept the sovereignty of their king
dom. I am sure when these letters are published in my Memoirs
they will be found a thousand times more bombastical than those
which I receive when promoted to the first named of these dig
nities. But I shall take good care that they are not published
in these Memoirs, for what a picture of Scotland would be pre
sented if it were known what a row Scotchmen made about one
of their number obtaining that which Englishmen are in the
habit of receiving every year. . . . Had it not been for the voice
of satire which pervades your epistle, I should have sworn that
you too were turned Whig with the new Ministry. ... I have
nothing to do here but vegetate, and regret extremely that my
brother-in-law has given up his hounds, with which I might have
had excellent fun this Christmas. . . . You need not fear for
me ; I am ashamed when I think how little I have done in the
way of reading this last term. I could do nothing else while I
was preparing for the scholarship, though I only worked what
we should have called hard at Glasgow for five or six days be
fore the examination. And after the examination was over I felt
as idly disposed as ever I did after a long essay for Buchanan.
I am doing nothing but reading English while here. . . . —
Your affect, friend, A. C. Tait."
Strange to say, the above is far from being the only
allusion in these early days to the Archbishopric of Can
terbury. It is, of course, a mere congratulatory common
place, when the rawest of youths takes Holy Orders, or
'eats his dinners' in the Temple, to remind him, as the
case may be, of Lambeth Palace or the Woolsack. But
in the case of Archibald Tait the allusion is so persistent
as to acquire an interest of its own. At least a score of
such references might be culled from the correspondence

42 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. ii.
of his early years, and from the recollections of his friends.
On his first visit to London, for example, of which mention
has been already made, "he came in," as a letter tells, " one
evening from a walk. ' Where have you been to, Archie ?'
he was asked, 'Walking through Lambeth,' he replied.
' Through Lambeth ! ' was the astonished answer ; ' why,
what ever possessed you to walk in Lambeth ? ' ' Well, I
wanted to see how I shall like the place when I get there.' "
A few years later his friend Mr. Hall writes :
"Ogilvie is flourishing about town, and Jones and I have
agreed to pay him a visit together at your future episcopal resi
dence next week."
(Mr. Ogilvie was chaplain to Archbishop Howley at
Lambeth.) And again, with reference to the disastrous
fire which occurred in the Houses of Parliament, one of
Tait's friends wrote to him as follows, on October 21st,
1834:— "I was seriously alarmed that I should have had to com
municate to you the intelligence that your palace at Lambeth
was burnt to the ground. It gives me great pleasure, however,
to be able to state that the only serious loss which you have
incurred consists in the total destruction by fire of the Bishops'
Bench in the House of Lords."
During his early undergraduate days, the man to
whom, according to his own account, he owed most, was
Frederick Oakeley, Fellow and Tutor of Balliol, after
wards the well-known Canon of the Roman Catholic
Church in Islington. Though Oakeley was ten years
older than Tait, and had been a tutor long before Tait
entered the College as an undergraduate, the two soon
became attached personal friends, and on one occasion
they spent some weeks together in Scotland during a long
vacation. " He never seemed tired," wrote the Arch
bishop long afterwards, "of doing me acts of kindness.

1 8a 7-33] FREDERICK OAKELEY 43
His mind was opened wide to religious impressions, and
the influence of Bishop Sumner1 and his friends had given
him a strong bias to the Evangelical school. This con
tinued more or less all through my undergraduate days,
but gradually he succumbed to the then almost irresistible
fascination of John Henry Newman."
As years went on, and Oakeley identified himself more
and more closely with the advanced school of the Trac-
tarians, the intimacy of his friendship with Tait was, of
necessity, impaired, but neither then nor afterwards,
through the course of their widely divergent lives, was
there any real break in their affectionate intercourse and
mutual regard. In his earlier Oxford days Tait seems to
have looked constantly to Oakeley for the advice and help
which were freely given. The following letter from
Oakeley is one among many of like sort : — "July 16, 1833.
" My dear Tait, — ... I hope you have not many induce
ments to idleness, or rather, that you are able to withstand
them. I think you ought to pay a good deal of attention to
Divinity, or I should rather say, I hope you read your Bible
with much attention. For I do not like the idea of reading
Divinity for the Schools at Oxford. Do, my dear Tait, make the
Bible the subject of your daily reading and reflection. I shall
be very glad — very glad indeed — if you distinguish yourself in
the Schools, but I care for nothing so much as that you should
improve in religious knowledge and feeling. For that will, by
God's blessing, guard you from caring too much either for success
or failure, and remember that it is the one thing needful, in
comparison with which all other subjects are as nothing."
It was not till several years after he had left Oxford,
and become a London incumbent, that Frederick Oakeley,
under the influences to which at Balliol he had begun
to yield, joined the Church of Rome, and entered its
1 Oakeley had been a favourite pupil of Sumner's.

44 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. ii.
priesthood.1 To extreme old age he retained his warm
affection for his former pupil, and he lost no opportunity,
in speech or letter, of giving expression to his regard.
When he felt himself dying2 he said to those about him :
" Let my dear friend the Archbishop of Canterbury know
as soon as I am gone."
Of Tait's undergraduate days there is not very much
to tell. He worked hard and successfully, but he does
not seem to have been widely known beyond the walls
of his own College, except for the prominent part he took
from the first in the debates of the Union Society.
In place of the boyish Toryism of his Glasgow days,
he was now, if we may judge from the Union records,
developing into an earnest and consistent Whig, and the
votes he gave in the Oxford Union were such as he would
have given to the end of his life. Before he had been six
months at Oxford, he stood forth, in opposition to
Roundell Palmer, to defend 'the Spirit of Democracy,'
and the happy results of Catholic Emancipation. In the
debates which followed the passing of the great Reform
Bill, his name appears regularly upon the popular side.
Twice within a year he urges " that no ministry can hope
to carry on the government of this country which is not
framed as well upon a principle of extensive practical
Reform as of preserving the established rights of property."
In 1833 he succeeded Edward Cardwell as President of
the Society. The last debate in which he took part was
on March 28th, 1835, when he affirmed "that a legislative
provision for the Roman Catholic priesthood in Ireland
would be a most beneficial measure." On a division the
motion was defeated by more than two to one, and upon
1 He went to London in the summer of 1839, and joined the Roman
Catholic Communion a few years later, being admitted to Priest's Orders in
the Roman Church in 1847.
2 On January 29, 1880. See vol. ii. p 525.

1827-33] THE OXFORD UNION 45
this question he found himself in a like minority through
out his life. But he never swerved from his first opinion,
even when he stood almost alone among his friends in
supporting it thirty-four years afterwards in the Irish
Church debates in the House of Lords.1
His prowess as a debater is immortalised in the once
famous Uniomachia of 1833, which records in wondrous
dog-Greek, with corresponding Latin notes, an internal
conflict which threatened the very life of the Union Society
The occasion of this epic was a debate upon the question
whether members of the ' Rambler ' Society, which had
recently been formed in the University, should be allowed
to retain their membership in the Union Society, with
which the Ramblers were supposed to be in rivalry.2 The
Homeric character of the poem was completed by the
publication of an English translation after the manner of
Pope. The Chairman on this occasion was Mr. Robert
Lowe, whom the English version thus describes : —
" In many a sable fold of honour dressed,3
The great Lowides towered above the rest ;
Before the faithful lines advancing far,
With winged words the chief provoked the war :
' O friends, be men 1 Be ours the noble boast
From Union rooms to drive a traitor host ;
Against our sovereign will they dare combine,
Form a new club, a different club from mine .—
Accursed crew, whose ruthless hands have gored
Their mother's breast with parricidal sword.' "
A vehement debate follows, and at last, as one of the
champions of the Ramblers, " With thundering sound
Tait shook his tasselled cap and sprang to ground
3 See vol. ii. p. 33- . j„t>i -m r -nr j
5 Among the 'Ramblers' were Tait, Roun^ell Palmer. V\ , G. Ward,
and Thomas Jackson, to whom, in conjunction with William Sinclair, is at
tributed the original Greek Uniomachia, the translations and notes being
subsequently added by other hands, among them Robert Scott, the late Dean
of Rochester. s Mr. Lowe was already a graduate.

46 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. ii
(The tasselled cap by Juggins' hand was made,
Or some keen brother of the London trade,
Unconscious of the stem decrees of fate
What ruthless thumps the battered trencher wait),
Dire was the clang and dreadful from afar
Of Tait indignant, rushing to the war.
In vain the Chair's dread mandate interfered,
Nor chair nor fine the angry warrior feared :
A forfeit pound the unequal contest ends,
Loud rose the clamour of condoling friends." '
Against the fine thus imposed " for disobedience to the
order of the chair," Tait, in the following term, appealed
to the House, but the decision of the future Chancellor
of the Exchequer was sustained by a majority of four
votes. " It is the only occasion," writes Lord Sherbrooke,
" on which I ever fined an Archbishop for disorderly be
haviour." In the summer vacation of 1833, when his under
graduate days were drawing to a close, Tait was one of a
reading party who spent some weeks at Seaton in Devon
shire, under the tutorship of Mr. Johnson, afterwards Dean
of Wells. The party attracted the notice of a dissenting
minister there, who was also a local poet, and who intro
duced a picture of the group into a poem, which he soon
afterwards published, under the title of ' Seaton Beach.'
The following lines occur in the poem : —
" And if Lavater rightly has defined,
From sign external, features of the mind,
1 Tfueiros 5' S.\to xapafc*
Kal tIXov pIpavSiiro-e, vebv Si re poOov Spoipev.
RiXov 'Itiyyivoos TroirjiraTO Kal K&pe xepolv
"H ris AovSeivov Tpd6(rp.a.V d\\' oi)K evtyr/tre
"Ev Toira Tore k&v rriXov 0vp\j/eo-0ai dyavi,
'Aoope'eoeiv 5' iBeXovri tpiXovs irpeoiSivrios airi^.
Xlyriv KO/xpavSei, 6r' &p' Ivrk^pvirre defiaTa'
'AXX' Sti TreptriaTei oiar-nvos (ptlverai DvirovvS.
Aeivij 5' fy Kkayy}) Xaaovrwv ijoe KXairbvraV
"JtrTar' aeiobuevbs Te.- Kal airif BoiXerat alpa.

^27-33] DEATH OF HIS FATHER 47
He whom near yonder cliff we see recline
A mitred prelate may hereafter shine ;
That youth, who seems exploring Nature's laws,
An ermined judge may win deserved applause."
The youth who was to become a ' mitred prelate ' was
Archibald Tait, and the future ' ermined judge-' was
Roundell Palmer, who, revisiting Seaton as Lord Chan
cellor of England just fifty years afterwards, was enter
tained by the Corporation of Exeter, and mentioned in
his speech that Archbishop Tait, in writing to congratulate
him on receiving the Great Seal, had reminded him of the
Seaton poet's prophecy. Lord Selborne added that the
poet had apparently been forgotten in his own country,
for that he had in vain inquired after him and his book a
few days before.
Meantime there had fallen upon the life of Archibald
Tait another great sorrow — the death of his father.
Mr. Tait's health had been visibly failing for some time
past, and he had refused in the spring of 1832 to make
his usual visit to Harviestoun. " No, I do not wish it ; I
shall soon be walking in even fairer gardens with your
beloved mother." His letters testify to the unabated
interest which he continued to feel till the very last in the
Oxford career of his youngest and favourite son. The
dispositions of father and son were singularly unlike one
another, but the friendship and mutual confidence which
existed between them had been remarkable ever since
Archie, as a little child, used to ride about the grounds of
Harviestoun with his father, seated on a little pad in
front of his saddle. In later days, when Archie was at
school, long walks and rides with his father formed his
chief holiday amusement. He used afterwards to tell
how, in these rides over the Ochils, near Harviestoun,
and when in Edinburgh, in the long rambles on foot

48 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. ii.
over the Salisbury Crags and Arthur's. Seat, he had
drawn infinite stores of information on facts both past
and present from the ceaseless flow of his father's
conversation. Mr. Tait, whose memory was singularly
retentive, had been an omnivorous reader, and he
liked nothing so well as an attentive listener. Eccen
tric and unbusiness-like he certainly was. His son
recounts, for example, how, " when my brother Tom left
home for India in 1826, my father took James, Craufurd,
and myself with him to accompany Tom upon the first
part of his journey. Together we embarked at Leith in
the London steamer. Suddenly, in the middle of the
night, my father decided to go on shore at Berwick, by
means of a boat which had accidentally put out with a
passenger. Next day he took us for a long walk into
England, and falling in with a stranger on our walk, we
all accepted for a night his equally sudden hospitality,
and returned next day to Edinburgh." Of course these
unplanned excursions were full of charm for the boys,
who immensely enjoyed their father's companionship.
To Archie he specially devoted himself. His letters are
a curious mixture of shrewd precision and strange fancies ;
and he continued till his death to write to Archie as
though he were still a little boy. He enjoins him to be
sure to " wrap up well " ; " to sit in the coach with his back
to the horses " ; " to buy a road-book, and to be sure to get
a cheap one "; not to be imposed on by coachmen or guards
(this is followed by a tariff of what he ought to give) ; to
read some entertaining book in the coach — " perhaps the
two last volumes of Chesterfield's Letters, or Hume's
Essays, or Addison's papers in the Spectator " ; to go to
bed early ; to work hard at his Greek — " for ancient Greek
is not unlikely to become the living language of modern
Greece, especially if a proper system of Infant and Ele-

1827-33] DEATH OF HIS FATHER 49
mentary Schools be set on foot there to teach it," and
there is very much more advice of similar character.
The father's tender love was as tenderly returned, and
it was a heavy sorrow to the son when the old man lay
quietly down to sleep on the 10th May 1832, and never
rose again. He was just breathing when they came to
him in the morning, but he was quite unconscious, and in
a few minutes he died. A memorandum-book was after
wards found in his study, containing elaborate notes of his
ideas respecting his youngest son's studies, and expressing
not only his unchanged pride and joy in him, but his
unabated confidence in his future greatness.
To Archie, the shock of this sudden death was terrible.
A faithful biography should record, when possible, not
only the deeds and words of him who is its subject, but
some at least of the influences which have combined to
mould his life. In such a connection the following letter
from Lady Wake may find a place : —
"We have all a sad loss, but to you, my dearest Archie,
I feel that it is the greatest, for he was to you both a motive
for exertion and a reward to success, for what could be so stimu
lating as his anxious interest, and what so delightful as the
gratified happiness with which each new successful effort filled
his heart? But even now, though he is no longer here, his
memory remains as a more sacred influence.
"In speaking of him now, many will recur to his loss of
fortune, and the imprudences which perhaps caused it. But it
is in your power, my Archie, to cause that in future he will
only be spoken of as the father who formed a great and good
man, useful to his country in that manner in which the benefits
bestowed survive time, to be acknowledged in eternity. ... We
have been counting your age, and are amazed to find that you
will be twenty-one next birthday. I had thought you were still
a child, and behold, you are a man ! "
He took his degree, November 28th, 1833, obtaining a
first class in the Final Classical Schools. "I do not
vol. 1. D

50 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. ii.
know," he says, " how much this success was due to my
vivA voce examination in Aristotle, which was conducted
by William Sewell, but I know that Sewell, in consequence
of this examination, recommended me to several pupils,
and always had a friendly feeling towards me through his
long, chequered, and sadly overclouded life."
Immediately on taking his degree he went to Scotland
for Christmas. It proved a great comfort to him that he
had so arranged, for he was thus enabled to repay in some
measure the tender love and devotion with which old
Betty Morton had watched over his infancy and boyhood.
It is surely a fact worth noticing that three at least
among the leading public men of our generation — Lord
Shaftesbury, Lord Lawrence, and Archbishop Tait, have
each of them, in recalling the main influences which con
tributed to mould their lives, assigned a foremost place to
the nurse of their early years.1 Maria M illis, Margaret
Morse, and Betty Morton deserve one and all to be grate
fully remembered by the English men and women of
to-day. And, as Lord Lawrence's biographer has said,
there are few ties more sacred and more indissoluble
than those which unite the younger, ay, and the elder,
members of a family to an old and trusted nurse. Witness
it some of the most exquisite passages in all literature,
from the time of Deborah the aged nurse of Rebekah, or
Eurykleia the nurse and confidante alike of Telemachus
and Penelope, right down to the ' Lord of the Isles ' and
the ' Lady of the Lake,' or, again, to Tennyson's ' Nurse
of Ninety Years,' or, we may add, to Alison Cunningham,
the heroine of Stevenson's touching poem.2
Finding herself no longer equal to the long stairs in
1 See Lord Shaftesbury's Life, vol. i. pp. 39, etc. ; Lord Lawrence's Life,
vol. i. pp. 133, etc.
*- Dedication of A Child's Garden of Verses.

1827-33] DEATH OF BETTY MORTON 51
the Park Place house, Betty Morton was now living in
lodgings, visiting the family frequently, and interested as
ever in all their concerns. One day, towards the end of
December, she was taken ill. The ailment seemed slight
at first, but by the time her beloved Archie arrived she
was in high fever, and occasionally distressed in mind.
He never left her side except once, when he went to
obtain the aid of Mr. Craig, a clergyman of the Scottish
Episcopal Church, in order that the old nurse and her
grown-up charge might together receive the Holy Com
munion, which at that time was rarely, if ever, admin
istered privately in the Presbyterian Church, of which
Betty was so staunch an adherent. When the Holy
Communion had been celebrated, Mr. Craig left the two
alone together. All night the young man sat by the old
nurse's bed, and spoke to her words of peace and comfort
as she was able to bear' it. She died with her hand
clasped in his as the morning broke on the first day of
1834. His Rugby journal, twelve years later, contains the
following entry : —
"31^ December 1845, \ to 12. — At this hour, twelve years
ago, I sat by the bedside of almost my oldest and dearest friend.
Grant that no length of years may make me forget what I owe
to Thee for having given me in infancy and childhood, when
motherless and helpless, so kind and good a friend."

CHAPTER III.
OXFORD — BALDON — BON N.
1834-41.
Tait had now set his heart upon obtaining a Balliol
fellowship, and in the meantime, being entirely dependent
for income upon his own exertions, he remained at Balliol
and took private pupils. It was the birth-time of the
storm which was to shake the University to its centre.
Cardinal Newman dates the start of the Oxford move
ment from Mr. Keble's ' Assize Sermon,' preached in the
University pulpit on July 14th, 1833, a few months before
Tait took his degree.1 Then came the famous Had-
leigh Conference, and in September the first of the
Tracts for the Times. It was impossible for a man of
Tait's temperament to be uninterested in what was going
on, but it was as yet mainly an interest from outside.
His natural sympathies and his Scotch training were alike
unecclesiastical, and he does not seem to have been
brought at that time into personal contact with any of the
leaders of the new movement. '
" It was a strange experience," writes Principal Shairp, " for
a young man trained anywhere, much more for one born and
bred in Scotland, and brought up a Presbyterian, to enter Oxford
when the religious movement was at its height. He found him
self all at once in the midst of a system of teaching which un
churched himself and all whom he had hitherto known. In his
simplicity he had believed that spiritual religion was a thing of
eta, p. 100,

1834-41] THE 'OXFORD MOVEMENT,' 1833 53
the heart, and that neither Episcopacy nor Presbytery availeth
anything. But here were men — able, learned, devout-minded
men — maintaining that outward rites and ceremonies were of the
very essence, and that where these were not, there was no true
Christianity. . . . Now and then it would happen that some
adherent, or even leading man of the movement, more frank and
outspoken than the rest, would deign to speak out his principles,
and even to discuss them with undergraduates and controversial
Scots. To him urging the necessity of Apostolical Succession,
and the sacerdotal view of the Sacraments, some young man
might venture to reply, ' Well ! if all you say be true, then I
never can have known a Christian. For up to this time I
have lived among people who were strangers to all these things,
which, you tell me, are essentials of Christianity. And I am
quite sure that, if I have never known a Christian till now, I
shall never know one.' The answer to this would probably be,
'There is much in what you say. No doubt high virtues, very
like the Christian graces, are to be found outside of the Christian
Church. But it is a remarkable thing, those best acquainted
with Church history tell me, that outside of the pale of the
Church the saintly character is never found.' This naif reply was
not likely to have much weight with the young listener. It
would have taken something stronger to make him break faith
with all that was most sacred in his early recollections. Beautiful
examples of Presbyterian piety had stamped impressions on his
memory not to be effaced by sacerdotal theories or subtleties of
the schools. And the Church system which began by disowning
these examples placed a barrier to its acceptance at the very
outset." l
The following letter to his old Glasgow friend, Morell
Mackenzie, who had become a Nonconformist minister at
Poole, shows the bent of Tait's sympathies at this time : —
Mr. A. C. Tait to the Rev. f. Morell Mackenzie.
"27 March 1834.
"My dear Mackenzie,— ... I have commenced taking
pupils in Oxford, which I find not at all an unpleasant employ-
1 Studies in Poetry and Philosophy, pp. 240-242.

54 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. hi.
ment, as the books in which men wish to be lectured before
going up for their degree are principally those which I am most
fond of — the Ethics and Rhetoric of Aristotle, Butler's Analogy,
and such like. It makes me feel very old to have so soon be
come an instructor of others, instead of merely a learner myself.
I return to Oxford in a fortnight, and shall continue residing
there till next Christmas, at least, as there will be a vacancy in
the Balliol Fellowships about that time, for which I hope to be
allowed to stand. Should I, by any wonderful degree of luck,
contrive to be elected, I shall remain in Oxford, and probably
become a College Tutor. But if the more probable alternative
occurs, I shall then look about me for a country settlement.
You seem to doubt whether my High Church notions, contracted
in this seat of 'port and prejudice,' will allow me to hold any
dealings with those without the pale. I hope I am not a
bigot, but I confess myself much more of a) High Churchman
than I was ; nor has the Church of Scotland so much of
my admiration as in former times. Have you seen the essays
on the Church by Seeley the bookseller's son? I like them,
though not quite so much as I expected; but certainly I think
that he gives some hard hits to Mr. James of Birmingham, who
appears to be the champion of your party. I have also been
reading Girdlestone's plan for altering the Liturgy, so as to em
brace Dissenters. I am afraid no alterations could quite con
ciliate your friends, who object totally to the principle of an
Establishment, but perhaps some judicious concessions might
bring us nearer, though we could hardly be quite united. Your
intimacy with the clergy in your neighbourhood looks well.
I suppose you approve highly of the Cambridge minority
petition.1 I cannot, nor do I see what good any party would
gain from such a step. You are surprised at my launching into
all these topics, but I want to irritate you to an answer, that
we may not forget each other, even though I may not be able at
present to accept your kind invitation, nor you to trust your non
conforming person in Oxford. If you come, I will guarantee your
personal safety. — Hoping to hear soon from you, I am, your very
sincere friend, Arch. Campbell Tait."
1 A petition signed by sixty members of the Senate of the University of
Cambridge in favour of abolishing Religious Tests in that University, was
presented in the House of Lords by Earl Grey on March 21, 1834, and gave
occasion to an important debate. — Hansard, vol. xxii. pp. 497-522.

1834-41] ELECTED FELLOW OF BALLIOL 55
The summer vacation of 1834 brought a new ex
perience. It was the first of a series of long vacations, in
each of which he travelled abroad. His companion on
this first occasion was Mr. Oakeley. They went to
Holland, up the Rhine, and home by Paris. His rough
diary bears evidence of the care he invariably took
to pick up accurate information upon the statistics and
politics of 'lands other than his own. It used often to be
remarked in later days what an unusual interest the Arch
bishop took in the internal politics of Germany and
France, and this may in great measure be ascribed to the
basis he had early laid of accurate information upon
subjects about which most Englishmen know very little.
The Fellowship election came on in November 1834.
Tait believed himself to have failed in the examination,
and he has often described how he was sitting in his room,
in disappointed and anxious thought, listening to the bell
ringing for evening chapel, when the door flew open, and
his friend Tickell rushed in to drag him off to the chapel
to take his place among the Fellows.
So began a new life, with many new friends. On the
same day with himself was elected to a Balliol Fellowship
a man who was to play no small part in the coming
fortunes or misfortunes of the Church in Oxford. William
George Ward at the time of his election was a strong
Radical, and an admirer of Dr. Arnold, but he was
destined before long to fall, like others, under the spell of
John Henry Newman, and to become, in his own peculiar
fashion, a leader in the fray.
No sooner did Archibald Tait enter on his Fellowship
than he seems to have tried to inaugurate reforms of
which, as an undergraduate, he had felt the need. But he
was able to do very little in this direction until he became,
a year later, a Tutor of the College. In December 1834,

56 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. iii.
just after his election as Fellow, he began to keep a rough
journal of an altogether different kind from that which has
been quoted above. It was almost entirely devotional,
and from the irregular and haphazard way in which it is
written, in old half-used note-books, and the like, with
pages crossed and torn, it seems at first to have been
intended rather as a mode of systematising for himself at
the moment his religious thoughts and prayers and
resolutions, than for any future reference, even by himself.
It would be unsuitable, for every reason, to quote freely
from this 'journal,'1 if so it can be called. But a few
sentences from it here and there are almost essential to a
faithful picture of his life.
"Friday, Dec. 12, 1834. — A fortnight ago I was elected a
Fellow. Do I feel sufficiently the weighty responsibility which
has devolved on me, to , use my utmost exertions that the in
creased means placed in my hands may be made subservient in
all things to God's glory, the good of my fellow-men, and of my
own soul? O God, do Thou enable me to keep these things
more in view. ... I have now not even the poor excuse of being
forced to spend so much of my time in worldly concerns. Hence
forward my worldly business, as well as my Christian duty, is
God's service."
"fune 21st, 1835. — It is now more than six months from
the time of my writing the above ; I fear me that time has not
been improved as it ought. ... I must take more pains to be
come intimate with people if Ward's account of my stiffness be
correct, for there is no good to be done in Oxford unless one
is intimate with undergraduates. ... I know I shall do nothing
without fervent prayer, and I cannot have that unless my heart
be touched. Let me not lose sight of my Ordination. Though
there is no hurry, its approach should be a strong stimulus."
In the long vacation of 1835 he was again in France
and Belgium, and kept a systematic diary. On the fly
leaf is the following characteristic note : —
1 He called it so, but the entries are quite irregular, and many weeks
sometimes elapse between them.

1834-41] ORDAINED DEACON 57
"Mem. — To inquire about L'Universite de France — Educa
tion — Cours de France — Juges — Election a la Chambre des
Deputes — L'Universite de Paris — Qui est-ce qui nomme les pairs ?
— Loi de Primogeniture — Succession aux titres de la noblesse —
Sorbonne." In Paris they had some French lessons from a M. de
Maison. " He gave us a wonderful rule for the genders of
nouns — all with un are masculine, with une feminine."
On returning to Balliol in October 1835 he was
requested by the Master to undertake the tutorship
vacated by Moberly's appointment to the Head-mastership
of Winchester. Looking back upon it forty years after
wards he wrote as follows : — " A totally new field of
interest was opened to me in the tutorship of the fore
most College in Oxford. Of course I succeeded to some
eminent pupils whose time was 'already half over : among
them Arthur Stanley, James Lonsdale, and Wickens. But
my own peculiar class, with which I began my lectures,
was certainly not undistinguished, including Waldegrave,
Goulburn, Lake, Sir Benjamin Brodie, Jowett, and Hugh
Pearson. I was established in Moberly's rooms, the best
in Balliol, and I am vain enough to think that my lectures
were as good as any others in the College, and that for
a young man of twenty-three I found myself in a some
what unusual position of importance and usefulness."
On Trinity Sunday, 1836, he was ordained Deacon on
his College Fellowship, by Dr. Richard Bagot, Bishop
of Oxford. The Ordination sermon was, to his great
delight, preached by his friend Mr. Oakeley. The entry
in the 'journal' is as follows : —
"May 28, 1836. — I have now for three terms been public
Tutor, and what a field of usefulness has this opened ! I trust
I have not forgotten the great responsibility which has devolved
upon me, but still, how little have I done ! Thirteen immortal
souls committed to my charge, and that at the most critical

58 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. iii.
period of their lives. As far as the mere teaching goes, I be
lieve I have done my duty, but I have not laboured for their
moral and religious good as I ought. Remember that I must
give account. To-morrow will see me an ordained minister of
Christ, bound to labour in season and out of season for the good
of souls. O God, give me strength, by Thy grace, never for one
instant to lose sight of my spiritual duties to my pupils. Some
of them are fitter to teach me in heavenly things than I to teach
them. ... I must live more a life of prayer. I must pray for
them. ... I rejoice in the prospect that to-morrow I shall be
authorised, bound, to teach and exhort. I trust there is no pre
sumption in saying that my dedication to the ministry is prompted
by the Holy Ghost. O God, give me a greater measure of Thy
Spirit ; enable me to labour in Thy service, giving myself wholly
to it, for Christ's sake. Amen."
It must have been after making this entry that he was
summoned to what seemed at the time to be the dying
bed of his pupil, Samuel Waldegrave, with whom he
remained throughout the night. Thirty-three years later,
when Archbishop of Canterbury, he knelt once more by
the sick-bed of Samuel Waldegrave, then Bishop of
Carlisle, and was present at his death, on October ist,
1869.1 Notwithstanding the large number of clergy then
resident in Oxford, some of the country parishes in its
immediate neighbourhood were in a terribly neglected
state. About five miles to the south-east of Oxford, on the
rising ground between the Thame and the Isis, lies the
district of Baldon, or, in its old form, Baudendon, a tract
of sparsely populated land, once under the supervision of
the monks of Dorchester. One Peter de la Mere had
built and endowed a chapel there in 1341, and in process
of time 'De la Mere's Baldon,' now corrupted into
'March Baldon,' passed, with its neighbouring parish of
1 See vol. ii. p. 46.

1834-41] CURACY OF BALDON

59

Toot Baldon, into the hands of the Willoughby family.
In 1836 the Rev. Hugh Willoughby, Vicar of both 'the
Baldons,' was resident abroad in ill-health, and the two
parishes were left untended. A few months after his
Ordination, Tait volunteered, to the amazement of his
friends, to undertake the vacant curacy. It was not an
attractive or enviable charge. The straggling cottages
were occupied by agricultural labourers and a few small
farmers. The two churches were in extremely bad repair,
and there was neither salary nor vicarage-house available.
But Tait was bent upon the task, and, with the warm
approbation of the Bishop, he was duly licensed to the
curacy on August 30th, 1836. He was at that time strong
and active, but March Baldon is full five miles from
Balliol, and he soon found that with his increasing tutorial
work the efficient charge of the two parishes was more
than he could compass single-handed. Accordingly he
turned for help to his trusted friend and counsellor, Mr.
Oakeley, who replied as follows : —
"London, Nov. 26th, 1836.
"My dear Tait, — I am sorry to find by your letter that
you have any doubts of being able to go on with your curacy.
To offer you the sort of help which you say you will not allow
me to offer you, is the utmost I can at present do, — I mean
that of assistance to any extent, short of a positive undertaking
of the curacy in conjunction with you. ... I will say more when
we meet. Do not by any means think of giving up the curacy,
or entering into any other arrangement till I see you. If you
find the curacy with the tutorship too much for your health you
must undoubtedly give up the former; the latter is a very
sufficient responsibility. . . . — Ever yours affectionately,
"Frederick Oakeley."
Failing to obtain Mr. Oakeley's co-operation, he
succeeded after a time in enlisting the aid of two friends,
both senior to himself— Mr. Johnson, Tutor of Queen's,

60 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. hi.
and Mr. C. P. Golightly of Oriel. They rendered him
efficient help for several years, especially during the long
vacations, but he retained the sole responsibility for the
parish, riding or walking from Oxford several times a
week, usually sleeping on Saturday nights in the hired
cottage which served as an apology for a parsonage, and
returning to Balliol in time for the College Service on
Sunday afternoon. For five years he carried on this work
with unremitting care, and in all the changes of his after
life the recollections and the lessons of March Baldon
never passed away. To the very close of his life he used
to recount with a certain humorous pathos the quiet
obstruction offered by the farmers to his Sunday-school,
and the difficulties of a rustic congregation on a hot
summer's day, and the petty quarrels and flirtations and
ambitions of his village choir. When inaugurating in the
diocese of London his then novel and unconventional
plans of Home Mission work among the poor, he helped
to justify them by a special reminiscence of his Baldon
days, using these words from the pulpit of St. Paul's in
his Primary Diocesan Charge : —
"I cannot but remember how, when a curate in a small
village in Oxfordshire, I marvelled at the excitement raised in a
quiet and dull place by the gathering of the Methodists on a fine
summer's day on the Common, under the shadow of the old
trees ; how the voice of their preacher, sounding through the
stillness of a listening crowd, and the burst of their hymns peal
ing far and wide through the village, seemed well suited to attract
and raise the hearts of many who never entered within the
Church to join in its measured devotion, and listen to its calm
teaching." 1
Assuredly no picture of his Oxford life is a true one
which regards him merely as a busy college tutor, and
forgets his steady and persevering work under most
1 Charge of 1858, p. 83.

1 834-41] WORK AS TUTOR OF BALLIOL 61
unfavourable conditions in a very unromantic country
parish. But his foremost charge, of course, was Balliol. And
College duties were in the meantime multiplying fast upon
his hands. Changes among the Fellows followed in rapid
succession. Oakeley, though he did not finally leave Oxford
and settle in London till 1839, was now very frequently
absent, and felt it right to resign his tutorship. Thus before
Tait had completed his twenty-sixth year he found himself
the senior and most responsible of the four Balliol Tutors.
Rev. f. W. Pugh to Rev. A. C. Tait.
"Manaravon, Llandilo, May 23d, 1837.
" My dear Tait, — You will wonder why I have not written
to you before, and I have no other excuse than that, like your
self, I have no taste for letter-writing. ... I hope, my dear Tait,
you are going on prosperously in College. I have been thinking
a good deal since I saw you what a very trying situation yours
must be; I mean that it must be one of considerable danger
to a young man. Oakeley being gone, and you therefore the
Senior Classical Tutor, the affairs of the College must be a good
deal under your control. Now I do not know how it is with
you, but with regard to myself I am sure the least success has
a tendency, without very great watchfulness, to draw away my
mind from God, and I know how the best of men have been
allowed to fall when at any time they have forgotten to live in
entire dependence on Him.
" If I may speak my mind to you, I should say ambition was/
one of your greatest snares, and I am sure there are others of
your friends who think so too. Beware of it, my dear Tait, for
I do not think there is anything more likely to dim the eye of
faith. . . . You see I am not afraid of telling you home-truths,
and one reason is that I know you too well to think you will
be offended. . . . — Your affectionate friend, "J. W. Pugh."
These were eventful years in Oxford. The spell of
Mr. Newman's influence was at its height, and the Tracts

62 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. hi.
for the Times were in full circulation. It would be out ol
place to discuss here the causes and character of the
influence exercised by the famous Tracts. The fact of
their success, however it be explained, is beyond dispute,
and surprise has sometimes been expressed that no more
serious attempt should have been made at the time to
counteract their influence by the issue of any similar
series upon the other side. The following letter would
seem to show that the possibilities of such a scheme were
at least under consideration, though nothing came of it : —
Mr. A. Hall Hall to the Rev. A. C. Tait.
"London, J any. 20th, 1837.
"My dear Tait, — We were very sorry not to have the
pleasure of seeing you in town. . . . Jones and Oakeley are
regular Newmanites, and hate moderate men, and scout your
notion altogether. Oakeley says, if he writes at all, it will be
for the Oxford Tracts.. He is more virulent in old Jones' com
pany than out of it. I think myself there is something in the
idea. But I want you to define your moderate men, and give
something of a plan to your work : whether is it to refute
doctrinal or political dissenters, to convert antagonists, or to
fortify Churchmen in their own opinions? These would require
and might allow of a very different cast of arguments. . . .
" On the whole, ' Our Judgment is ' that you had better mature
your opinions, and try them by the test of years before you com
mit yourself. ... If, however, disregarding Jones and Oakeley,
who are much more decided on the subject than I am, you still
determined to write, I will give you any assistance I can, or
at least I will promise to buy and read. I will not promise to
distribute till I know that it is sound. . . . — Believe me, very
truly yours, Alexr. Hall Hall."
The immediate cause of such a scheme coming under
consideration was probably the publication of Mr. Richard
Hurrell Froude's Remains. This book, which appeared
in the last months of 1836, was a shock to many who had

1834-41] CONTINENTAL TOUR 63
followed the ' movement ' thus far without serious mistrust.
Mr. Newman's Tract on the Breviary had been published
a few months before, and it now became evident that
there were two forces at work among the Tractarians, one
of which, whether consciously or not, was tending de
finitely Romewards. For the present, however, there
was no open rupture.
In the long vacation of 1837 Tait was again
abroad, first with W. C. Lake, and then with Ramsay
Campbell. His diary is full of notes about the systems
in vogue for the support of church fabrics, the mainten
ance of the clergy, the various systems of elementary
education, and the like. Their route comprised Antwerp,
Cologne, Bonn, Frankfort, Strasburg, Berne, the Simplon,
Milan, Verona, and Venice. Thence home by Innsbruck,
Munich, and the Rhine. "English Protestants," he
writes, "should gain a lesson from the multitude of little
chapels one sees everywhere." Verona and Venice seem
to have captivated him beyond all other places on this
long and comprehensive tour. Monasteries and libraries
he visited whenever it was possible, and described their
pictures and books with curious and painstaking accuracy.
Towards the close of the year 1837, the Rev. Walter
Kerr Hamilton, who was at that time Vicar of St. Peter's,
Oxford,1 appealed to Tait to exchange his pastoral work
at Baldon for a curacy under him in Oxford. Tait at
first welcomed the suggestion : —
" I cannot but feel that such a connection might be of the
greatest use to myself as a preparation for the most important
duties of my profession, and as I enjoy the blessing of very good
health and strength and lungs, and have not the slightest objec
tion to hard work, perhaps I might hope not to be an inefficient
assistant to you. I feel also, what is of still greater importance,
1 For an account of Mr. Hamilton's views and position at this time, see
Canon Liddon's Sketch of Walter Kerr Hamilton, pp. 12-15.

64 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. hi.
that the views of Christian truth and practice which. I know you
to hold are such as I have long been, I trust, sincerely attached
to, however far short I have fallen in carrying them out."
The proposal, however, came to nothing, as it was
found that there would be the greatest difficulty in per
suading any one to undertake the work at Baldon, and
also that the duties in Balliol would clash with those in
St. Peter's.
"I look upon my College duties as paramount, and I think
that for many reasons I should do wrong in withdrawing from
the tutorship at Balliol. For the next two terms I am positively
engaged to deliver a lecture each Sunday evening in the College
Chapel." The beginning of the year 1838 seemed likely to be
marked by a very important change in his life. News
reached him that the Professorship of Moral Philosophy
in his old University of Glasgow was about to be vacant,
and his friends urged him to become a candidate. The
position was one of great importance and large emolument,
But there was in the forefront a religious difficulty.
Certain subscriptions were required of the Glasgow
Professors, and among them was one expressing ad
herence to the Westminster Confession of Faith. Sir
Daniel Sandford, though son of the Bishop of Edinburgh,
and himself a decided Episcopalian, had not found in the
subscriptions any obstacle to his own tenure of the Greek
Professorship, and to him accordingly, as an old friend and
trusted counsellor, Tait wrote as follows : —
The Rev. A. C. Tait to Sir Daniel Sandford.
"Balliol College, 30th J any. 1838.
"My dear Sir Daniel, — I have lately been informed that
there is likely, at no distant period, to be a contest for the Moral

1834-41] A GLASGOW PROFESSORSHIP ? 65
Philosophy Chair in my old University. The subject of Moral
Philosophy is one to which I have devoted much of my time for
several years, and in which I have been engaged in lecturing
in this College for the last two years. I should therefore be
anxious to offer myself as a candidate if there were any reasonable
hope of success, provided I could do so without at all compromis
ing my duty to the Church of England, being, as I am, one of
her clergy, and warmly attached to her doctrine and discipline.
I am so ignorant on the point that I do not even know whether
it is lawful for a clergyman of the Church of England to hold a
Scotch Professorship, and I should feel very much obliged if
you could tell me what is the state of the case. Perhaps
you would be good enough to let me know what the declaration
or subscription is which a Professor is called upon to make, and
what is the meaning of the subscription as generally understood
by the body who impose it. I am very sorry to give you so
much trouble, but a Chair in my old University is a situation
which I should value so much that I trust you will forgive me
for trespassing on you, and will let me know what candidates
are already in the field, if any have as yet declared themselves.
. . . — Yours very truly, A. C. Tait."
This letter Sir Daniel Sandford never received. He
was stricken with fever on the very day it was written,
and a few days later Tait heard from his intimate friend
Mr. Swinton, who announced to him Sir Daniel's death,
and expressed his conviction that Tait ought now to
stand, not for the Chair of Moral Philosophy, but for the
still more important Professorship of Greek. Mr. Swinton
mentioned at the same time three gentlemen, "all bigoted
Episcopalians," who had found no difficulty in signing the
Confession. The Greek Professorship was worth at least
£¦1500 a year, with a house, and his presence in Glasgow
would be required for only six months in each year.
Tait, who maintained the warmest affection for his old
University, determined at least to test the question of the
obligatory subscription by becoming a candidate. He
accordingly wrote as follows to his brother :—
vol. i, K

66 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. iii.

The Rev. A. C. Tait to Mr. fohn Tait.
"Balliol College, Feb. 9, 1838.
" My dear John, — Poor Sandford's death is a most sad and
striking thing. It is specially striking to me, seeing that I wrote
to him on the subject of the Moral Philosophy Chair about ten
days ago, and had an answer from Ramsay, he being in bed.
Ramsay declared there was nothing to prevent a clergyman of
the Church of England holding a Chair. The Principal expressed
a different opinion. Now, here is the point. I should like of
all things to succeed poor Sandford, but I will on no account
make any declaration whatsoever that will compromise my duty
to the Church whose minister I am, and to whose doctrine I am
sincerely attached. I have again looked hurriedly at the Confession
of Faith. An assent to all its articles as matters of my belief
I cannot see how I can give. Two doctrines in particular —
that of God having foreordained a portion of His creatures to
damnation, and that the Elect can be infallibly assured of their
salvation in this life — are no parts of my creed ; therefore to say
that they were would be a lie, and however such a statement
may be gulped by men in general, I could not gulp it. A mere
acquiescence in the articles as the formulas of the Church of
Scotland, a declaration that I recognise that Church as the Estab
lished and lawful Church in Scotland, and that I have no objec
tion to its worship, would be very weil. The Principal, to whom
I wrote on the subject of the Moral Philosophy Chair, sent me
a declaration which is far too strong to be made by any clergy
man of the Church of England. Must the articles of necessity
be signed ? What is the interpretation put by the imposing body
on the signature ? Is there a declaration which must of necessity
be made.? Might one sign under public protest? These are
questions which I put to you as a lawyer. I am exceedingly anxious
on the subject, and should like the situation very much, provided
it can be consistently held by a clergyman continuing to act as
such. I beg you to sift the matter thoroughly, and to ascertain
exactly the law of the case. I shall in the meantime announce
myself as a candidate conditionally, and mean to write this even
ing to the Principal and others. I shall state my intention of
becoming a candidate if the situation can be held by a clergy
man of the Church of England. — Your affectionate
"A. C. T,"

1834-41] STILL IN DOUBT

67

In his letter to the Principal he says :—
"I shall without doubt offer myself as a candidate for the
Chair, provided it shall appear on examination that I could con
scientiously hold the situation, reserving to myself liberty of
conscience, and the free and public exercise of my own mode of
worship as a clergyman of the Church of England. ... I hope
your friendship will attribute what I say on the subject of my
opinions to my anxious desire to act in perfect fairness at the
very outset in proposing myself to your kind consideration. I
should be proud, indeed, to return to my old University as a
Professor, but could never consent to do so by a compromise of
my duty to the Church of England. I am the minister of that
Church, and bound to uphold publicly her doctrine and discipline."
Two days later, while the question of subscription still
remained open, he writes thus to his brother : —
The Rev. A. C. Tait to Mr. fohn Tait.
"Balliol Coll., nth Feb. 1838.
" My dear John, — I have just time before post to call your
attention to what has struck me. There is a party in this Uni
versity who have become somewhat famous of late (vide the last
Edinburgh Review), persons who hold extremely High-Church
doctrines about Episcopal authority, and who regard the Kirk
of Scotland as the synagogue of Baal. With these it would be
peculiarly hard if I was at all identified on the present occasion,
as I have spent my breath and influence for a long time back in
protesting against their (what I conceive to be) most dangerous
and superstitious opinions. . . ."
With respect to the necessity of formal subscription,
• the answers which he received from Principal Macfarlane
and Dr. M'Gill, though personally they were most en
couraging and laudatory, were quite uncompromising,
both in their hostility to the Episcopalian system, and in
their adherence, as of necessity, to the Calvinism which
Tait had declared himself unable to accept. His Scotch
friends, who naturally wished to see him again settled

68 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. iii.
among them, quoted to him instance after instance in
which well-known Episcopalians had held Scotch Pro
fessorships (other than those of Divinity) and made the
necessary subscriptions. But he remained firm, and
before many days had passed withdrew finally from the
contest. To his brother he wrote : —
"I will answer your letter explicitly. You ask if I will sign
the Confession of Faith without qualification. To this I answer
decidedly and distinctly, No. ... I have nothing to do with
judging other people, but it seems to me that a man who, in
tending to remain an Episcopalian, sets his hand to such an un
qualified declaration, does neither more nor less than write one
thing and mean another. It is no use to mention instances of
good people, such as  , who have done so; this only shows
how good people may differ as to what seem plain matters of
duty. . . . Again, you ask whether I would take the situation on
the understanding that I was not to act publicly as an Episco
palian clergyman in Glasgow. To this I answer as distinctly and
decidedly, No. I trust there is no situation on earth which I
would accept on such terms; certainly there is none, I think,
which I could so accept without a violation of my ordination
vow. You now understand my mind, I trust, perfectly. . . . The
whole subject is, no doubt, beset with difficulties, but it appears
to me the electors have only to choose between two fair alter
natives. One is, to confine the Professorships to Presbyterians,
or those who are ready to become such; the other, openly to
admit Episcopalians when they see fit, reserving in their own hands
the power of enforcing subscription in the case of any dangerous
appointment. . . . The Professorship would have been pleasant
as a settlement among you all. I shall be sorry if they appoint
an indifferent successor to Sandford. . . . Good-bye. Withdraw
my name, when you see fit, and let me hear soon. — Yours ever,
" A. C. Tait."
In a subsequent letter to the Principal he emphasises
his own withdrawal by sending a testimonial in favour of
another candidate, Mr. Robert Lowe.1
This episode over, Archibald Tait set himself once more
1 Now Viscount Sherbrooke.

1834-41] RESIDENCE AT BONN 69
to the hard work of his Balliol tutorship and his Baldon
curacy. He was ordained Priest on Trinity Sunday 1838.
No diary for that year is to be found, and indeed the diaries
in those Balliol days were not kept with any regularity,
though there are occasional and spasmodic efforts, which
recall, in the minuteness of the entries, the 'particular
journal ' kept for his father in the Glasgow days. From
these it appears that, besides what was necessary for
his lectures, he was engaged at this time on a wide
course of general reading. The following is part of a
long list of books which he seems to have studied care
fully in the years 1838-39 : — Locke on Toleration, Glad
stone on Church and State, Thirlwall's Greece, Adam
Smith's Wealth of Nations, Strype's Memorials, South's
Sermons, Whately's Lectures on Political Economy,
Palmer's Origines Liturgicae, Dugald Stewart's Philo
sophical Dissertations, Archbishop Seeker's Lectures.
Like every one else in those years, he seems to have^
read Newman's sermons with avidity. They appear
again and again in his journal, and it is evident that
he was paying the utmost attention to the development
of his teaching. He was giving much thought, too,
to educational questions, and in the summer of 1839
he determined to spend some months, not, as hereto
fore, in foreign travel, but in systematic residence anck
study at a German University. He selected Bonn, which \
he had already visited once at least, arriving there
on June 22d, 1839. Various Oxford friends spent a few
days with him in turn, among them W. C. Lake, Arthur
Stanley, and Edward Goulburn. True to his invariable
wish to combine a certain amount of pastoral work with
his studies, he volunteered to be responsible for the duties
of English Chaplain, and preached almost every Sunday
during his three months' stay. But his object in going to
Bonn, and the success with which he attained it, are best

70 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. iii.
attested by the following testimonial which was given to
him three years afterwards, when a candidate for the
Head-mastership of Rugby : —
From Dr. F. G. Sommer, Professor at Bonn.
"The Rev. A. C. Tait came here in the year 1839, at which
time I first made his personal acquaintance. His object was to
inform himself more nearly concerning the state of German litera
ture and education, especially to become acquainted with our
Prussian University system and methods of instruction, and also
^to form lasting connections with German men of letters and Pro
fessors. This aim he accomplished with the happiest results
during his residence here of three months, and afterwards by a
literary journey to Germany. Intimately versed in our language,
of which he became master partly by the study of our literature,
partly by the personal intercourse with Germans, he was enabled
to attend the lectures in our University; and I have often re
marked in our discussions the great interest which he took in
and his intimacy with those subjects. This practical information
of the method of instruction pursued by us Mr. Tait perfected
by means of his acquaintance and literary intercourse with several
of our most eminent Professors, through whom he became theo
retically informed of the whole system and views of our Univer
sities. . . . He did not less turn his attention to other Institutes
of Education in our country. He was introduced into the
different classes of the Gymnasium, and learned in this way, by
his own experience, the arrangements, method, and extent of
instruction in our schools. . . .
" I hope to have shown that Mr. Tait spared neither time nor
pains to become acquainted with the system of education pursued
in the Prussian dominions. — I sign myself, Gentlemen, your
obedient, humble servant,
"F. G. Sommer,
" Licentiate and Docent of Protestant Divinity in
the University of Bonn."
On leaving Bonn he travelled for several weeks
with two German Professors, visiting their homes, and
sedulously gathering and tabulating precise information
as to the various systems of German education both for

i834-4i] STUDIES IN EDUCATION 71
the upper and lower classes. In the following year he
was again abroad, accompanied by Goulburn, Lake, and
Stanley, and during part of the time by Sir Charles and
Lady Wake.
These frequent foreign tours, and especially the pro
longed residence at Bonn, obviously gave him an excep
tional knowledge of the affairs both of Germany and
France. They were no mere holidays, but times of hard
and systematic work, and he used constantly to refer in later
years to the usefulness of the particular knowledge he had
acquired. The subject of Education, then a less popular
topic than now, continued to absorb much of his attention.
A pamphlet which he published in 1839,1 advocating
certain changes in the professorial and tutorial system at
Oxford, attracted wide notice in its careful and sugges
tive comparisons between the English, Scottish, and Con
tinental systems, about all of which he was now able to
speak from personal experience.
With reference to his work as Tutor of Balliol, Principal
Shairp writes as follows : —
"When in October 1840 I went into residence at Balliol,
Tait received me as his pupil, for at that time all the under
graduates were divided among the four Tutors, as their pupils,
over whom they had a special charge and responsibility. I con
sidered myself fortunate in having Tait for my Tutor, for he was
not only the senior, but by far the most influential of the then
Balliol Tutors. The Master, Jenkyns, was a sort of constitutional
monarch, and Tait was his Prime Minister, on whom he leant, to
whom he looked for advice and support with absolute confidence.
The other Tutors and the younger Fellows, several of whom had
been his own pupils, might each of them be cleverer in this or
that line of scholarship, but they all felt that there was in Tait a
manliness and sense and a weight of character to which they
could not but defer. The undergraduates all respected and liked
1 Hints on the Formation of a Plan for the Safe and Effectual Revival of
the Professorial System at Oxford. By a Resident Member of Convocation.

72 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. iii.
him. They felt that there was no getting round him. His
shrewdness, his dry and not unkindly humour, were too much
for them ; and if any one, more forward than the rest, tried to
cross swords with him, he had in his calm presence of mind an
impregnable defence. . . . He was, I think, the first man in
Oxford to appreciate the as yet unrecognised genius of Arthur
Hugh Clough. I remember his excitement when, in the summer
of 1 84 1, Arthur Clough, to the dismay of Balliol, got only a
second class in the Final Schools. Tait was furious, and went
about the University loudly denouncing the incapacity of the
examiners. ' They had not only a first-rate scholar, but a man
of original genius before them, and were too stupid to discover
it.' He would fain have had him elected to a Balliol Fellowship,
but it was ruled otherwise, and Clough went to Oriel. I remem
ber Tait saying that a paper which Clough wrote on the character
of Saul, during the competition for the Balliol Fellowship, was
the best and most original thing he had ever known in any
examination." Besides his keen interest in the intellectual work of
his Balliol pupils, Tait had a deep and, for that time,
quite an unusual sense of personal responsibility for the
quasi-pastoral charge committed to him in the College.
On November 16th, 1839, his diary contains the
following entry : —
" Mem. — What can be done for the College servants ? what
to make more of a pastoral connection between the tutors and
their pupils ? What can be done for making the tutor more fully
superintend his individual pupils' reading without mere reference
to the Schools ? what for reviving provisions to enable the lower
classes to profit by the Universities, as they did when Servitor-
ships existed?"
With respect to the first of these points — the pastoral
care of the College servants — a formal letter was written
to the Master by Tait a few months later, embodying a
definite proposal made by himself and three other Fellows
of the College. They promised to hand over ^300 to

1834-41] CARE OF COLLEGE SERVANTS 73
trustees on condition that the interest should be given
as an honorarium to one of the tutors, appointed by the
Master, for the definite weekly instruction in chapel of
such of the College servants as might be willing to attend.
The names appended to the memorial, or deed of gift,
are A. C. Tait, W. G. Ward, Robert Scott, and E. C
Woollcombe. The master discovered many difficulties in the way of
giving effect to this plan. But they were overcome at
last, and the journal of 1841 (a few days before the publi
cation of the Four Tutors' Protest against Tract XC.) has
the following entry : —
"Ask Wednesday, 24 Feby. 1841. — I have spent much of this
day in prayer, though, I fear, it has come too little from the heart.
I have begun to-day a most important work in the teaching of
the boys among the College servants. O God, send Thy blessing
on this endeavour. Above all, lead my own heart aright, or
how can I teach others? Lord, I thank Thee that Thou hast
smoothed the way for carrying out this plan for the College ser
vants. . . . Grant Thy Spirit to teacher and taught, that it may
not all end in dead formality."

CHAPTER IV.
OXFORD — TRACT XC. — LETTER FROM DEAN LAKE.
1841.
Tait's influence now extended beyond the limits of
Balliol. His position in the University had become a
prominent one, and his friendships, both there and else
where, were multiplying fast. Between him and some of
his older friends a certain degree of estrangement had
necessarily arisen. Many of them were by this time
closely identified with the school of Mr. Newman, and
Tait's sympathies were markedly, and perhaps increasingly,
leading him in an opposite direction. Among the Fellows
of Balliol, Mr. Oakeley and Mr. Ward were now enthusi
astic and prominent Tractarians,- and from his necessary
intimacy with them and with their friends, Tait had
ample opportunity of forming his own judgment as to the
character and probable issue of the opinions they had
embraced. What that judgment was has already been
shown in one of the letters he wrote about the Glas
gow Professorship.1 It is not surprising, therefore, to
find, from a correspondence which took place between
Mr. Oakeley and himself in the winter of 1838, that they
now 'agreed to differ' upon matters of the highest
importance. In the course of the correspondence, which
relates to an entirely different subject, Tait remarks in
cidentally : — 1 See above, p. 67.
74

1841] OAKELEY AND WARD 75
"You must be fully aware that for some time back (owing,
I always supposed — I hope erroneously — to your own wish) I
have not seen so much of you in private as I once did, and as
I have always desired."
To this Oakeley replies : —
" As to what you say of our not meeting so much of late, I
am glad you have said it, because it is open and friendly. If
you have much felt it, I am sorry you have not said it before.
The fact is this : It seems to me we have agreed far better since
we have met less. Disputing with friends I cannot bear, and
yet, as we do not quite agree on essential matters, and each feels
strongly his own way, dispute we must. You have kept your
opinions ; I have a good deal changed mine. ... In one respect,
our intercourse is to me far more satisfactory than of old, in that I
do not think we encourage one another in our faults as we used.
Anything is better than that."
With Mr. William George Ward, who was elected to
a Balliol Fellowship on the same day as himself, Tait's
friendship had been of a different character. Their in
timacy was great, but the friendship had never been of so
sacred a sort, and, perhaps for that very reason, it was less
interrupted by the increasing divergence of their religious
views. In Mr. Mozley's Reminiscences ^ Ward is described
as representing
"the intellectual force, the irrefragable logic, the absolute self-
confidence, and the headlong impetuosity of the Rugby school.
Whatever he said or did was right. As a philosopher and a logi
cian, it was hard to deal with him. He had been instantaneously s
converted to Newman by a single line in an introduction to one
of his works to the effect that Protestantism could never have
corrupted into Popery. . . . Ward's weight in the University was
great, and that weight he brought to Newman's cause, though
eventually he became a very unaccommodating and unmanageable
member of the crew. Ward, I must add, was a great musical
critic, knew all the operas, and was an admirable buffo singer."
1 Vol. ii. p. 5.

76 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. iv.
Since Mr. Mozley's reminiscences were published,
Mr. Ward's son has given to the world in graceful form a
detailed and careful account of the life and opinions of
this powerful and eccentric man.1
Archbishop Tait, who always appreciated and liked
him, used to give an amusing picture in after years ol
Ward's peculiarities of appearance and manner in Oxford.
Immensely stout, very careless as to his apparel, brilliant
in conversation, with a restless love of argument and
repartee, and fond above all things of producing startling
effects — he was not a man whom those who had
known him would be likely to forget, while his kindness
of heart and genuine goodness made him cling to old
friends, even when they differed from him most widely.
These two stood foremost among Tait's Tractarian
friends. He was never on intimate terms either with Dr.
Pusey or Dr. Newman ; but in the wide circle of his
Oxford associates he had abundant opportunity of form
ing a competent judgment both as to the characteristics
and the results of the new Church Revival. How far he
ever appreciated its best points must remain a matter
of opinion on which it is not probable that his critics
will agree. Principal Shairp thinks he entirely failed
to do so : —
" His Scotch nature and education, his Whig principles, and,
I may add, the evangelical views which he had imbibed, were
wholly antipathetic to this movement; so entirely antipathetic
that I do not think he ever, from first to last, caught a glimpse
of the irresistible attraction which it had for younger and more
ardent natures, or of the charm which' encircled the leaders of it,
especially the character of John Henry Newman. To his down
right common sense the whole movement seemed nonsense, or
at least the madness of incipient Popery. Evening by evening,
in Balliol common-room, he held strenuous debate with Ward,
1 William George Ward and the Oxford Movement. Macmillan, 1889.

1841] THE ROMEWARD MOVEMENT 77
who was a champion of the new opinions. To Tait's stout re-
assertion of the old Protestant fundamentals, momentum was
added by his high personal character and the respect in which
he was universally held."
Be this as it may, it is certain that Tait very early
perceived what was the issue to which his friend's opinions
must necessarily lead, and that his profound distrust of
the teaching which he had seen Oakeley and Ward imbibe
was based on no accidental prejudice, but on a deliberate
conviction, the truth of which became apparent before
many years had passed.
"Mr. Ward," his biographer tells us, "openly avowed his
adherence to Newman's party in the latter part of 1838. There
was, about this time, a considerable accession to the ranks of the
party of able men with directly Roman sympathies. . . . Mr.
Ward's party commenced its action with a new and startling
programme. . . . Rome was directly looked on by them as in
many respects the practical model ; the Reformation was a deadly
sin; restoration to the Papal communion the ideal — even if
unattainable — aim." 1
Dr. Newman has himself narrated how, in this very
year (1840), he began to see, much more clearly than his
followers yet saw, whereunto his teaching must necessarily
lead : —
" People tell me that I am, whether by sermons or otherwise,
exerting at St. Mary's a beneficial influence on our prospective
clergy ; but what if I take to myself the credit of seeing further
than they, and of having in the course of the last year dis
covered that what they approve so much is very likely to end
in Romanism ? " 2
So he wrote to a friend in 1840. But the letter was a
private one, and this, his view about his own teaching, was
not made public until long afterwards. On the contrary,
as Mr. Palmer, himself a contributor to the Tracts, has
1 William George Ward and the Oxford Movement, p. 136.
3 Apologia, p. 237,

78 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. iv.
told us, many of his followers were supporting him at this
time, in spite of their own misgivings, simply because,
ignorant of what was really passing in his mind, they
trusted him implicitly.1
It was in these circumstances that the crisis came.
Tait was sitting quietly in his rooms in Balliol on
Saturday morning, February 27, 1841, when Ward burst
excitedly in. " Here," he cried, " is something worth
reading ! " and he threw down a pamphlet on the table.
It was ' Tract xc'
Dr. Newman has himself given us in his Apologia the
history of that famous Essay. It had been urged both
by friends and foes that so long as the Tractarians con
tinued to accept the Thirty-nine Articles, there was, to say
the least, a strong bulwark against any Romeward move
ment. Drawn up to maintain the Church of England's
protest against Rome, the Articles had held their own foi
three centuries, and they held it still.
"From the time," says Dr. Newman, " that I had entered
upon the duties of public Tutor at my College, when my
doctrinal views were very different from what they were in
1 84 1, I had meditated a comment upon the Articles. Then,
when the movement was in its swing, friends had said to me,
'What will you make of the Articles?' But I did not share
the apprehension which their question implied. Whether, as
time went on, I should have been forced, by the necessities
of the original theory of the movement, to put on paper the
speculations which I had about them, I am not able to con
jecture. The actual cause of my doing so in the beginning of
1 841 was the restlessness, actual and prospective, of those who
1 " Relying as I and most other Churchmen did on the honour and integrity
of Newman and his associates, and aware that they were in many points
maintaining the truth against its impugners, we did not openly oppose the
progress of Newman's opinions, though We could not concur with many of
his positions, or those of his immediate disciples, Ward, Oakeley, Robert
Wilberforce, and others." — Narrative of Events connected with the Tracts far
the Times, p. 57.

1841] TRACT XC.

79

neither liked the via media nor my strong judgment against Rome.
I had been" enjoined, I think by my Bishop, to keep these men
straight, and I wished so to do. But their tangible difficulty was
subscription to the Articles, and thus the question of the Articles
came before me." ]
The tract was dated " Oxford, The Feast of the Con
version of St. Paul,2 1 841." Though anonymous, there
was no real doubt as to its authorship, and hence, in large
measure, the importance attaching to it.
" The Tract," said Dr. Newman a few days later, "is grounded
on the belief that the Articles need not be so closed as the received
method of teaching closes them, and ought not to be, for the
sake of many persons. If we so close them we run the risk of
subjecting persons whom we should least like to lose or distress
to the temptation of joining the Church of Rome, or to the
necessity of withdrawing from the Church as established, or to
the misery of subscribing with doubt and hesitation." 3
Accordingly, in the pages of this voluminous tract, he
examined in detail those Articles which, in their ordinary
acceptation, are directed against the distinctive teaching
of the Church of Rome ; and by an ingenious manipulation
of what had seemed to most people plain and straight
forward words, maintained them to be capable of quite
another interpretation. A single example will show the
style of reasoning adopted. The Reformers are commonly
supposed to have protested against the doctrine of infall
ible Church Councils, and to have given expression to that
view in Article XXI. The following, however, is Dr. New
man's treatment of the subject : 4 —
1 Apologia, p. 158.
2 Although so dated, it was not published till Feb. 27th.
3 Letter lo Dr. J elf, pp. 28, 29.
4 This example is chosen because it is possible in small compass to give
the substance of Dr. Newman's argument. In none of the five cases speci
fically referred to by the " Four Tutors " would this be possible without an
unfair compression of the author's words. (N.B.— The italics in the extract
given are Dr. Newman's own. )

80 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. iv.
"§ 5. — General Councils.
" Article xxi. — General Councils may not be gathered together
without the commandment and will of princes. And when
they be gathered together, forasmuch as they be an assembly
of men, whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and
Word of God, they may err, and sometimes have erred, even
in things pertaining to God. . . .
" That great bodies of men . . . when met together, though
Christians, will not be all ruled by the Spirit or Word of God
is plain from our Lord's parable of the net, and from melancholy
experience. That bodies of men deficient in this respect, may
err is a self-evident truth — unless, indeed, they be favoured with
some divine superintendence, which has to be proved, before
it can be admitted.
" General Councils then may err, unless in any case it is pro
mised as a matter of express supernatural privilege, that they shall
not err, a case which lies beyond the scope of this Article, or at
any rate beside its determination. Such a promise, however, does
exist, in cases when General Councils are not only gathered
together according to ' the commandment and will of princes,' but
in the name of Christ, according to our Lord's promise. The
Article merely contemplates the human prince, not the King of
Saints. While Councils are a thing of earth, their infallibility of
course is not guaranteed : when they are a thing of heaven, their
deliberations are overruled, and their decrees authoritative. . . ."
A similar mode of interpretation was adopted, mutatis
mutandis, with regard to thirteen others of the 39 Articles
— and long extracts were given from various books to
show the absurd and extravagant distortions of fact and
faith against which, rather than against the authoritative
teaching of the Church of Rome, the 39 Articles were
believed by Dr. Newman to be directed. " The Articles
are not written," he said, " against the Creed of the Roman
Church, but against actual existing errors in it, whether
taken into its system or not." x
As soon as Tait had read the Tract he seems to have
1 Tract XC, p. 61.

1841] THE FOUR TUTORS' PROTEST 81
felt that the time had arrived when a public protest was
called for. His first idea was to write himself to the
Editor, and among his papers is the draft of a letter which
was never sent. For he decided, after consideration, to
invite the co-operation of others, and, accordingly, on
March 8th, 1841, the following document was published.
Its authorship is placed beyond dispute by the fact that,
with the exception of about three lines, every sentence it
contains is to be found in one part or another of the
original draft letter, which is considerably longer than the
published Protest : —
" To the Editor of the ' Tracts for the Times!
"Sir, — Our attention having been called to No. 90 in the
series of ' Tracts for the Times,' by Members of the University
of Oxford, of which you are the Editor, the impression produced
on our minds by its contents is of so painful a character that
we feel it our duty to intrude ourselves briefly on your notice.
This publication is entitled ' Remarks on certain Passages in the
Thirty-nine Articles,' and as these Articles are appointed by the
Statutes of the University to be the text-book for teachers in
their theological teaching, we hope that the situations we hold
in our respective Colleges will secure us from the charge of pre
sumption in thus coming forward to address you.
"The Tract has, in our apprehension, a highly dangerous
tendency, from its suggesting that certain very important errors
of the Church of Rome are not condemned by the Articles of
the Church of England — for instance, that those Articles do not
contain any condemnation of the doctrines —
" 1. Of Purgatory,
" 2. Of Pardons,
" 3. Of the Worshipping and Adoration of Images and Relics,
" 4. Of the Invocation of Saints,
" 5. Of the Mass,
as they are taught authoritatively by the Church of Rome, but
only of certain absurd practices and opinions which intelligent
Romanists repudiate as much as we do. It is intimated, more
over, that the Declaration prefixed to the Articles, so far as it
vol. 1. F

82 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. iv.
has any weight at all, sanctions this mode of interpreting them,
as it is one which takes them in. their 'literal and grammatical
sense,' and does not 'affix any new sense' to them. The Tract
would thus appear to us to have a tendency to mitigate beyond
what charity requires, and to the prejudice of the pure truth of
the Gospel, the very serious differences which separate the Church
of Rome from our own, and to shake the confidence of the less
learned members of the Church of England in the Scriptural
character of her formularies and teaching.
"We readily admit the necessity of allowing that liberty in
interpreting the formularies of our Church which has been advo
cated by many of its most learned Bishops and other eminent
divines ; but this Tract puts forward new and startling views as
to the extent to which that liberty may be carried. For if we are
right in our apprehension of the author's meaning, we are at a loss
to see what security would remain, were his principles generally
recognised, that the most plainly erroneous doctrines and practices
of the Church of Rome might not be inculcated in the lecture-
rooms of the University, and from the pulpits of our churches.
"In conclusion, we venture to call your attention to the
impropriety of such questions being treated in an anonymous
publication, and to express an earnest hope that you may be
authorised to make known the writer's name. Considering how
very grave and solemn the whole subject is, we cannot help think
ing that both the Church and the University are entitled to ask
that some person beside the printer and publisher of the Tract
should acknowledge himself responsible for its contents. — We
are, sir, your obedient and humble servants,
"T. T. Chtjrton, M.A.,
Vice-Principal and Tutor of Brasenose College,
H B. Wilson, B.D.,
Fellow and Senior Tutor of St. John's College.
John Griffiths, M.A.,
Sui- Warden and Tutor of Wadham College,
A. C. Tait, M.A.,
Fellow and Senior Tutor of Balliol College.
"Oxford, March 8th, 1841."
It does not fall to the biographer of Archibald Tait to
recount in any detail the fiery controversies which followed

1841] THE FOUR TUTORS' PROTEST 83
upon the publication of the Protest. It is not to that
document, by itself, that the conflagration can be reason
ably ascribed. The four Tutors did but lay a match to
the tinder which had been long preparing. Tait had, at all
times, the courage of his opinions, nor was he ever afraid
to become the spokesman of those who shared his views.
Few impartial critics, whatever their personal opinions
may be, will deny that the Protest itself is a calm and
reasonable document, giving expression to apprehensions
which the event showed to be well founded. To the end
of his life Archibald Tait used to be taunted with having
" hounded Newman out of Oxford," and the Protest has
been again and again described as bigoted, narrow, and
unfair. Dr. Newman himself never so regarded it. On
the first page of his letter to Dr. Jelf, published five.
days after the Protest had been issued, he thus describes
it:— "Four gentlemen, Tutors of their respective Colleges, have
published a Protest against the Tract in question. I have no
cause at all to complain of their so doing, though, as I shall
directly say, I think they have misunderstood me. They do not,
I trust, suppose that I feel any offence or soreness at their pro
ceeding; of course I naturally think that I am right and they
are wrong ; but this persuasion is quite consistent both with my
honouring their zeal for Christian truth and their anxiety for the
welfare of our younger members, and with my very great con
sciousness that, even though I be right in my principle, I may
have advocated truth in a wrong way. Such acts as theirs, when
done honestly, as they have done them, must benefit all parties,
and draw them nearer to each other in good-will, if not in
opinion." x
Similarly, Mr. Ward, writing in warm support of the
Tract, refers to
"the remarkably temperate and Christian tone of the Paper
1 "A Letter addressed to the Rev. R. W. Jelf, D.D., in Explanation of
No. 90, by the Author," p. 5.

84 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. iv.
which began the contest : a tone which may well encourage us
in sanguine hopes that, the beginning having been made in such
a spirit, whatever may be said on either side may be said, on the
whole, in a temper not unworthy of the grave importance of the
subject." 1
A few days after the Protest had been published, the
Hebdomadal Board took up the subject. In deprecation
of the censure which it was understood they would pro
nounce, Mr. Newman wrote to Dr. Jelf the letter of
vindication from which the foregoing extract is taken.
But before the letter was in type the Board passed a
resolution of censure, ending with the following words : —
" Resolved that modes of interpretation, such as are suggested
in the said Tract, evading rather than explaining the sense of
the Thirty-nine Articles, and reconciling subscription to them with
the adoption of errors which they were designed to counteract,
defeat the object, and are inconsistent with the due observance of
the above-mentioned Statutes."
The sequel is well known. The Bishop of Oxford
conveyed to Mr. Newman his opinion that the Tract was
dangerous in its tendencies, and recommended that the
series should be discontinued.2 In this recommendation
Mr. Newman acquiesced, and the Tracts came to an end.
Such was the immediate consequence of the 'Four
Tutors' ' action. Whether that action was wise or unwise
it had at least the merit of straightforwardness and courage.
It has been sometimes spoken of as a bid for popularity
in Oxford. The accusation betrays an absolute un-
acquaintance with the then state of Oxford opinion.
"At this distance of time," writes Principal Shairp in 1885,
"it is not easy to realise how much courage it required in Tait
to take the step he did. He might have the Protestant and No-
1 "A Few Words in Support of No. 90," page 4.
2 See "A Letter to the Lord Bishop of Oxford, on Occasion of No. 90.''
By J. H. Newman, March 29, 1841, p. 3.

1 841] HEAT OF THE CONTROVERSY 85
Popery feeling of the country on his side. But in Oxford, where
his life then lay, Protestantism was at a discount with all but
the old fogies. Those who represented liberalism in theology,
the remnants of the Whately school, Hampden, Baden-Powell,
Cox, and others, were now nowhere. All that was most ardent
and generous among the younger fellows and among the under
graduates went enthusiastically with the romantic devotion and
the utter unworldliness of the Tractarian leaders. They had shown
a new thing in Oxford and in England : had turned their backs
on promotion and preferment, and given their lives to what
worldlings called a hopeless enterprise."1
To stand up against them was to court unpopularity,
misrepresentation, and attack, on the part of the very
' public ' for whose good opinion Tait cared most. And the
attack came unsparingly. The controversy soon waxed
vehement, and on either side indignant pamphlets followed
one another in rapid succession. Among those who
thus defended the controverted Tract were Dr. Pusey,
W. G. Ward, and Frederick Oakeley.2 Among the
pamphleteers on the other side were Professor Sewell and
William Palmer of Worcester (both of whom had been
friends of the Tract writers), C. P. Golightly, and Robert
Lowe. Tait, after the issue of the original Protest, seems to
have taken no public part in the controversy, and although
his private correspondence on the subject was considerable,
1 Principal Shairp continues : " I remember another occasion on which he
showed, though in a smaller matter, the same kind of courage. He was
preaching in St. Mary's, before the University, and, having occasion to allude
to the older Evangelicals, Newton, Cecil, Wilberforce, etc., he spoke of them
as 'those men whom, after all, I will not hesitate to call the most truly
religious section of our own Church.' That it cost him an effort to make
this demonstration was shown by the sudden raising of his voice and flushing
of his countenance." The sermon to which Principal Shairp alludes was
afterwards published in The Dangers and Safeguards of Modem Theology.
¦ The words quoted above are on p. 45.
2 Mr. Keble's Pamphlet, published by Dr. Pusey in 1866, was only
privately printed in 1 84 1 .

86 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. iv.
there is little additional information to be gained from it.
In a letter to Professor Sewell, who had published a
pamphlet against the Tract,1 he thus describes his own
action : —
" I cannot tell you how strongly I feel the danger of young
men's minds being altogether unsettled by the tone which char
acterises the Tract, and in which I have long been accustomed to
hear individuals of the same sentiments with the writer express
themselves in private. This danger has been forced upon my
attention by several very painful instances that have fallen under
my personal observation. If young men lose their confidence in
that branch of the Church of Christ of which they are members,
and have their attention forced to curious questions that seem
only to minister strife, there seems no telling to what extent
their whole religious character may be affected. It was under a
strong sense of this danger that I felt bound to put myself in the
invidious position of signing the letter which mainly called the
attention of the University to this Tract. And I cannot tell you
how glad I am to find that one who justly stands so high in public
estimation as yourself has thought it necessary to enter a public
protest against this unsettling spirit."
Among the following letters of thanks that he received,
the following, from Dr. Arnold, has, in the light of subse
quent events, a peculiar interest : —
The Rev. Dr. Arnold to the Rev. A. C. Tait.
"Rugby, March ii, 1841.
"My dear Sir, — I thank you much for sending me your
address to the Author of the Tract.
" I am extremely glad that the Tract has been so noticed ; yet
it is to me far more objectionable morally than theologically ; and
especially the comment on the 21st Article, to which you
have not alluded, is of such a character, that if subscription to
the 2 1 st Article, justified by such rules of interpretation, may
be honestly practised, I do not see why an Unitarian may not
subscribe the first Article or the second. The comparative im-
1 "A Letter to the Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D., on the Publication of No. 90.
By William Sewell, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Oxford. "

1841] "I WOULD DO IT AGAIN"

87

portance of the truths subscribed to does not affect the question ,
I am merely speaking of the utter perversion of language shown
in the Tract, according to which a man may subscribe to an
article when he holds the very opposite opinions, — believing
what it denies, and denying what it affirms. — Believe me to be,
dear Sir, very truly yours, T. Arnold."
More than one of Tait's correspondents warns him
against the temptation to put himself unduly forward.
Speaking in after life of the accusation that he had done
so, he used to say that it was impossible for him,
holding the opinions he did, not to come forward. His
position in the University required it of him. Though he
was not yet thirty years old, he had for several years been
the Senior Tutor in what was admittedly, by this time,
the foremost College in Oxford. He was known to lay
great stress upon the responsibilities of the University
teachers (whether Tutors or Professors) in religious
matters, and he had never scrupled to declare his dis
trust of the teaching which had now found expression
in No. 90. "Were it all to happen again," he said in
1880, "I think I should, in the same position, do exactly
as I did then."
But having, with his three colleagues, come forward
where others who agreed with him held back, he was
perfectly willing to leave to older, more experienced, or
more authoritative men the actual conduct of the contro
versy. He never had any love, or any particular capacity,
for the public discussion of the deeper doctrinal questions.
His Protest, as he was always careful to remind his
friends, had been raised rather against what he deemed
a disingenuous and dangerous mode of treating formularies
to which the writers had subscribed, than against the
doctrinal system of the Tractarians. With that system
he had always avowed his disagreement, but what he
objected to still more strongly, both then and in after

88 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. iv.
years, was the ingenious distortion, as he deemed it, of
the meaning of plain English formularies to make them
compatible with the very errors they were intended to
oppose. His position in this controversy corresponded in
some degree to that which he had taken three years before
with regard to his own candidature for the Glasgow
Professorship. It was a question of the plain and natural
meaning of words, and the course which he now criticised
in others was the course he had himself indignantly declined
to take. But against the introduction of personalities or
recriminations into the controversy he contended with all
his might. There were some among his friends who would
gladly have joined in the original protest, but whose
co-operation, as his correspondence shows, he deliberately
declined, lest the issues involved should be narrowed, and
the controversy needlessly embittered. The following
letter to Mr. Golightly, his Baldon colleague, was called
forth by a communication sent by Mr. Golightly to the
Standard, a few weeks after the Tract XC. explosion,
accusing Mr. Ward and others of being disguised Romanists,
and referring to a private visit Mr. Ward had paid to Dr.
Wiseman at Oscott College : —
The Rev. A. C. Tait to the Rev. C. P. Golightly.
' " Balliol [Nov. 15, 1841].
" My dear Golightly, — I yesterday evening heard the subject
of your letter canvassed, and it was the general opinion that the
step was unjustifiable. ... I disliked, as you knew, your last
Tract, as transgressing the rule which it is desirable to keep up in
Oxford, of not speaking, or at least not speaking any evil, of one's
antagonists, and I should be extremely sorry if bitterness or harsh
ness to individuals were to be introduced into the controversy. . . .
On a matter of this kind no man's advice is worth much of whom
you are not sure that he has a high personal regard for yourself.
Having, however, put you in possession of what I think, — which
I should not have been justified in withholding — I doubt not that

1841] ESTIMATE OF NEWMAN 89
you will act rightly. But pray remember that any appearance of
bitterness or a persecuting spirit is not only wrong in itself, but,
if shown on the right side, will be sure, in the present ticklish
state of opinion in Oxford, to drive many who are now doubtful
into the wrong. — Yours very sincerely, A. C. Tait."
In a similar spirit Tait invariably expressed his con
fidence in the personal character and high purpose of
Dr. Newman himself, and he used in later years to defend
him earnestly against those who took a lower view of his
conduct. But he used at the same time to avow the
distrust he had always felt of his qualifications as a
religious teacher. In the course of a discussion which
took place at Addington in 1877 he was asked to give
his then view of Dr. Newman's character. The following
is a note of his reply : —
" I have always regarded Newman as having a strange duality
of mind. On the one side is a wonderfully strong and subtle
reasoning faculty, on the other a blind faith, raised almost en
tirely by his emotions. It seems to me that in all matters of
belief he first acts on his emotions, and then he brings the
subtlety of his reason to bear, till he has ingeniously persuaded
himself that he is logically right. The result is a condition in
which he is practically unable to distinguish between truth and
falsehood." But though he abstained from active controversy on
the subject, there was one element in the doctrines now
enunciated by the Tractarians which awoke in the mind
of Archibald Tait something more than a passive resist
ance. In one of his letters about the Glasgow Professor
ship, quoted above,1 he had referred, with some asperity,
to those " who regard the Kirk of Scotland as the
synagogue of Baal," words hardly too strong to describe
the views put forward, for example, by Mr. William Palmer
of Magdalen, in such a passage as the following : —
1 P. 67.

90 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. iv.
"I once more ... say Anathema to the principle of Pro
testantism . . . and to all its forms, sects, and denominations.
. . . Likewise to all persons who, knowingly and wittingly, and
understanding what they do, shail assert, either for themselves
or for the Church of England, the principle of Protestantism,
or maintain the Church of England to have one and the same
common religion with any or all of the various forms and sects
of Protestantism, or shall communicate themselves in the temples
of the Protestant sects, or give communion to their members, or
go about to establish any intercommunion between our Church
and them otherwise than by bringing them in the first instance
to renounce their errors, and promise a true obedience for the
future to the entire faith and discipline of the Catholic and
Apostolic Episcopate — to all such I say Anathema." :
Is it wonderful that, with the memories fresh in his
mind of the Christian influences which had affected his
boyhood, with his deep affection for the brothers and
sisters to whom he owed so much, and his warm regard
for a host of Scottish friends, Archibald Tait should have
expressed his repugnance to a theological system which
practically put almost every one north of the Tweed out
side the pale of Christianity ?
The following letters speak for themselves, and the
subject is so important, both in its public and its personal
aspect, that no apology is required for an endeavour to
show how Tait's action presented itself at the time to
some of his more intimate friends.

The Rev. Robert Scott2 to the Rev. A. C. Tait.
"Duloe, Monday night \\$th March 1841].
"My dear Tait, — Your packet only reached me this morn
ing. The Protest itself, without comment, I saw on Saturday
1 From a pamphlet entitled Letter to the Rev. C. P. Golightly, 1841, p. 13.
2 Mr. Scott had been Tait's colleague and friend as Fellow of Balliol
since 1836. He was afterwards Master of Balliol from 1854 to 1870, and
Dean of Rochester from 1870 to 1888.

1841] LETTER OF REV. R. SCOTT

91

in a London paper : but was in entire ignorance of the Tract,
except in so far as the Protest stated its tone. How painful the
document itself must have been to me — whichever party proved
to have been wrong — you may well suppose. And I do not fear
that you will be offended at my saying that I knew not what to
think. We understand one another well enough to own that your
views are not mine, nor mine yours, on many subjects connected
with the Tracts. In the Protest itself your name was coupled
with that of one man whom I believe to hold extreme opinions,
and of another who has the character of being crotchety : while
I had no knowledge whatever of the views of the fourth. And
I could not but ask myself why the particular four were left to
protest by themselves, while so many of equal standing and Uni
versity position remained silent, and the description of the Tract's
contents themselves seemed much more like what was the im
pression of the mind of a hasty, nay, hostile reader, than what
could be the ' literal and grammatical sense ' of the writer. Such
were the considerations which I could not help occurring to me,
to balance my knowledge of your caution, and my persuasion
that you would never have taken a step which may be, and pro
bably will be, so momentous in its consequences, upon any slight
or uncertain grounds — on any grounds which you were not con
fident would approve themselves to persons of more than one
shade of opinion. I was left therefore in a state, I will say, of
extreme and perplexing distress, until your packet arrived this
morning. And certainly, if that has relieved my perplexity, it
has not diminished my sorrow.
" To-day I have been reading the Tract which you were good
enough to send me — hastily, indeed (for I have had other things
to do also) : but I do not think that the matter is so difficult as
to require long study. There are some things which seem sen
sible enough — for instance, the remarks on the sense in which we
accept the Book of Homilies. There are others which I do not
know what to say of, because, though the remarks seem strange,
yet I do not and cannot make out what they are aimed at, being
apparently intended to meet difficulties which some individual
has suggested, but which are not specified, and cannot be (by
me) clearly made out. But there can be very little mistake about
many of them. And especially looking at those on which you
ground your Protest, I must say that I have no objection to make
to any part of it : and that consequently the situations you hold

92 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. iv.
make the course you have adopted a proper one, nay, a most
necessary one.
"I think that words cannot bind a man who deals with the
Church's Articles as the writer of the Tract does.
"Detailed criticism is needless, if there were time either for
me to write, or you to read it. My wonder that your four
names alone were appended to this Protest still continues, my
other doubts being solved. I hope it was not from any hurry
on your parts leaving them unconsulted; for that would have
been to cast a slur on all the tutorial body in the University,
with the exception of the four Colleges. I need not conceal my
fears of what will be the result, grounded on my conviction of the
existing want of moderation, and the prejudice of both sides, both
in Oxford and elsewhere. I should be driven nearly to despair
of the consequences were my confidence less strong in my own
Church's share of God's promise. Doubtless it will be overruled ;
and that must be enough for those who have to wait, not seeing
the end. To those who are of necessity engaged in it, the pain
ful lessons of ill-feeling and human jealousies which the Hampden
matter taught will be most useful now. As for yourself, my dear
Tait, let me, as your contemporary, beg of you to keep steadily
before you through the whole matter the recollection of your own
youth, and endeavour to contend throughout with singleness of
purpose for one side, and not against another. God guide you
all as seems Him right, and bless Alma Mater and her sons.
Pray let me hear from you soon. . . . — Ever, my dear Tait, yours
most sincerely, Robert Scott."
A yet closer friend, Arthur Stanley, had been travelling
in Greece and Italy with another ex-pupil of Tait's, Hugh
Pearson. They were now on their way home.
Rev. Arthur P. Stanley to Rev. A. C. Tait.
"Rome, March 30, 1841.
"O my dear Belvedere,1 — What have you been doing?
Rome is only in a less state of excitement than Oxford. The
Pope has just issued a Bull defending the Decrees of Trent, on
the ground that they are not contradictory to the Thirty-nine
1 One of the names by which Tait was known among his Oxford friends,
his curly hair being said to resemble that of the statue in the Vatican.

1841] LETTER OF A. P. STANLEY 93
Articles ; and the Cardinals have just sate in conclave on him,
and determined that he is against the usages of the Vatican.
But to speak seriously : What has happened ? First comes a
letter from London to Pearson, intimating that a Tract on such
a subject has appeared, and that you are in a state of frenzy.
Next an intelligence from papers, that a Protest of five Tutors,
Belvedere being one, has appeared in the Times. Next, the great
manifesto from the Heads themselves, accompanied by a private
letter from Twiss to me announcing that a ' convulsive movement '
will ' not improbably take place, only equal to a moral Niagara
ceasing to flow ' — Pearson and I are in a state of ferment beyond
bounds. Seriously, my dear Greis,1 do not draw these Articles
too tight, or they will strangle more parties than one. I assure you,
when I read the monition of the Heads I felt the halter at my
own throat. Of course I speak on the hypothesis that J. H. N.
has maintained the patience, not the ambition, of the Articles.
If he maintains the latter, then certainly it does become time to
throw away the scabbard ; but if the former — ah ! my dear Greis,
consider the great train of consequences which a resistance to
such a theory involves. One consolation dawns upon me, and
that is — that this convulsion will directly or indirectly lead to the
subversion of the Heads and establishment of the Professors on
their ruins — in what way I have not now time to explain, but I see
it clearly in the distance. But my chief object in writing to you was
not to give bad advice on imperfect data, but to implore a letter
by return of post to Poste Restante, Genoa, where I trust to be
by the end of April, to point out what is going on, and whether
I am to post straight from Dover to Oxford, to give my first
vote in Convocation, or whether I had better absent myself from
the scene altogether. A letter from Ward, or from some defendant
of No. 90, would also be in the highest degree acceptable. Pray
remember me to him, and to all my suffering friends, whether in
the defeated or victorious party. Take this in the light of a rush
into your room before breakfast. Will you remember me most
kindly to Johnson, and say that I have often reproached myself
for not writing to him, and that I am often reminded of him in
1 Another familiar name by which Tait was known. One day when he
and Arthur Stanley were together at Bonn in 1839, the servant of a Professor
on whom they called was said to have reported to her master that "ein Greis
und ein Kind " had been to see him. The names adhered to them among
their friends for years.

94 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. iv.
this great city, which pleases me even beyond what I had expected
— beyond even Athens itself? We are off for Tivoli to-morrow,
and leave Rome on Friday after Easter. I have seen the Pope,
and might say much on that head, but I forbear. I am sorry to
say that your prototype is very unlike you — as well as unlike all
the casts of him — very ethereal, but not giving me so much pleasure
as I expected. — Ever yours, in a fever, "A. P. Stanley.
"Remember Hampden — remember the Supra- and Sublap-
sarians ; remember me. But are the Heads representatives of the
University, or are they not ? This is, I think, very important, and
the question may throw light on a previous statement of mine.
" Even have you (which indeed I trust you have) sent a letter
here, do not fail to send another to Genoa, reporting the progress
of this fearful drama. Of course you understand that I write,
being, as far as my knowledge goes, opposed to this demonstra
tion of yours." Rev. A. C. Tait to Rev. A. P. Stanley.
"Balliol Coll., 16 April 1841.
"My dear Child, — The hurried scenes through which I
have been passing, though they have prevented me from writing,
have made me think daily and hourly of you. When I set my
hand to that document of which you speak, your image was before
me. I rejoiced that you were not in Oxford, lest you should have
died of excitement ; but I could not help thinking that if your
nerves had allowed you to think, you would have approved of
my act. If you saw our letter you must have noted this sentence :
' We readily admit the necessity of allowing that liberty in inter
preting the formularies of our Church which has been advocated
by many of its most learned Bishops and other eminent divines ;
but this Tract puts forth new and startling views as to the extent
to which that liberty may be carried. For if we are right in our
apprehension of the author's meaning, we are at a loss to see
what security would remain, were his principles generally recog
nised, that the most plainly erroneous doctrines and practices of
the Church of Rome might not be inculcated in the lecture-rooms
of the University, and from the pulpits of our churches.' You will
at once recognise the pen from which the first clause in this sen
tence flowed. When you read No. 90 I think you will allow that

1841] TAIT'S REPLY TO STANLEY 95
we were right. Really, it was the 'ambition,' not the 'patience,'
of the Articles which, in some passages at least, seemed to be
advocated, for, observe, the author actually had the effrontery to
assert that his interpretation (allowing all the doctrines of
Trent) was the ' literal and grammatical sense ' of the Articles, and
did not affix any new sense to them. Besides, I confess there was
something disgusting in his declaring that he never would be a
party to any attempts to relax subscription to these Articles, at
the very moment that he was treating them with the most marked
contempt. Surely you cannot think it was right to profess that
he would never try to do that openly which he was labouring
hard to do by the most strange distortion of language and every
kind of half-expressed insinuation ? Er sieht, mein- kind, sehr viel
zu fesuitisch aus, und wie er sieht, so schreibt er. At the same
time, this I must say in justice, that I believe this appearance of
Jesuitry comes, not from dishonesty, but from a natural defect,
a strange bent of the genius that loves tortuous paths, perhaps
partly because it requires an exercise of ingenuity to get along in
them. I have been much struck with the contrast in reading Ward's
pamphlet, written with the most manly, straightforward tone. At
present, as you will see, the controversy is principally confined to
the Bishop of Melipotamus (do you recognise Dr. Wiseman under
so grand a name ?) and the Newmanites. Others have only quietly
to sit by till this battle is over, waiting to take up the victor, or
hoping that the antagonists may swallow each other. On the whole,
things are wonderfully calm. In College here the utmost good-will
has prevailed. Ward is certainly, in good-humour and candour,
the prince of controversialists. The result of the whole matter up
to the present moment may be shortly summed up. First — as
the most interesting to you — the Bishop of London's theory of a
literal adherence to every iota of the formularies is blown to the
winds of heaven. Secondly, the consciences of Ward and one or
two others are much satisfied by having had an opportunity of
utterly throwing away the false colours of Church-of-Englandism,
which Pusey mounted last year in his letter to the Bishop of
Oxford. Thirdly,  has safely disengaged himself from the
sinking vessel. Fourthly, Newmanism has been proclaimed from
one end of the kingdom to the other by the mouth of its own
prophet to be twin-sister of Popery.
" But I must interrupt my summary to hasten to a much more
home subject, which for the last ten days has driven all thoughts

96 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. iv,
of Newmania from my head. Alas ! alas ! alas ! I fear I must
leave Oxford. I cannot contemplate the prospect without a
shudder; but it really seems as if it must come to that.
Timsbury1 seems to call me with a loud voice. The matter
stands thus: Oakeley refuses it. Poor Payne, now apparently
almost in a dying state, of course does the same. I go down
there with my mind almost fully resolved to refuse it also;
am much struck by what I see and hear of the importance
of the charge, and remember that this is the second time that the
place has seemed to force itself upon me. I consider that 
cannot be equal to such a charge ; but Balliol is too important
a post to be relinquished, and I feel resolved to refuse Timsbury,
when most unexpectedly it turns out that I need not leave Balliol
for three years, though I should begin to reside at Timsbury this
long vacation, as my position at Balliol is deemed by the Bishop
sufficient reason for granting me for that time leave of absence
from Timsbury during term time, till I can settle matters in College.
... All this seems almost arranged for me by events over which
I have no control : whenever it might be my fate to leave Balliol,
it seems very doubtful whether I should have it in my power to
leave it in better hands than by this present leisurely retreat. Then
Oxford has no situation to which I can look forward, except one
which I cannot anticipate will be vacant for the next twenty years.
There is no parish in our gift which seems so well suited for
me, almost none so important, and next to my present occupa
tion, which cannot last for above a certain number of years, parish
work is my line. Lake, Ward, and all whom I consult here seem
to agree ; the real point being the importance of the charge and
the impropriety of passing it down to one quite inexperienced.
The emolument has no particular attraction — ^450 a year. I
have no wish to go, but I think, on the whole, I ought; and
therefore, having tried to view the matter entirely as one of minis
terial duty, I have almost resolved to write to-morrow to Chancellor
Law, the Bishop's son, who manages everything for him, that if
he can get me the leave of absence of which he spoke when I
was there, and the Archbishop's sanction, which is necessary, I
shall be prepared to take charge of the living in the long vacation,
appointing a curate, and residing during the vacations hencefor
ward, and gradually disentangling myself from Balliol, so as to be
able to begin uninterrupted residence in three years from this time.
1 A small parish near Bath, in the patronage of Balliol College.

1841] CORRESPONDENCE WITH STANLEY 97
Three years is a long time to look forward to, and, by God's help,
much may be done in Balliol and Oxford before then. Perhaps the
Bishop and Archbishop may not approve the Chancellor's plan,
and then the matter is at an end, for I cannot in conscience leave
Balliol now. But if I am to go in three years, if I live so long,
let us work heart and hand during that time. I do not think late
divisions need at all prevent co-operation among those who love
what is good. Indeed, Newman pledges himself in a letter to the
Bishop to co-operate with religious men of all opinions. Therefore
let us make the most of the time while it lasts. But we shall do
nothing unless we do it in a truly religious spirit, and make the
good of our University the subject of our earnest prayers. Do, my
dear Stanley, let us strive, while God gives us the opportunity, to
do everything in a more seriously religious spirit. I fear our
plans cannot do any good unless they are more the subject of
our earnest prayers. There is no doubt we love what is good,
but I fear we do not seek it in a sufficiently serious, religious
spirit. "I long very much to see you back here. Best regards to
Pearson. — Your affect, friend, A. C. Tait."

Rev. A. P. Stanley to Rev. A. C. Tait.
"Genoa, May 2, 1841.
" My dear Greis, — Although I have but little time to write,
and shall be in England so soon after my letter, I cannot help
thanking you for your account of Oxford and yourself which I
found here yesterday. I hope there was nothing in my foolish
letter from Rome at all tending to annoy you, as, of course, not
knowing facts, neither having read No. 90, nor the Tutors' Pro
test, I had no business to say anything. From what you say I
cannot be surprised at any one using any measures against the
Tract who thinks it unadvisable per se that Roman Catholics
should be members of the Church of England — still less at any
one being angry at the tone which you describe as pervading No.
90 — though perhaps, as I myself see no reason against Roman
Catholics being Anglicans, except the impracticability of it, I
should not have objected to any mode of rendering it practicable
which was not on other grounds objectionable. I shall be very
anxious to see Ward's pamphlet, of which your letter contains
the first intimation. What, however, gave me most pleasure was
vol. 1. G

98 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. iv.
your announcement of the good-will preserved through all this
storm. I had hoped it would be so, and I believe it would have
happened nowhere in this intolerant world except at Oxford.
"And now to pass to the second part of your letter : I don't know
whether you will be glad or sorry to know what a blank fell over my
face and heart on catching the words, ' I fear I must leave Oxford.'
My spirits were already beginning to sink at my return to that
troubled ocean, and this seemed to sink them still deeper. But after
what you say I cannot complain — and although Bonn and Oxford
and the professorial system may, and perhaps will, cease to exist
— I believe you are right ; and as far as my commendation goes,
I give it you most cordially, though most sorrowfully. Three years,
as you say, is still a long time, and if [our work] is to be d6ne at
all, it is perhaps as likely to be done in that time as in any other.
I do most earnestly hope we may all be enabled to look upon
it in the light you urge. I trust I have endeavoured to do so,
but nothing has convinced me more of the truth of what you say
than the difficulty I now find in turning my thoughts again to
it, as if it had been a thing taken up, not from any real wish to
do good, but from a fit of foolish excitement. I hope I shall
not return the worse for my travels. I have certainly derived
from them far more instruction and delight than I could have
conceived possible. The flood of light which my month at Rome
let in upon my benighted mind was almost overwhelming. But
some of the advantages which I most hoped to have attained I
certainly still desiderate, and look forward to the troubles of Eng
land with much the same feelings as those with which I left them.
So pray, my dear Greis, be ready to console and advise me as
before— for, as before, I still want all of both that all my friends
can give me. Once more, farewell, my dear Tait ; may God bless
you, whether you stay to help us at Oxford, or whether you go
elsewhere. — With all remembrances to Lake and Ward, and all
hopes of seeing you all soon in good health of body and mind,
believe me, ever yours, A. P. Stanley."
Though Oxford continued to be the centre of the
conflict, its arena was very soon enlarged, and an attention
hitherto unwonted was paid to the Charges of the Bishops,
almost every one of whom spoke his mind upon the
subject. A special interest attached to the Charge of

1841] CHARGES OF BISHOPS 99
Bishop Phillpotts of Exeter, whose vigorous and uncom
promising High Churchmanship had led many to identify
him with the Tractarian school. He spoke before long,
and as usual with no uncertain sound —
" The tone of the Tract," he said, " as respects our own Church
is offensive and indecent: as regards the Reformation and our
Reformers absurd, as well as incongruous and unjust. Its
principles of interpreting our Articles I cannot but deem most
unsound : the reasoning with which it supports its principles
sophistical : the averments on which it founds its reasoning, at
variance with recorded facts. ... It is idle to argue against
statements which were not designed for argument, but for scoffing.
... It is far the most daring attempt ever yet made by a
minister of the Church of England to neutralise the distinctive
doctrines of our Church and to make us symbolise with Rome." J
Considering what has so often been said in later years
about the mere ignorance, or haste, or partisan bias of the
' Four Tutors ' and their friends,2 it is not out of place to
call attention to such words as these, and to the source
from which they came. Most of the Bishops spoke in
similar, if less trenchant, terms. Bishop Blomfield, in some
respects the foremost Bishop on the Bench, had some
difficulty, as his Biography shows, in deciding clearly as to
his best line of conduct ; and a curious triangular corre
spondence took place between Tait, Oakeley, and the
Bishop, with reference to a supposed remark of the
Bishop's to Oakeley in favour of the Tractarians, which
Tait had repeated upon Oakeley's authority. The
only bearing of the letters upon the present biography
is their evidence to the firm friendship subsisting between
Tait and Oakeley during the controversies wherein, upon
different sides, both were involved.
These controversies do not seem to have interfered
1 Charge, pp. 31, 32.
2 e.g. by Dr. Pusey in his pamphlet on Tract xc, published in 1865,

ioo LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. iv.
with Tait's ordinary Oxford work. In his letter to Arthur
Stanley, quoted above, he had announced, as almost
certain, his acceptance of the living of Timsbury, and he
even went so far as to give directions for the furnishing
of the house. He decided, however, upon further con
sideration, that the arrangement proposed, whereby he
was, while Rector of Timsbury, to continue for a time his
work in Balliol, would be good neither for the parish nor
the College, and the living was therefore declined. Among
the subjects to which he turned his attention in the year
1 841 was the possibility of stimulating in the University
a warmer zeal with regard to the Foreign Missions of the
Church. Together with three other Tutors1 (not his former
colleagues) he founded a small society, the members of
which were in turn to read papers on missionary subjects
at meetings held fortnightly during term. He also con
tinued to give great attention to the whole subject of
Education both in England and abroad, and contributed
articles to more than one periodical dealing with the
question. He seems to have been half inclined to offer
himself as a candidate for the Principalship of St. Mark's
Training College, which had just been founded, and
though, after an interview with its promoters, he abandoned
this intention, he was evidently beginning to look for work
elsewhere than in Oxford. His friends in Scotland had
naturally made more than one endeavour to bring him
back across the border, and in 1839 he was in actual
negotiation with respect to the junior incumbency of St.
Paul's Church, Edinburgh, a joint charge, the senior
incumbent being the Rev. C. H. Terrot, who, two years
afterwards, became Bishop of Edinburgh. In connection
with this it may be mentioned that (to the surprise of some
1 The names appended to the original draft rules are as follows: —
A. C. Tait, E. C. Woollcombe, E. A. Litton, E. M. Gbulbiirn.

1841] SCOTTISH EPISCOPAL CHURCH 101
of his friends, who, even after the episode of the Glasgow
professorship, had apparently failed to realise the strength
of his Churchmanship), Tait was in 1842 a prominent
subscriber to the foundation of Trinity College, Glen-
almond, as a seminary for the Scottish Episcopal Church.
Some important correspondence passed on this occasion
between Bishop Terrot of Edinburgh and himself, in which
Tait urged upon the Bishop the importance of securing the
co-operation of others besides the High Churchmen, on
whose support the promoters of the scheme had too
exclusively relied.
The Rev. A. C. Tait to the Right Rev. Bishop Terrot.
" You will not misunderstand me when I say that I feel con
fident the great obstacle to the success of your appeal to England,
under existing circumstances, is the fear lest in any way your
scheme should fall into the hands of what is now very generally
regarded amongst moderate men as a dangerous and revolutionary
party, who are striving to break down the barriers which separate
us from Rome in her fallen state. The only way to allay this
apprehension must be by endeavouring to get influential names of
persons of all shades of opinion in our Church, . . . and so to
give the plan a more truly Catholic air. I wish it were in my
power to make a large subscription, but I must be content to give
what I can afford, and I trust your plan may be blest for the
three great objects which it seems to me so likely to promote —
the sound theological instruction of your clergy — the strict and .
systematic religious education of the boys who must necessarily )
be sent from home to attend school — and though last, still very '
important, the revival of a general taste for classical literature, by
prolonging that study of the Greek and Latin authors which in
Scotland is rendered almost useless by being generally brought at
the age of 14 or 15 to a premature close. I trust that if you can
suggest any way in which I may be of use in making the claims
of your place more generally known, you will not scruple to apply
to me. — With many apologies for having so freely spoken my mind
to you, I remain yours most faithfully, A. C. Tait."

102 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. iv.
The following letter from Dean Lake of Durham may
be appropriately inserted here. Many of the facts to
which he refers have been already recorded in these pages,
but to omit these references would be to spoil the com
pleteness of a letter which has an independent and peculiar
value : — "Deanery, Durham, 230? March 1888.
"My dear Dean of Windsor, — When you asked me to
contribute my recollections of our dear friend, the late Arch
bishop of Canterbury, to your Memoir of his life, I could not
hesitate to make some attempt to do so, for I have never ceased
to feel his loss, nor have I ever had a friend whom I have
known so long and so intimately, and of whom my remembrances
are still so fresh.
"The first time I ever saw Archbishop Tait was when he
was reading the second Lesson in chapel, as a young Proba
tionary Fellow of Balliol, in October 1835. I had heard of
his ability, particularly as a vigorous, and sometimes a very
fiery, speaker, at the Union, and as I knew he was to be my
tutor, I was naturally anxious to see him. I had expected one
of the scholars to read the lesson, whose manner, I was told,
was heavy and pompous, and instead of this, a young and very
good-looking man walked from the Fellows' seats to the Lectern,
and read rapidly, and with great animation, the second Evening
Lesson. ' Who was that ? ' I asked Stanley, with some surprise,
when chapel was over. ' Oh ! that was our new Tutor, Tait.'
He gave me at once that impression of strength and spirit
which I always associated with him through life. I soon
became almost, or quite, his earliest College pupil; and felt
at once his genuine kindness and interest in his pupils. In
those days at Oxford — I know not how it is now — intimacies
between tutors and pupils ripened rapidly. I was his companion
in a short tour in Belgium and Germany in 1837, and again in
1839, and during my last undergraduate year in 1838 was
constantly with him; and this was of course still more the
case during the years we were Fellows together from 1839 to
1842. In 1842 Dr. Arnold's death caused a vacancy in the
head-mastership at Rugby, and some of Arnold's old pupils,
particularly Stanley and myself, were very anxious for Tait's

1841] REMINISCENCES BY DEAN LAKE 103
election to the post, believing him to be the one person who
was most likely to continue the work in the spirit and with
something of the power of his predecessor. Owing to acci
dental circumstances it was rather a difficult election, and one
.which left behind it some important remembrances, and made
/Tait's Rugby career, in some respects, the most trying period
of his life. It was also, in various ways, one of the most touch
ing and interesting ; and I cannot help hoping that you may be
able to give a pretty full record of it, as it greatly developed his
powers of dealing with and governing men, especially in his
tact, courtesy, and respect for the feelings of those with whom
he was working.
" I have ventured to give you this short outline of the earlier
days of what I may call the dearest friendship of my life, as justi
fying me in my right to express some opinion on the character
of one whom I loved so much, and whose memory is so dear.
Certainly, no one out of the circle of his very nearest relations
could have had greater opportunities for knowing him ; and the
interest of looking back on those days is even increased by remem
bering that our friendship was nowise diminished by strong differ
ences of opinion, particularly on religious subjects. It was a feature
in Tait's character, and one for which he often expressed thankful
ness himself, that differences of opinion, though they necessarily
diminished sympathy, did not diminish affection ; few men have
had, and retained through life, such warm friendships with men
from whom he differed widely, and whose differences he was glad
to hear frankly expressed, and from which he even believed himself
to learn much. It was the great secret of the real largeness and
generosity of his character.
" My earliest acquaintance then with Tait was as my College
tutor, and the first impression he gave us was of the excel
lence of his lectures, particularly (in fact almost exclusively)
of his Aristotle and Butler Lectures. Here he was entirely
at home, very much more so than in either scholarship or
history ; and I remember the pleasure with which Stanley,
who was in the year before me, and who came in for Tait's
first lecture on the Ethics, ran into my rooms to tell me
what a capital one it was. He was, however, in this, as in a
good many other points, a real Scotchman ; and all Scotch
scholars at Oxford were in those days — matters, I believe, have
somewhat altered since — much more inclined to what they called

104 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. iv.
Metapheesics ' than to scholarship. Tait's great power of ready
and vigorous speech, which was afterwards one main secret Of
his strength as Bishop of London, and in the House of Lords,
helped him in giving lectures where animation and clearness
were particularly required. He was indeed then, as I think he
always continued to be through life, far better in extempore
addresses than as a writer ; and his power of speaking was lighted
up by a gift of humour which he could use very effectively when
it was needed : one or two sets down to some of our liveliest
scholars are even now hardly forgotten. He was, in fact, on
occasions, though not very often, impulsive enough ; and though
his manner was always courteous and gentlemanlike, we used to
say that he was a thorough specimen of the perfervidum Scotorum
ingenium. Meanwhile his intellectual character as a teacher
often came out in lively hits at anything which he thought over-
poetical or mystical ; he was anything but fond of Plato, very
impatient of his and Aristotle's discussions on ' Ideas,' and
was currently reported to have called one favourite writer —
I think his own countryman Brown — 'a long-winded old ass,'
while we retorted by humorous criticisms on a rather weary
disquisition between the ' Fancy and the Imagination,' which he
had crammed up for our benefit out of Wordsworth and Cole
ridge. As to his Divinity Lectures, he was. as well as I remember,
a good deal exercised by the Calvinism of the 17th Article'
and indeed, when he was on the point of standing for a Glasgow
Professorship of Greek in 1840, where the acceptance of a Pre-
destinarian Article was then generally swallowed as a mere
matter of form, he at once, on hearing of this, declined to be
come a candidate.
"Such, regarded merely as a Lecturer, the first aspect in
which undergraduates would look at him, was the view which we
should mostly have taken of Tait, as vigorous, acute, fluent and
felicitous in language, and on the whole, so far as I had the
means of judging, the ablest lecturer in his day at Oxford. And
some of us soon saw far more than this ; and as a certain stiffness
which hung about him during most of his earlier life gradually
thawed, we quickly began to feel the straightforwardness and
manly simplicity of his character, combined with a thorough
courtesy of mind and manner, and with a genuine warmth of
heart, a little veiled by his reserve. In all these respects it is
difficult for me to express my own sense of all that I owed him

1841] REMINISCENCES BY DEAN LAKE 105
myself in my undergraduate days, and I can hardly help feeling
some surprise that while he was certainly influencing our char
acters, he had so little direct influence on our opinions. It must
not be forgotten, however, that he was throughout life rather a
man of action than of the deepest thought ; and, not to dwell here
upon one or two intellectual defects in this respect, his life at
Oxford was passed at a very remarkable time, which made his
position there a peculiar and a very isolated' one. And cer
tainly this fact very much coloured his whole Oxford life ; for
he was almost the only tutor at once of a powerful intellect, and
of a high moral tone, who was hardly in the least influenced by
the spirit which moved almost every young man of thought in
Oxford from about 1835 t0 I845> and which, at the same time, he
felt that he had no power of resisting. The tale of that move
ment has been told us lately in very different styles by three
able Writers, Mr. Mozley, Mr. Mark Pattison, and Professor
Shairp, as well as in the lively and interesting description of Mr.
Newman's preaching by Sir F. Doyle ; but they all come back
to this, that the one great power which then ruled and inspired
Oxford was John Henry Newman, the influence of whose singular
combination of genius and devotion has had no parallel there,
either before or since ; the only persons who were left outside the
charmed circle being a somewhat apathetic race, the twenty or
twenty-two heads of houses, and a few tutors, of whom Tait was
the only one of real power. If this statement seems to you
exaggerated, I must remind you that it is scarcely so strong as the
words of Professor Shairp, himself a Scotchman and a friend of
Tait's, and one who, if his own genius and devotion led him keenly
to appreciate Newman, was no adherent of the movement, but
simply spoke of what he had seen as a matter of history. I
daresay you may have mentioned this already, but it may be
worth while even to repeat Shairp's own words — ' The influence
which Newman had gained,' he says — he was there in 1842 —
' apparently without setting himself to seek it, was altogether
unlike anything else in our time. A mysterious veneration had
by degrees gathered round him, till now it was almost as if some
Ambrose or Augustine of elder days had reappeared : ' and he
adds, 'There was not, in Oxford at least, a reading man who
was not more or less indirectly influenced by it. Only the very
idle or the very frivolous were proof against it. . . . It raised
the tone of average morality in Oxford to a level which perhaps

106 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. iv.
it had never before reached. You may call it overwrought, and
too highly strung. Perhaps it was. It was better, however, for
young men to be so, than to be doubters or cynics.'
"Tait's position, both at Oxford and at Balliol, standing as
\he did quite outside of this great movement, was a curious,
and, in some respects, a trying one. Brought up in a good
Presbyterian family, he had, as may be supposed, very little
sympathy with the ' High Church Party ' in the English Church,
and never the slightest inclination to ' Newmamsm ' ; and indeed,
owing to a certain want of poetry in his character, he was long,
if not always, unable to do full justice to the character of the
great leader himself. Meanwhile he had not, like Arnold or
Maurice, anything like a counter system of religious or intellectual
thought, and soon felt himself incapable of resisting an influence
to which he saw so many of those to whom he was most attached
succumbing. Of these his old tutor, and long his dearest friend,
Oakeley, was one of the first. Oakeley, the son of a former
Governor of Madras, and who after passing, as was not unusual,
through the phase of Evangelicalism, joined the Roman Church
about the same time as Newman, had been Tait's earliest friend
at Oxford, and his affection for him ended only with his life. It
is touching to remember that in the last thing which the Arch
bishop ever wrote (a short notice of Mr. Mozley's 'Reminiscences'),
he spoke of Oakeley and Ward as two of the best men he had
ever known, and I well remember his saying to me on a day '
which they had both been spending with him at Fulham, about
the year i860, ' It would indeed be disgraceful in me, if I could
ever forget all that Oakeley did for me, when I first came up as
a raw young Scotchman, and with scarcely a friend, to Oxford ;
he was,' I think he added, ' quite a father to me.' Their friend
ship continued during the first years of Tait's tutorship, but
Oakeley was gradually drawn into the stream of ' Newmanism ' ;
and I have no doubt that their entire separation, though unac
companied by any bitterness, was a heavy trial to Tait. Nor
was it mended by the fact that others to whom he was much
attached, his own pupils particularly, were either affected by the
same influence, or of a different way of thinking from himself.
He had, indeed, in Balliol a formidable counter influence in the
person of his brother tutor Ward, who, having been always, as
Lord Tennyson's epitaph describes him, ' the most unworldly of
mankind,' had already also become 'the most generous of

1841] REMINISCENCES BY DEAN LAKE 107
Ultramontanes,' and whose powerful and thorough-going logic,
not always under the control of facts, often carried most of us,
who were then young ' Fellows,' off our legs ; he laid himself out
indeed for proselytism to an amusing extent, and Stanley and
Clough were successively, rather to the annoyance of their
friends, almost absorbed by him. Common rooms are said, in
these later days, to have very much changed their character, but
about that time one or two of the principal, such as Merton with
(Cardinal) Manning, Hope-Scott, and Bruce (Lord Elgin), and
Balliol with Tait and Ward, were delightful arenas of intellectual
life. Many and vehement certainly were the disputes between
Tait and Ward in the Balliol Common Room, where they
were admirably matched, each respecting the other's acute-
ness and power of argument, and I never remember the slightest
loss of temper on either side. I must say, on referring to
a journal which I kept at that time, that Ward seems to me
never to have shrunk from any extravagance, or what he called
'going the whole hog,' when his argument required it.
" As I have alluded once or twice to Tait's pupils, I may^
perhaps complete this picture of his tutorial life by saying that
he had fallen in with a rather remarkable and active-minded set
of ' scholars,' not very easy to manage intellectually. Sir John
Wickens, Stanley, Goulburn, Jowett, Clough, Sir Stafford North-
cote, Lord Coleridge, Temple Bishop of London, and Matthew
Arnold, all followed each other as scholars in the seven years of
his tutorship ; and the list of names will show you that we were /
a set of young fellows who were very much disposed to take ourl
own line — no doubt too much so — almost from the first days of
our Oxford life. About half were Etonians, and most of the
others had come fresh from Arnold, full of raw ideas, which we
had got from our ' Pops,' and other debating societies, and having
looked forward to Oxford as a new world of life and thought.
It certainly became so to many of us, and I, for one, cannot
look back to any years so full of life and enjoyment as my three
undergraduate years at Balliol, when ' old Ward,' as we familiarly
called him, was inducting us into John Stuart Mill, John Austin,
etc., and we were ourselves vainly endeavouring to imbue him
with Coleridge and Wordsworth— both he and Tait being at that
time equally intolerant of poetry — while the successive works of
Newman, and his weekly sermons, exercised a sort of sobering
influence in the background. Meanwhile Tait's lectures kept us

108 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. iv.
to our regular work, for they were full of character, and the very
style of lecturing in those days served as a sort of moral link
between him and his pupils. This old style is now, I believe, a
thing of the past ; and I have no doubt that the new one, where
the number of hearers amounts to one or two hundred, is of a
much more learned and professorial character. But I may be
allowed to doubt whether, given a really able man, the lectures
in a tutor's own room to a class of some eighteen or twenty
pupils, who were sure to be well shown up if they had not pre
pared their work, were not a thoroughly effective style of teaching;
and I am disposed to agree with the dictum of a Conservative
friend and brother Dean-, whose name would carry a great deal
of weight, and who is fond of saying : ' They may talk as they
like about their new styles of teaching, but my notion of a
good education is what we used to get from dear old Tait and
Scott' " I don't know, my dear Dean, whether these remembrances, on
which I feel I have dwelt too long with an old man's fondness, will
have given you a true idea of the position which Tait had at
Oxford. But putting aside, as far as I can, the feelings of a
deep personal attachment, I should say that he was then a man
of marked character rather than of the genius which distinctly
influences others — thoroughly Scotch in its independence, its
caution, and its reserve of expression, but also with a reserve of
power which belonged to the man himself — a character which
was sure to grow, and, in the best sense of the word, be successful.
I ought to add that he left Oxford before he was thirty, and that
on the only public occasion which called him forth (rightly or
wrongly), the protest against No. xc, he had shown great deci
sion. It was his quiet power, however, which I myself always
felt most strongly-^combined, of course, with other great moral
qualities — for he always seemed to me to rise to the occasion,
whatever it might be ; and I felt confident, both when he went
to Rugby, and when he was made Bishop of London, that,
though he would make some mistakes, his force and dignity of
character, his quiet self-confidence, and his strong good sense —
the great quality in which he most believed — would ensure his
success. May I be excused for mentioning a conversation which
I well remember with Mr. Gladstone, on Tait's appointment to
London in 1856, when he was much annoyed at Tait's being
preferred to Bishop Wilberforce — and of which he reminded me

1841] REMINISCENCES BY DEAN LAKE 109
nearly thirty years afterwards, at the time of the Archbishop's
death, by saying : ' Ah ! I remember your maintaining to me at
that time that his o-epvoTrjs and his judgment would make him
a great Bishop.'
" Such are some of my recollections of his earlier years. Per
haps you will let me add in separate notices such memoranda as
occur to me with reference to his life at Rugby, and as Bishop
and Archbishop. — I am, my dear Dean, yours very truly,
"W. C. Lake."

CHAPTER V.
RUGBY.
1842-1850.
The summer of 1842 opened a totally new and unex
pected field of interest and of work. In the first week
of June, Tait was spending a few days at Courteen Hall,
in Northamptonshire, with Sir Charles and Lady Wake,
who had just lost a beloved daughter.
"The visit over," writes Lady Wake, "Archie returned to
Oxford. I had gone with him to Blisworth Station to see him
off, when our attention was attracted by the sight of a multitude
of boys filling the carriages of the train, all silent and sad.
' Who were they ? ' ' The young gentlemen from Rugby ! ' was
the reply. Evidently it was no holiday. 'What brought them
there ? ' ' Arnold is dead,' passed from mouth to mouth. Their
hushed voices and subdued looks told evidently how suddenly
the blow had fallen, and how it had affected each one of
them." Dr. Arnold died on Sunday, June 12th, 1842, and,
ten days later, Archibald Tait, mainly at the instigation
of Lake and Stanley, declared himself a candidate for the
vacant post. His diary has the following on June 23,
1 842 : " O Lord, I have this day taken a step which may
lead to much good or much evil. Do Thou suffer me to
succeed only if it be to the good of my own soul, and to
Thy glory."
The unique position held by Dr. Arnold among school
masters, and indeed among Englishmen, gave an altogether
exceptional interest to the question — Who was to be his

1842-50] CANDIDATE FOR RUGBY in
successor ? Among Rugbeians, and not among them alone,
the excitement as to the appointment was immense ; and
when, on July 28th, 1842, it was announced that Archibald
Tait had been elected, his friends scarcely knew whether
to congratulate him or not upon the perilous inheritance.
Among the unsuccessful candidates were several whose
qualifications in some particular respect were superior to
his own. Mr. C. J. Vaughan, besides his high Cambridge
reputation as a scholar, had been one of Dr. Arnold's
foremost pupils ; while Mr. Bonamy Price had not only
been his pupil at Laleham, but had successfully served
under him as an assistant master ; nor could Tait lay
claim to the technical and accurate scholarship of such
men as Mr. Merivale, Mr. Kynaston, and Mr. Blakesley.
Mr. Lake, who had been one of the first to urge him to
become a candidate, and whose intimacy with Dr. Arnold
gave special weight to his opinion, was fully aware of
Tait's weak points. A few days before the election he
writes : —
" O my dear Tait, I do not envy you if you do get it. I
quite quake for the awful responsibility, putting on that giant's
armour. However, I really believe you are far the best. My
main fears are for your sermons being dull, and your Latin prose,
and composition generally, weak, in which latter points you will
have, I think, hard work. But I earnestly say, as far as we can
see, ' God grant he may get it ! ' "
According to the account given by Lady Wake,
who had special opportunities of knowledge, it was found,
when the trustees met for the election after study of the
testimonials, that some of them had Tait's name first
upon their lists, while all the rest, without exception, had
placed it second. The issue was finally narrowed, it is
said, to the consideration of the relative merits of two of
the youngest among the eighteen candidates, Archibald

na LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. V.
Tait and Charles John Vaughan, and it was not till after
long and anxious debate that the decision was arrived at,
and Tait was elected in Arnold's room.
To realise the nature of the task to which he was thus
suddenly called, it is only necessary to read the remarkable
chapter in Stanley's Life of Dr. Arnold, which describes
the great master's 'School Life at Rugby.' No other
schoolmaster has ever occupied so large a place as
Arnold in the attention of England, and the most self-
confident of men might well have shrunk from exposing
himself to the fierce light which continued to beat upon
the scene of that conspicuous life, and to the necessity of
being judged by the standard which Arnold had created.
On the day before the election Tait writes as follows
in enclosing a testimonial to a friend : —
" It is quite a delightful interlude for me to have to put forth
any one's merits but my own. As you may suppose, I feel some
what nervous about the result of to-morrow's election. But the
near approach of the day has brought so vividly before me the
deeply responsible nature of the office for which I am a candi
date that I shall be able to make up my mind to failure. The
responsibility of such a situation seems to me every day more
awful; but all .situations are responsible just in proportion to
their usefulnessjjind if it were in my power to keep up that system
which Dr. Arnold has begun, I should certainly think my life
well spent. "~J
The news of his election did not reach him until July
29th, when his diary contains the following : —
" Oxford, 2Cjth fuly 1842. — A most eventful day. . . . This
day my election at Rugby has dissolved my direct connection
with Balliol. O Lord, when I look back on the 7^ years that
have passed since I was elected Fellow, what mercies have I to
thank Thee for ! Yet how little have I improved. God, be
merciful to me, a miserable sinner. . . . When entering on this
new situation, let no worldly thoughts deceive me. The sudden
death of him whom I succeed should be enough to prevent this.

1842-50] HEAD-MASTER OF RUGBY 113
Grant me, Lord, to live each day as I would wish to die. Let
me view this event, not as success, but as the opening up of
a fresh field of labour in Thy vineyard. Now I may look
forward to dedicate my whole life to one object — the grand work
of Christian education. Let me never forget that the firsfc^er--,
quisite for this is to be a true Christian myself. Give me a noty
heart. Give me boldness and firmness in Thy service. Give me
unfailing perseverance. Banish all indolence. Give me freedom
from worldly ambition. O Lord, I have much labour before
me — much to do of a secular character. Grant that this may
never draw me from regular habits of devotion, without which
the Christian life cannot be preserved within me."
As has been already said, it was largely at the instiga
tion of Arthur Stanley that he had resolved to become
a candidate for the Head-mastership. But in the weeks
which followed, Stanley seems to have felt it impossible
•to recommend any one as really fit to take Dr. Arnold's
place, and before the actual election took place he had
practically ceased to support Tait's candidature.
Several characteristic letters from him followed one
another in rapid succession as soon as the election was
over. The Rev. A. P. Stanley to the Rev. A. C. Tait.
"fuly 29, 1842.
" My dear Tait, — The awful intelligence of your election
has just reached me. At any time it would have been a most
serious responsibility to me — from circumstances which have tran
spired in the last week1 it is absolutely overwhelming. I have
not heart to say more than that I conjure you by your friendship
for me, your reverence for your great predecessor, your sense of
the sacredness of your office, your devotion to Him whose work
you are now more than ever called upon to do, to lay aside every
thought for the present except that of repairing your deficiencies.
1 These ' circumstances ' are explained in a subsequent letter to be the
objections of some of the Rugby masters to the new appointment, but the
same letter adds that he finds he has overrated the difficulties, and they are
vanishing. VOL. I. H

n4 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. v.
. . . Read Arnold's sermons. At whatever expense of orthodoxy
(so called) for the time, throw yourself thoroughly into his spirit.
Alter nothing at first. See all that is good and nothing that is
bad in the masters and the Rugby character."
A few days later he writes : —
" I feel as if your appointment to this tremendous office with
out an ordination had given a shock to my tendencies to believe
in Apostolical succession which they will never recover. It is
of course impossible not to recur to the chasm never to be filled
up when I think of your election ; but my thoughts sometimes
return thence charged with the hope that God has in store great
things for you also, and that the object of this whole dispensa
tion, so far as I am concerned, has not been solely to break
down my chief earthly stay, but to show me how his work may
be continued by others."
And again : —
" Forgive me, if in the first agony of distress, when your election
brought before me what I had lost — not only in him at Rugby,
but in you at Oxford — I may have spoken too sadly. You must
not expect that I could go scatheless through so terrible a con
vulsion as this has been."
Tait's inauguration as Head-master took place on
Sunday, August 14th, when the sermon was preached
by Arthur Stanley. The Head-master was deeply moved
by the sors liturgica, which gave as the opening words
of the Epistle for the day, " Such trust have we through
Christ to God-ward : not that we are sufficient of ourselves
to think anything as of ourselves ; but our sufficiency is
of God." Diary.
" Sunday Evening, August 14th, 1842. — Gracious Lord, accept
my heartfelt thanks for the mercies of this day. May the words
which Stanley spoke be fixed deeply in my heart, and in the
hearts of all who heard them. Oh may the solemn responsibility
which has this day come so fully upon me make me a man of

1842-50] FIRST DAYS AT RUGBY 115
prayer. Without incessant prayer I am lost, and, if I perish, how
many souls perish with me."
"Monday Evening, August 15A&. — Almighty God, give me
strength of body to stand the labour of this place, and strength
of mind to conduct myself in it aright. Enable me, in the midst
of all, to have time for serious earnest devotion. God Almighty,
bless the young souls over whom Thy Providence has placed
me. Amen."
It was from the first a great satisfaction to him to
know that he had the entire confidence of Dr. Arnold's
own family and friends. In a letter received soon after
his appointment Mr. Matthew Arnold wrote : —
"From the very beginning, when we found that Archdeacon
Hare would not stand, I heartily wished for your success, as
my first feeling was that the one point of paramount importance
was to provide for the efficient government and firm and con
sistent management of the school, which seemed to me far the
most necessary requisite in the election, and one that there was
some danger of neglecting. I feel so confident that if you have
a school wisely and firmly governed, and boys and masters alike
impressed with the conviction that their main object should be
to unite their efforts in making and keeping the place a Christian
school, all the intellectual proficiency which is apt to be the first
thing considered will be sure to follow as a matter of course."
It would be useless to give the chronological details
of a life so necessarily monotonous as that of the Head
master of a public school,1 and a few reminiscences
furnished by colleagues or contemporaries who knew him
well will probably be the best mode of presenting some
picture of Tait's position and work at Rugby.
The following is contributed by the Dean of West
minster : 2 —
" When the news of Dr. Tait's election came (I was
1 See Stanley's Life of Arnold, chap. iii.
2 Dr. Bradley was a pupil of Dr, Arnold at Rugby from 1837 to 1840,

116 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. v.
then an undergraduate at Oxford), I remember being, on
the whole, content ; and I think I am right in saying that
the Rugby undergraduates, when we met in October —
though the loss of Arnold absorbed us to a degree difficult
to make others realise — turned with great loyalty to Tait.
I was intimate with many who came up to Oxford from
Rugby in the year following his appointment, and the
impression I got of him was that of quite indefatigable
earnestness and industry, and of his throwing himself heart
and soul into the Rugby tradition. Indeed, I am not
wrong, I suspect, in thinking that Tait and Cotton (though
both of course with an infinite fund of humour) probably
over-strained the amount of responsibility and high-strung
sense of duty which Arnold had made a part of the older
boys' education. Some few boys flung off from it entirely,
but others came to Oxford in Tait's earlier days over
weighted. We older Rugbeians had perhaps been as bad ;
but we used to think that the younger generation carried
the flag of ' moral thoughtfulness ' rather too high. * . . .
"Early in 1846 Dr. Tait appointed me an assistant
master at Rugby. I remember our interview to arrange
preliminaries. There was truth as well as humour in his
remark (to which I cordially assented) that we had other
things to do at Rugby besides exalting the Arnold
tradition. The school was at that time somewhat out of
gear. The influx of boys had been immense ; the houses
were overcrowded ; the system of payment was inequit
able, enriching the older masters, but leaving no funds for
increase of staff. The Head-master's position must, I am
sure on looking back, have been surrounded with difficulties
and anxieties. He worked very hard : rose early and
worked before first school, which was at 7 o'clock, especially
1 Arthur Stanley in one of his sermons at Oxford speaks of Arnold's boys
as having felt at school "the care of all the Churches." {Sermons on the
Apostolic Age, p. 28. )

1842-50] DEAN BRADLEY'S REMINISCENCES 117
hard at his Modern History and Divinity Lectures. He
was not, of course, remarkable as a scholar, and from the
first he wisely had the assistance of a Composition master.
But his teaching was, so far as I can say, thoroughly good
in the main, better, I think, than that of many more
brilliant scholars, and he always left on the mind of the
Sixth the idea of conscientious and thorough work. . . .
His sermons were very earnest and devout. No one could
sneer at them ; no one did, I think. They were some
times really impressive. More than this I can hardly say;
but I feel sure that he exercised a great deal of religious
influence on the school. It was a very busy life. I pro
bably saw more of him than almost any master except -
Cotton ; but there was not much time for this except in
occasional rides and short conversations. He was very
hospitable, and fond of society, and I often dined there and
met various people from the outer world. I remember
Cotton summing up his position by applying to him
Tertullus' words to Felix : ' Seeing that by thee we enjoy
great quietness, and that many worthy deeds are done
unto this nation by thy providence.' Indeed, I think that
he was thoroughly respected and, in the main, appreciated.
There was a sort of inflated idea that Rugby was the centre
of the world, and that nOne but a man of genius could
preside over it ; but I can't recall anything more marked
than this. His illness came in the spring of 1848 : it was
terribly severe, and one day we really walked about the
quad expecting that any moment the chapel bell might
toll. It of course shook him greatly, and he was long
unfit for work, and never, I think, was quite at home again
at Rugby, though getting better when the Deanery of
Carlisle came in 1 849. Then I think every one felt what a
loss he would be, and the feeling of the boys especially
rose to enthusiasm. He left in the middle of the year 1850,

n8 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. v.
and the .carriage was drawn down by the boys, and there
was the greatest possible excitement. One member of the
school-house, an Irishman, I found weeping so dreadfully
at the station that I brought him back, and got leave from
the new Head-master to let him stay with me for the
remaining week or two before he left school, to save him
the distress of beginning with a new Head-master. . . .
His tenure of the Head-mastership was a very remarkable
instance of goodness and good sense (and, I need hardly
add, very good abilities), enabling a man to fill a post for
which he was not specially designed. One may fairly say
this of so great a Bishop of London and Archbishop of
Canterbury. I try in vain to recollect any special failure
which I could point out. His interest in individual boys
was warm ; he never forgot them when they had left, and
the school-house received infinite, kindness both from him
and from Mrs. Tait. I can only add that the impression
he made upon myself was such, that when I heard of his
being made Bishop of London I felt sure that he would
succeed or die."
The following is from the pen of Principal Shairp : —
" Tait was certainly by no means a born school-master.
He had not himself been at an English public school, and
his sympathies and powers of influence lay more with
young men than with boys. . . . Besides this, the assistant
masters over whom he was to be placed had many of them
been devoted pupils and friends of Arnold, and they were
apt to fancy themselves exalted beyond other men by
their contact with him. It was not to be expected that
these men should have the same feelings towards Tait,
who was an entire stranger to them, which they had towards
Arnold. It may have been that some of them may have
been thought, both by their friends and by themselves,

1842-50] PRINCIPAL SHAIRP'S REMINISCENCES 119
fully equal to Tait. But when a successor to Arnold was
wanted, it was to Oxford that men naturally looked for
one. And among the Oxford Fellows and Tutors of that
day they naturally turned to the chief Tutor of the best
College ; and he stood out from all his compeers, if not for
the finest scholarship, yet for the most substantial character
and robust manhood. And it was all needed at this crisis.
For of all the transitions of his eventful life, I do not
believe that any so tried him as the passage from Oxford
to Rugby. But he faced it with that calm meek courage
so characteristic of him — a courage founded not on self-
assertion, or any over-appreciation of his own power, but
on the sense that this was the thing to do, and that by
God's help he would do it. And, whatever difficulties
there may have been at the outset, the school quickly grew
and prospered under his Head-mastership. The 400 boys
whom it contained at Arnold's death soon increased to
500. This was no doubt in great measure due to the
reputation which Arnold had left, and to the great expan
sion of that reputation which followed the appearance
of Stanley's famous Biography. But if this was the source
whence the prosperity came, it was Tait who nurtured and
garnered it. He showed his usual good sense in accepting
the position to which he had been called of being the
conservator of Arnold's work, and building on the founda
tion which he had laid.
" Dr. Tait had been Head-master for more than four
years when he offered me an assistant-mastership which
had become vacant. For the first week or ten days I was
the guest at the school-house, where I was received with
much kindness. One afternoon, the first or second day
after my arrival, Dr. Tait took me into his study, and there
gave me some hints about the school and its ways, and,
especially, gave a slight sketch of the several masters of

120 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT . [ch. v.
whom I was about to become a colleague. He said a few
words about each, and when I afterwards came to know
them, I found his estimate to have been wonderfully true.
I especially remember the emphasis of admiration with
which he dwelt on the character of Cotton, and on the
way he did his work. Evidently he was a master after
Dr. Tait's own heart."
Delicate as his position was with regard to the assistant
masters who knew so much more than he could know of
Rugby and its traditions, his relations with them were
from the first of the most cordial kind. An interruption
of this was at one time threatened, when, in the year 1845,
a strong disagreement arose respecting the appointment of
a new master to a particular form. For some days the
resignation of several of the best men of the staff seemed
imminent, but it was averted by a combination of firmness
and gentleness on Tait's part which, as the correspondence
shows, won the warm appreciation even of those who had
at first felt most aggrieved. On this, as on several other
occasions, he emphatically asserted his view as to the
independent rights, the possession of which he, like Dr.
Arnold, considered essential to the due maintenance of the
Head-master's position. The only entry on the subject in
his journal is as follows : —
" Saturday, $th April 1845. — O Lord God, in this great diffi
culty as to the management of the school, grant that I may put
away every thought but how I shall best regulate it as a portion
of Thy Church to Thy glory and the good of souls. Suppress
every angry or proud thought; may I not seek my own glory.
May I be ready to make any sacrifice myself; but teach me to
be bold in Thy service. May no fear of man compel me to do
what is wrong, no desire of peace lead me to give up principle ;
but, on the other hand, may I be saved from all harshness or
unkindness, and from an proud continuance in my own deter
minations, because I have once committed myself to them.

1842-50] WORK AT RUGBY 121
Lord, may I remember that Thou hast intrusted to me many
souls." The following extracts from some of his letters to his
future wife during the months of their engagement show
the keen interest he was feeling in his work : —
"I certainly have my time here most fully occupied, but I
could not have any work more truly interesting. I find the Sixth
take great interest in Plato's Phcedo—zs, they ought. I consider
the books they are reading with me now about the most interests
ing that could possibly be found. Not to mention the Acts of
the Apostles — reading which carefully with them opens up new
and striking features in it every day — we are reading the Plicedo
of Plato, which, as I daresay you know, contains the conversation
of Socrates, on the day of his death, with his disciples on the
immortality of the soul ; the sixth book of Virgil's ^Eneid, which
gives the account of ^Eneas going down to the abode of the dead,
and sets forth the belief of the ancients on the state of future
retribution ; the first book of Tacitus' Annals, which is a noble
picture of Rome in its fallen state under Tiberius; and the '
Electra of Sophocles, about the noblestt of ancient tragedies. So
that you see I live in good company, having daily converse with
such great men. This is really no nonsense."
And again : — " Good Friday.
" This day has been full of interest. To-night I have had a
conversation — which I shall tell you about when we meet — with
a boy who, having been brought up a Unitarian, is anxious, with
his father's consent, to become a member of the Church of
England, and receive the Communion on Easter Sunday. Many ^
people think that a schoolmaster's is not a proper profession for a
clergyman. My opinion, on the contrary, is that there is no
situation of so directly pastoral a nature as mine. How very few
clergy have parishioners who are so willing to be led as my
boys ! "
And again : —
"This afternoon has beer, a very melancholy one. The
speeches ended at half-past two. It was altogether an interesting

122 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. v.
sight. And when it was over, the thoughts of a whole year
passed in this place came upon me — the terrible responsibility —
the little good that has been done — the great difficulties that lie
before me — and altogether the separating from all these young
faces, with the certainty that many of them I shall never see on
earth again — and yet that for the good or evil they have con
tracted here I shall certainly have to give an account."
On the 22d of June 1843, the Head-master of Rugby
was married in Elmdon Church to Catharine Spooner,
the youngest daughter of Archdeacon Spooner, vicar of
Elmdon. The little volume is now well known in which
Archbishop Tait has himself told the story of their
wedded life of five-and-thirty years, and his biographer
half shrinks from treading, however reverently, upon holy
ground. But no picture of his life during any one of
those eventful years would be a true one which failed
to show her working in bright activity by his side,
sharing and lightening every labour and every sorrow.
After eagerly embracing in her earlier girlhood the best
teaching of the Evangelical party, to which her father
and his friends belonged, she had fallen, some years
before her marriage, under the influence of the Oxford
school ; and, as the Archbishop has himself told us —
" She could scarcely bear that it should be opposed and spoken
against. She has often told me how, when she heard that one
of the four protesting tutors who helped to bring to a sudden
close the series of the Oxford Tracts was a candidate for the
Head-mastership of Rugby, she earnestly hoped he would not
be successful. ... It was a strange turn of fate which made her
open her heart next year to the very candidate whose success
she had deprecated, and become the happy partner of his life
at Rugby, Carlisle, Fulham, Lambeth ; sharing in all his deepest
and truest interests, helping forward for thirty-five years every
good work which he was called to promote ; united to him in
the truest fellowship of soul, while still tempering by the associa
tions of her early Oxford bias whatever might otherwise have

1842-50] MARRIAGE TO CATHARINE SPOONER 123
been harsh in his judgments of the good men from whom on
principle he differed."1
It is a fact that among the many reminiscences of
those Rugby days which have been furnished by pupils
and friends, there is not one which does not record the
deep impression which seems to have been made, even
on the least susceptible, by the bright presence of the
beautiful young wife who presided over the school-house
hospitality, and entered with the keenest zest into every
Rugby interest, great and small.
She had been brought up in the quietest of country
homes — till she was twenty-one years old she had never
seen the sea — and though her mind was richly stored with
English literature of every kind, she had few friends
beyond the rather wide circle of her family, and she knew
little of the world outside. To show her so much that
was new when the successive school holidays came round,
was to her husband a very keen enjoyment.
In the summer of 1845 they undertook a journey which
must have tested severely even her untiring strength.
Leaving England on the last day of June, in company
with his two brothers and a nephew, they posted through
France and Italy, and in perhaps the seven hottest weeks
of an exceptionally hot summer they drove from Paris,
over Mont Cenis, to Genoa. Sailing thence, they dis
embarked their carriage at Naples, and after visiting
Sorrento and Vesuvius— then in eruption — they drove by
Rome, where they spent six days, to Perugia, Florence,
Bologna, and Milan. Thence over the Splugen into
Switzerland, and back to Calais.
The rough journal which Dr. Tait kept throughout
this remarkable tour tells of the many difficulties which
they encountered on the journey, due in part to the
1 Catharine and Craufurd Tait, p. 6.

124 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. v.
necessity of travelling more rapidly than their drivers
and hotel-keepers approved, and in part to the suspicion
which seems somehow to have attached to their party,
especially in the Neapolitan and Papal dominions. This
entry is thrice repeated : —
"Mem. — Let no man in his senses ever again introduce a
carriage into the kingdom of Naples by sea."
At Naples he writes : —
" I confess the more I see of Sundays on the Continent, the
more does one's opinion of the Puritans rise. Sunday cannot
be a day of rest to the hard-pressed poor unless it be made
a day of religious rest."
" I cannot endure Museums, but the paintings of Herculaneum
and Pompeii, the rusty irons to which the skeletons of prisoners
were found chained, the statues of the Balbi and of Agrippina,
the Farnese Hercules — these save this from giving me the sicken
ing feeling which a museum generally brings."
In Rome they worked day and night at sight-seeing.
" It is very well to pass a few months abroad, but the hurry
and want of peace makes it by no means the best relaxation
for a man who fears that during the rest of the year he has more
work than is consistent with quiet thoughtfulness."
" Pope not to be seen. ' Aujourd'hui il ne sort pas. Demain
il y a une procession, et il ne sort pas. Samedi il ne sort jamais.
Ni dimanche.' I hope he may live through the week."
" Perugia, fuly 2gth. — The landlord warned us that next day
was to be the exhibition of the ring of the Virgin at the church
close by, and that we must expect about 3 a.m. to hear thousands
of poor people from the Abruzzi and from Calabria, and from
most distant parts of Neapolitan dominions pass under our
windows singing Vivat Maria and Ave Maria. We were roused
accordingly ; and to-day, about eleven, we saw a scene the most
wonderful that I ever beheld. The people of the country here, it
appears, do not think very much of the relic, but its fame is great
at a distance. This year there were not above 2000 pilgrims from
a distance, which is a small number. They were the most abject

1842-50] VISIT TO ITALY 125
of the peasantry, — poor, tired, ragged, — having come, some of
them, hundreds of miles. One end of the church was filled with
them. As soon as the relic was brought down to be exhibited
to the authorities of the town who were present, these poor
creatures, who were wrought to the highest pitch of excitement,
shouted out their Vivat Maria. The senators retired, and then
began a scene which baffles, all description. We at last succeeded
in getting into a gallery, immediately above the chapel where
the relic was displayed. The people were admitted by an iron
gate in the railing. . The dense mass was crushed together in
such a way as seemed to threaten that many would be stifled.
As the gate was opened they shrieked and rushed, and those
who got in only did so with their lives. The soldiers who shut
the gates had hard work.
"One man naked, beating himself with iron chains, on his
knees. The crowd treated him with the respect paid to a dervish.
One woman crawled like a worm up the aisle, and received similar
respect. The rest were nearly squeezed to death. Each party
as they entered fell on their knees, kissed the floor, rushed
to the relic, had their heads rubbed against it by the two
priests, and made (most of them) some very small offering.
Our friend the dervish of the iron chains we afterwards met
in the streets, in a great state of excitement, though it was of a
more terrestrial kind than that of which he had at least assumed the
appearance in church, when, in the midst of admiring groups,
he clasped his hands and assumed a beatific look. Now he was
very like a sturdy beggar, and his tones were anything but saintly
when we passed without giving him anything.
" It is from such scenes as these, not from the elegant Mon-
signori of Rome, that we must judge of the evils of Rome. The
scene was indeed like the worship of some heathen deity. This
surely is Anti-Christ. And this is the city of an archbishop, and
within the Pope's own territory."
In the opening months of this same year, 1845, he had
been again in the thick of ecclesiastical strife, though
rather as a moderator than as a combatant.
It is always difficult for a Head-master to interfere
prominently in public affairs unconnected with his school.
Dr. Arnold's position had been unique, but some of his

126 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. v.
warmest admirers maintain that he would have been an
even greater Head-master had he been less prominent as
a politician and a controversialist. Dr. Tait was of this
"opinion, and it was only on rare occasions during his
eight years at Rugby that he allowed himself to take part
in public controversy. But every visitor to the school-
house remembers his keen interest both in home and
foreign politics, and, above all, in questions of University
reform. A controversialist, in the stricter sense, he had
never been, but he intervened with marked effect in the
exciting struggle which was waged in 1845 round the
person of his old antagonist and friend, Mr. William
George Ward.
Mr. Ward, whose opinions, even in the view of his
best friends, had been becoming less and less consistent
with any reasonable adherence to the Church of England,
published in 1844 The Ideal of a Christian Church, an
elaborate volume wherein, according to his opponents, he
publicly defied the University, held himself up as an
instance of the inability of her tests to exclude an avowed
Roman Catholic, and proclaimed his readiness to subscribe
the thirty-nine articles as often as they should be tendered
to him, and, at the same time, his abhorrence of the
Reformation, and his determination, in his own words,
"to renounce no one Roman doctrine."
The University accepted the challenge, and a Convoca
tion was summoned for February 13th, 1845, wherein three
resolutions were to be proposed, — the first declaring Mr.
Ward's book to be " utterly inconsistent with the Articles of
Religion of the Church of England," and with Mr. Ward's
own good faith in respect of his subscription to them ;
the second annulling the degrees of B.A. and M.A. con
ferred on Mr. Ward on the strength of such subscription ;
and the third imposing for the future on all graduates a

1842-50] WARD'S CHALLENGE 127
new form of subscription to the Articles, with a view to
avoiding any possibility of such interpretations as Mr.
Ward and the supporters of Tract XC. had put upon them.1
Among the members of Convocation whose support
of these propositions was deemed certain, were those who
had signed or approved the ' protest ' of the four tutors
three years before. And accordingly Dr. Tait was con
fidently appealed to for the use of his name in the
circulars which advocated the resolutions.
Instead of giving it, however, he published a pamphlet,
m the form of a letter to the Vice-Chancellor, which
greatly disconcerted many of his friends. Admitting
with reluctance the apparent necessity of the proposed
annulling of Mr. Ward's degrees, inasmuch as he held
him to be "a Roman Catholic in everything but the
name," he yet argued with all his might against the
indiscriminate imposition of a test which he declared
could do nothing but harm. Without referring directly
to the part he had taken in the 'protest' of the four
tutors, he explained the consistency of his action then with
his action now. " Mr. Ward," he said, " has publicly and
boldly challenged the Church and the University, . . .
and unless I much mistake his character, after an
intimate acquaintance with him for above ten years, I
am sure that he will look with very great contempt upon
the Protestantism of any who are not ready to urge the
necessity of his challenge being accepted."
But "by the third proposition which they intend to
bring before Convocation, [the Heads of Houses] have
plunged into a new field, in which they must lose the
support of those who are most able and willing to stand
1 The new test was to contain the following words : — " Ego, A. B 
profiteor . . . me Articulis istis omnibus et singulis eo sensu subscripturum
in quo eos ex animo credo et primitus editos esse, et nunc mihi ab Universitatq
propositos tanquam opinionum mearum certum ac indubitatum signum,"

128 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. v.
by them." Evangelicals, Anglo-Catholics, and Broad
Churchmen J would, he maintained, be alike placed in a
difficulty were the new form of subscription carried. It
would operate to the exclusion of the best, because the
most conscientious, men. Extreme cases like Mr. Ward's
may occur from time to time. " Liberty may degenerate
into licence, and in his case it has done so. . . . He has
received his commission as an authorised teacher on con
dition of his renouncing Romish error. But let the
University deal with each of such cases as it arises.
There is no need of our narrowing the limits of the
Church of England because some amongst us wish to
make it too wide."
This pamphlet, which had an immediate and wide
circulation, was a disappointment to the friends who had
reckoned too hastily on Tait's partisanship in their at
tack. Mr. Golightly, for example, his old felloW-worker
at Baldon, wrote in much wrath : —
" Your pamphlet has caused extreme concern here to many
whose opinions you value. Pray, for the sake of Rugby, the
interests of which it may really injure, let me entreat you to with
draw it immediately. I cannot tell you how grieved I am. . . .
You were not called upon to come forward, nor justified in
advising the Heads of Houses. Cramer and the Vice-Chancellor
have expressed themselves strongly against your pamphlet. Let
me again beseech you to withdraw it."
Mr. Lake, on the other hand, wrote : —
"I think you have acted most rightly and consistently, and
although I hear that our Oxford friends attack the tone of your
arguments, I really do not see under the circumstances, and in
your position, what other you could adopt. . . . The Heads are
one and all furious at your advice, ' My dear Mr. Vice-Chancellor'
one of the most so. You have, indeed, most prudent of men,
put your foot into it. I would not be you at your next visit."
1 He does not use the word, indeed it had hardly yet been coined but
he describes them at some length.

1842-50] ST. VALENTINE'S EVE, 1845 129
From Mr. Ward himself he received the following : —
"fan. 13, 1845.
" My dear Tait, — I am extremely obliged both by your kind
letter and by the tone of your pamphlet. I cannot but think
the latter will do great good; it is so open, honest, and plain-
spoken ; if you will allow me so far to express a judgment on it.
I may possibly make some adverse use of it in a pamphlet of
mine which I hope will be out in a few days. I must really re
turn you my warmest thanks for your most gratifying mention
of myself throughout your pamphlet. — Ever, my dear Tait, yours
very sincerely, W. G. Ward."
Partly, it would appear, in consequence of this pamph
let, partly on other grounds, the suggested ' test ' resolution
was withdrawn by its proposers some weeks before the
Meeting of Convocation, and another Resolution was
substituted for it, conveying the formal censure of the
University upon the principles of interpretation adopted
in Tract XC. This resolution it was determined, at all
costs, to put to the vote.
"At last," writes Dean Stanley, "came the memorable day
which must be regarded as the closing scene of the conflict of the
first Oxford movement. It was February 13, St. Valentine's Eve.
. . Clergy and laity of all shades and classes crowded the
colleges and inns of Oxford for the great battle of Armageddon.
. . . When the whole assembly of upwards of 1000 voters was
crowded within the Sheldonian theatre, the Registrar of the
University read out the incriminating passages of the Ideal of a
Christian Church. The general proceedings were in Latin, but it
was curious to hear the grave voice of the Registrar proclaiming
in the vernacular from his high position these several sentences,
' O most joyful ! O most wonderful ! O most unexpected sight 1
we find the whole cycle of Roman doctrine gradually possessing
numbers of English Churchmen.' " l
Mr. Ward spoke in his own defence,
"boldly, clearly, and with great self-possession, ... but the
> Edinburgh Revieio, vol. cliii. p. 322.
VOL I.

130 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. v.
matter seemed intended auditores malevolos facere. Every state
ment and every inference that could offend their prejudices,
irritate their vanity, or wound their self-respect, was urged with
the zeal of a candidate for martyrdom. . . . ' The speech over,
the Vice-Chancellor put the question. There was a roar and
counter roar of placets and non-placets. A scrutiny was ordered,
and the first resolution — the censure of the passages from the
Ideal — was carried by 777 to 391. The second — the degrada
tion — by a much smaller majority, 569 to 511.' When the third
resolution was put, every eye was fixed on the two Proctors, who,
in virtue of their office, had a constitutional veto upon every act
of the University. ' They rose, Mr. Guillemard and Mr. Church,
afterwards Dean of St. Paul's, and uttered the words which,
except on one memorable occasion [the Hampden case], no one
then living had ever heard pronounced in Convocation : Nobis
procuraioribus non placet.' "
In accordance with University rule a motion thus
negatived by the Proctors fell at once to the ground. To
the satisfaction with which this result was generally
received Dr. Tait's pamphlet had materially contributed.
Ward walked back from the theatre in company with Tait,
who had voted against him on the first count. " In the
course of this walk," we are told, " Tait warmly praised
the peroration of Ward's speech. Ward's reply was
characteristically candid : ' I am glad you liked it. These
rhetorical efforts are out of my line, but Stanley said there
should be something of the kind. He wrote it for me.' 'n
The virulence of the party spirit exhibited on each side
in this contest was to Archibald Tait a source of keen
distress.' Writing to Arthur Stanley a few days after
the Convocation, he says : " I saw you at a distance on the
black Thursday — a dreadful day, full of the most painful
thoughts of any day I have known for long, and making
me melancholy ever since."
1 For an account of the whole scene and its consequences, see W. G,
Ward and the Oxford Movement, chap. xiii.

1842-50] THE HAMPDEN CONTROVERSY 131
The above seems to have been the only instance in his
Rugby life in which his name came before the outside
public in any other capacity than that of a successful
schoolmaster. But there were certain controversies of
the time from which it was almost impossible for any
prominent Oxford graduate to hold aloof. Foremost
among these was the ' Hampden Controversy' of 1847.
On November 15th, 1847, Lord John Russell recom
mended Dr. Renn Dickson Hampden to the Queen for the
vacant Bishopric of Hereford, and a commotion of the
wildest kind immediately began. Eleven years had
elapsed since Dr. Hampden, on his appointment by Lord
Melbourne as Regius Professor of Divinity, had been
practically censured by the Convocation of the University
of Oxford for the supposed unsoundness of his theology
as indicated by the Bampton Lectures he had delivered
four years previously.1 Under this censure Dr. Hampden
had rested ever since, and it is difficult to say whether the
Tractarian or the Evangelical School was the more
indignant when Lord John Russell, in his desire for
a liberal theologian, nominated him to the Crown for the
vacant Bishopric. The history of what followed has
recently been published in full detail in the Biography of
Bishop Wilberforce,2 who, foremost at first in opposition to
the appointment, caused extreme surprise by a real or
supposed change of front during the warfare which ensued.
An attempted prosecution for heresy was vetoed by Bishop
Wilberforce, but thirteen bishops and innumerable clergy
joined in protesting to the Prime Minister against the
nomination. A counter memorial in Dr. Hampden's
1 A statute was passed, by 474 votes to 94, depriving the new Regius
Professor of his share in the nomination of select preachers, on the ground
that he had "so treated theological questions, that in this behalf, the
University has no confidence in him." The Bampton Lectures had been
delivered in 1832, 8 Vol. i. pp. 4I9-5H-

132 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. v.
favour obtained the signatures of 250 members of the
Oxford Convocation. Among these was Dr. Tait. He
had never been intimately acquainted with Dr. Hampden,
nor had he any admiration for what he termed the
Professor's "frigid and somewhat shallow and uninspiring
theology." But he was unable to see anything very here
tical in his opinions, and he considered him to have
received scant justice and much unmerited abuse.
When the election to the See of Hereford was ' con
firmed ' in Bow Church, Dr. Lushington, as representing
the Archbishop of Canterbury, refused a hearing to the
opposers, although the ceremony of confirmation includes
an invitation to objectors to come forward. The opposers
thereupon applied to the Court of Queen's Bench for a
mandamus compelling the Archbishop or his representative
to hear them. The case was fully argued, and, the four
judges being equally divided, the mandamus was refused,
and Dr. Hampden was soon afterwards duly consecrated
in Lambeth Palace chapel.
The following letter from Dr. Tait to his brother was
written when the Queen's Bench had granted a preliminary
' rule,' but before the final decision of the Court. His
statement as to the scant attention which had been paid to
the actual book so vigorously impugned has been curiously
verified by the correspondence recently made public in
Bishop Wilberforce's Life.

Rev. A. C. Tait to Mr. fames Tait.
"18 Dover Street, London,
1.8th January 1848.
" My dearest Jem, — . . . What do you Scotch people say
to the "state of the Church of England? You see that the
Queen's Bench have granted a Rule to require the objectors to
be heard unless some more valid reasons for refusing to hear

1842-50] THE HAMPDEN CONTROVERSY 133
them can be given. I am glad of this, for, however groundless
or incapable of proof the objections really are, it is monstrous that
they should be smothered in the strange way which Dr. Lushing-
ton proposed. I think the opposition to Hampden quite uncalled-
for and wrong ; but I do not see how he himself could wish the
matter to be smothered in the way proposed. ... If the law is
really as Dr. Lushington expounded it, then certainly either the
old forms of citation, etc., ought to be abolished, or new powers
granted, to allow objections when made to be entered on. The
whole matter is certainly a very grave one. Lord John would
have done much better not to appoint Hampden at first. After
he had done so the Bishops were strangely unwise to make their
protest, knowing, as they must have done, that Lord John could
not draw back with common respectability, and also being well
aware that no such grave objections now iay against Hampden
as the clamour of a few party men had tried to persuade the
world. And now, the objections having been personally stated,
I think Hampden will behave ill if he tries to stifle inquiry.
The most absurd part of the matter is that almost no one has
read the book objected to. To be sure, it is very long and some
what dull, but Bishops at least ought to read it. I have re-read
it on this occasion with great care,1 and am fully of opinion that
no case of heresy can be made out after the explanations in
Hampden's subsequently published writings. ... I signed the
address which deprecated the original agitation in opposition to
the appointment."Two years of specially hard work followed upon the
Italian tour which has been described above. Besides his
absorbing duties at Rugby, which multiplied with the
increasing numbers of the school, he maintained a keen
interest both in Oxford affairs and in the wider public
questions of the day. But the work was too much for his
physical strength. His devotional journals during these
years contain an ever-recurring reference to his frequent
fatigue and drowsiness. He seems to have regarded it in
the light of a fault to be conquered. It might better have
1 This statement is amply confirmed by the pencil-marks and annotations,
which may still be seen throughout his copy of the volume.

134 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. v.
been noted as a warning that he was overtaxing his
powers. "O Lord, save me from indolence. My body becomes so
wearied that I cannot pray to Thee as I ought. Forgive me,
O Lord, and give me strength for Christ's sake."
And again :
"Lord, make me more constantly diligent. Forgive that in
dolence which at times so overcomes me in the evenings, and
prevents me from having my heart and thoughts active when I
would draw near to Thee."
And again :
" I have been sadly drowsy. This is the very sin which I
most called to mind this morning at Thy Holy Table. Yet so
weak am I that this very afternoon it has been overpowering
me. Last night I felt it and deplored it deeply. O Lord, deliver
me from it."
Suddenly, in February 1848, he was stricken with
rheumatic fever. Both heart and lungs were affected,
and the illness soon assumed so alarming a character
that for several days recovery seemed hopeless. His
brothers and sisters were summoned, and he took leave
of them one by one. On Ash Wednesday, March 8th,
it was thought that he might die at any moment. He
dictated a letter of farewell to the Sixth Form, and sent
special messages to many friends.1
"Before I left the room that evening," writes Lady Wake, "I
heard him put this question to his doctor, ' In what manner will
death come ? ' The doctor, who had given up all hope, answered,
'Either in that faintness which. .so_. frequently comes over you,
or in a fit of coughing.' He listened in silence. His breathing
was difficult, and he was in much suffering. Wearied in body
and mind, my sister and I fell asleep in the adjoining room. A
1 The message to Mr. Shairp was as follows : "Tell him I have perfect
peace, from faith in the simplest of all truths, that Christ died for the
ungodly. "

1842-50] DANGEROUS ILLNESS 135
dreadful sound as of a succession of screams in Archie's room
recalled my senses. Marion was already gone. In another instant
I was in his room and saw him propped up in a paroxysm of
coughing — coughing is not the word for the sound. His wife and
sisters stood in mute expectation of the close ; and, when the fit
was over and he was gently lowered to his pillows, it was a relief
to see that he still breathed. He remained perfectly still, and
from that moment his breathing became regular and improvement
began. One of the most dangerous conditions of his illness had
been the adhesion of the pericardium to the heart. The violence
of the cough had probably assisted to relieve circulation, and after
this relief he slept peacefully during the remainder of the night."
On the following day he was quieter, but the
doctor gave little hope of a recovery. He was much dis
tressed about certain intricacies in the school accounts,
which he thought would not be understood after his
death, and to set his mind at rest his two brothers,
who were both skilled and accurate men of business,
tried to arrange them. They were puzzled by the
intricate character of the books, and found that to
unravel the complications was beyond their power.
Quietly and composedly Mrs. Tait herself sat down to
the task, and, with a calmness which amazed them all,
made everything clear and simple, and then returned to
her husband's side. There is a chorus of testimony to
the remarkable power she showed in these days of trial,
carrying on as usual all necessary business, and, though
she had come to think recovery hopeless, retaining her
composure, and exercising a quieting influence upon them
all. As he has himself written : —
"There were long days and nights of watching during that
spring of 1848, when kingdoms all over Europe went down with
a crash, and England itself was by many supposed to be cn the
brink of a Revolution. Of all these outward events I knew no
thing for many days. But my young wife kept watch beside my

136 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. v.
bed. All through the worst days, and still more when I was re
covering, she was ready to pray with me, and to repeat helpful
texts and hymns. . . . Never shall I forget the thankfulness with
which at last on Easter Day — though my health was much shattered
for life, and I rose a very different man in bodily strength from
what I had been when I lay down — she and I together returned
thanks and received the Holy Communion amid the bright band
of youthful worshippers in the dear Rugby chapel." 1
For two years more he continued his Rugby work, and
though there was no apparent lack of efficiency, and no
decrease in the reputation or numbers of the school, it
became clear both to himself and to his intimate friends
that his physical powers were no longer equal to the
strain of a schoolmaster's life. It was still uncertain
what the effect of arduous work might be upon his
weakened heart, and there were recurring warnings which
he dared not disregard.
"Perhaps it is good for me to meet with these checks, for
they make me better able to realise my entire dependence upon
God. I have at times thought what a dreadful thing it would
be to have some organic disease which one knew must cut one
off some day in a moment without warning. But, after all, would
not this enable a man only the better to realise the fact of his
responsibility? ... If it is indeed Thy good will to make me, either
here or elsewhere, still useful to Thy Church on earth, may I
never lose the very solemn thoughts which Thou hast brought
near to me. . . . When I think of past times there are certain
days which occur vividly to me — my ordination day; some Ash
Wednesdays passed in Oxford of which I have a record. How
solemn a day should Ash Wednesday be to me when I think
how, on its last return, I lay on the very brink of the grave. May
I never forget the day in which Bucknill told me after evening
chapel how he expected I should die. . . . For Jesus Christ's
sake, make me a faithful minister of Thy word. Lord, save me
from my evil heart. Amen."
And again :
"Lord, Thou only knowest whether I can carry through my
1 Catharine and Craufurd Tait, p. 26.

1842-50] RECOVERY FROM ILLNESS 137
duties at Rugby. May I feel no distrustful anxiety. Thou knowest
what is best. Thou wilt find enough for me to do either in acting
or in suffering for Thee."
These thoughts recur almost daily in the rough journal
which he kept with even more than usual regularity in
his two last years at Rugby. In the journals there is
little or nothing except prayers, with now and then such
comments as the following : —
"I still find great difficulty in fixing my thoughts for prayer
unless I use the help of writing. If I use a printed form, my
prayers are not sufficiently a direct approach to God. Yet if I
pray without a form, it is dreadful to feel how my thoughts wander.
Lord, give me the spirit of prayer; I have all my life long felt
my sad want of it."
He kept manfully to his work, and some of his
colleagues used to maintain that his lectures to the
Sixth Form in his last year of office were the best he
ever gave. But his friends grew increasingly anxious,
and it was a relief both to him and to them when an
opportunity was given to him of laying down a burden
which undoubtedly overtaxed his strength. On October
18, 1849, he received through Lord John Russell the offer
of the vacant Deanery of Carlisle, and at once accepted
the post.
" Perhaps his life at Rugby," writes Dean- Lake, " was
the least marked period of Tait's career, though I think it
greatly developed some of his best qualities. It was the
happiest time of his life, when he delighted to have his
intimate friends staying with him, and all varieties of
opinion were discussed, almost with the animation, though
with much less than the vehemence, which sometimes
marked the still more interesting conversations of Arnold.
It is difficult to imagine any scenes more pleasant than
those of the drawing-room, or the long walks and rides at

138 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. v.
Rugby. But as the head-master of a public school he was
hardly a success. He succeeded a man of real genius
and extraordinary force of character, by far the greatest
teacher of his day, and who had formed a staff of able
under-masters entirely devoted to him. Tait was any
thing but a finished scholar himself, and he had to run
the gauntlet of a good deal of severe criticism. At the
same time, Rugby offered him a more congenial and
more independent sphere than Oxford, and gave a great
scope to his tact, and his natural power of dealing
with men. Another and more delicate feature in his
life must also be mentioned ; for the circumstances of
his most happy marriage, of which I have many touching
records, brought him for the first time into a close con
nection with many members of the High Church party;
I have still vividly before me many expressions, both
in his letters and his conversations, showing that he
recognised the position of the High Church party in
the English Church much more distinctly than he had
done before. This feeling came out strongly on the
publication of a work which I have no doubt that you
have fully described elsewhere, Ward's Ideal of a Christian
Church, and of which it is needless to say more than that
it created — as it was probably intended to do — a perfect
uproar in Oxford. The book itself was condemned, and
Mr. Ward deprived of his degree, and something of the
nature of a general Test Act might, not impossibly,
have passed, but for a very vigorous pamphlet written
by Tait, then at Rugby, who thus drew down upon
himself the distrust of the Low Church party, which he
never entirely overcame. Any reader of Lord Shaftesbury's
Life may see that even when he was Bishop of London,
Tait did not possess the confidence of the Low Church
leaders. I remember his saying to me, with a touch of

1842-50] DEAN LAKE'S REMINISCENCES 139
bitterness, that he had never any influence in the appoint--
ments during the Palmerston regime. But the truth is,
he was never in any full sense of the word an Evangelical.
He was a Protestant, if you will, and with a strong dash
of the Presbyterian, to the end. But, except in the sense
of believing that the early Evangelicals had greatly
revived the spirit of religion in the English Church, and
in a warm sympathy with their best members, he had
very little of the distinct opinions of the Evangelical
party about him. ' A good man, but a thorough fanatic,'
he once said to me of their greatest lay representative. It
was perhaps a part of his inveterate distrust of enthusiasm.
' I respect an enthusiast,' he used to say, laughingly, ' and
all the more, because I could never possibly be one
myself ' ; and I never remember his caring much for the
Venns or Cecils, to whom, for a time at least, many of
us were attached. His special hero in the English Church
was for long, perhaps always, Archbishojo Tillotson.
" His sudden and almost fatal illness during his last
years at Rugby, which led to a weakness of health lasting
more or less through his whole life, I need not dwell
upon. I had till then looked upon him as, on the whole,
a strong man, and I well remember the horror with which,
in March 1848, I received a very short letter from Mrs.
Tait — ' If you wish to see your friend alive, come at once ' ;
he was then too ill to be spoken to, though I saw him, and
he only remarked to Mrs. Tait, ' Surely that was Lake
whose voice I heard.' You will probably have mentioned
that it was long before they could even tell him of the
French Revolution, and others, which had occurred during
his illness. While he was Dean of Carlisle I only saw him
at intervals, and it was in the spring of 1856 that, being
then engaged abroad on a Commission of Education, I
remember finding at each successive great town a letter

140

LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch.

informing me of the death of five children in succession.
From this blow he could scarcely rally, and his friends
doubted his ever doing so. Dr. Vaughan, then at Harrow,
who first mentioned to me the report that ' Tait was not
only to be made one of the new Bishops ' (there were four
Sees then vacant), ' but was to be Bishop of London,'
remarked at the same time, ' I think it will kill him.' It
was shortly afterwards that I received a note from him
with the words, ' I have just been offered, and accepted, the
Bishopric of London. Give me your prayers.' "
The following reminiscences, contributed by Mr. Arthur
Butler, give a vivid picture of his later years at Rugby :—
" The general impression that Dr. Tait made on boys
(I speak as an old member of his house during the last
years of his Head-mastership) was, in the first place, that of
a most dignified and courteous gentleman, with a grave
manner, an impressive voice, and an occasional sparkle of
deep feeling or quiet humour, which we felt lying in the
background, ready either to flash out upon our faults or
, make allowance for our shortcomings. Everything about
him was dignified, kind, and trustful. He left us very
much to ourselves, rarely interfering in any house affairs,
taking little apparent interest in our sports or pleasures,
but yet observant and well acquainted with what was
going on, and, when the occasion came, striking in with a
master-hand. Yet he rarely punished. It was a favourite
joke with us to say that his. admonitions, beginning most
seriously, ended with a twinkle of the eye and a 'Don't
let it occur again.' Doubtless he knew what faults were
bad and dangerous, what were only slight outbreaks of
high spirits and boyish thoughtlessness. Even when a boy,
whom he had locked up for the afternoon, broke out, and
was found riding on one of Wombwell's elephants, all he
did was to rebuke him sternly, ending with the usual

1842-50] A. G. BUTLER'S REMINISCENCES 141
twinkle, and ' Remember I won't be disobeyed, even for
an elephant.' He had in a high degree the gift of
humour. Naturally, I should think, quick of temper, with
much of the ' perfervidum Scotorum ingenium,' his humour
always saved him from over-severity. ' Give him time,'
we used to say on the rare occasions when he was pro
voked to exaggerate faults, ' and it will all come right.'
And it did always come right ; and we liked him all the
better for the quick flash followed by the ready forgive
ness. And this, the feeling in the house, was also the
feeling in the School. He knew exactly where to overlook
and where to interfere, and when he did punish or rebuke,
it was done in the best manner, with a force, dignity, and
judgment which left nothing to be desired. And the
result of all this was seen in the high tone and discipline
both of the house and School. There was indeed a
singular absence of the graver faults of school life ; and
though this was doubtless mainly due to the traditions
bequeathed by Arnold, quickened as they were by Arnold's
Life, just then written by Stanley, yet the greatest credit
is also due to the man who carried on these traditions, and
left the School at the end still better than he had found it.
Of this latter change and gradual improvement, and of the
way in which Tait developed and helped it on, I may
perhaps say a few words. No one can have read Arnold's
Life without being struck by his deep, perhaps excessive,
feeling of the evil incident to school life, and by the part
which the Praepostors were called upon to play in the moral
government of the School. This, the essential feature of
Arnold's system, which has had such lasting influence
for good in our great public schools, was not, however,
without its dangers. It produced strained and often
hostile relations between the Sixth and the rest of the
School, and it reacted in many cases injuriously on the

142 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. v.
character of these boy-masters, making them self-important
and unnatural. This condition of things Tait (whether
intentionally or not I cannot tell) did much to alter. In
the first place, he regulated the authority of the Sixth,
fixing limits to their power of inflicting punishment, and
giving a right of appeal to any lower boy who felt himself
aggrieved. Secondly, he did away with certain old
customs, thought by the Sixth privileges, which did no
good, but only caused friction and annoyance in the
School. And lastly, while impressing upon the Sixth
their duties and responsibilities with weighty, and often
eloquent words, he never failed also to make them see
that there was a right and a wrong way of doing
things, and that- it was quite possible to be strict and firm
without being high-flown and aggravating. And so
gradually, without in any way injuring discipline, he intro
duced a more easy and natural relation between the Sixth
and School, which was good for all. And his triumph
was, that, while thus relaxing the strain of the old
system, necessary at its first establishment, he preserved
all that was really vital in it, and led the way to that
simpler working of monitorial authority now so general in
all our great schools.
" Again, I think he had something of the same object
before him both in his pulpit teaching and in school
lessons. More than once he protested in his sermons
against introducing boys prematurely to political and
religious controversies ; and in School, whenever questions
of a speculative character forced themselves upon his
notice, he would endeavour to lead us to more practical
considerations by throwing the burden of proof on im-
pugners of received opinions, or bidding us wait till rival
controversialists had settled their difficulties, geological or
theological, among themselves. This side of his teaching

1842-50] A. G. BUTLER'S REMINISCENCES 143
was not, as may be imagined, satisfactory to the more
ardent minds ; but in the ferment of thought which he
found existing at Rugby, he doubtless thought it well to
allay rather than excite the fever. I can still remember
how, when one youthful and able essayist brought him an
essay of portentous length, he said in his gravest of
manners, after reading some few pages, ' Yes ; there seems
a good deal of it.' Needless to say that the performance
was not repeated. Much may doubtless be said against
such a mode of damping enthusiasm in ordinary cases, but
in the Rugby of that day a little cold water from time to
time, kindly administered, was not without its uses.
Stanley's Life had greatly excited us, and the danger was
that boy-life Would lose all naturalness and unconscious
ness while straining prematurely after effect. It must not
be thought, however, that he was a quencher of enthusiasm
when rightly directed. When he heard of any boy or
boys contending against school evils, he would take
occasion to thank them earnestly and kindly, with just a
slight tremor in his deep voice, but careful not to excite
or exaggerate. He wished boys (so at least it always
struck me) to be above all simple and natural.
" And so things went on till the time of his great illness
in 1848, his teachings, sermons, government, all good and
sensible, but somewhat cold and repressive; of a kind
rather to create respect.and cxinfid£ni^th^jLffecri^on_and
admiration. And yet behind his reserve and dignity there
was, we all felt, a deep fund of power and feeling, which it
only needed the occasion to bring forth. Even as it was,
the deeps were sometimes stirred. Thus, for . instance, I
can still remember the delight of hearing him expound
Aristotle. For technical scholarship he had little taste,
but in the Politics all his instincts as a statesman and
historian found free and congenial scope. And it was the

144 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. v.
same with his sermons. In ordinary times there was little
in them either to arouse or stimulate. But on touching
occasions, such as the death of a boy or master, he gave
the rein to his feelings, and moved us as deeply as he was
himself moved. No one, I think, doubted that he was
naturally an orator of no common kind. Our only regret
was (as I heard it often said), that we could not remove
his MS., and leave him in the pulpit to the natural elo
quence of the moment. It was a great power in him, which
boys thoroughly appreciate, but which for some reason he
would not, or but rarely, use.
" But with his illness there came a change — a change
both in him and our feeling towards him. Of the illness
itself, and of the long struggle between life and death, and
of the eager interest taken by us in the ever-changing
bulletins of his condition, I will not speak. It is not my
province. But two circumstances which happened at the
time may be worth recording, as showing the influence
he still exerted over us even on his sick-bed. The
first was in the house. One evening, when he was at the
worst, a letter dictated by him came to the head of the
house, in which he begged us, as a dying man, to think
seriously of the great issues of our school life, and never to
go to bed at night without reading some portion of our
Bibles. I have not a copy of that letter now, though at
the time I made one ; but I remember well the impression
made by its simple, earnest appeal to our higher nature.
The response to it was general. Not only then, but for a
long time after, there was an unwonted silence after evening
prayers in the long schoolhouse passages, as singly, or by
twos or threes, we read our Bibles. Nothing could better
show his influence. There was no talking about it, no
parade ; but every one at once did what ' dear old Tait '
asked us to do from his seeming deathbed.

1842-50] A. G. BUTLER'S REMINISCENCES 145
"The other circumstance happened later on, when,
though still very ill, he was beginning to recover.
" I have before spoken of the hostile feeling existing
between the Sixth and School. This, owing to a trifling
incident, which would never have happened had he been
well, gave rise to something very like a rebellion. It was,
moreover, the great year of revolutions, and this possibly,
in so receptive a soil as that of Rugby, was not without its
effect. Anyhow, everything was arranged for an outbreak.
Lists were made out, one of which by accident or design
fell into our hands, assigning two, three, or even four
assailants to each of the Sixth. (I well remember the
comical look of our protagonist, a sturdy, short-haired son
of Anak, when he heard that four picked youths, stout and
fearless, were told off to grapple him.) Only the time and
place were hidden from us ; and even this was at last
made known (as always happens) by a friendly member of
the Eleven, who thought the thing absurd, and gave warn
ing to some other members of the Eleven in his house in
the Sixth, with a view to save them. It was just in time.
That morning the e'meute was to take place at 9.30 in the
school-yard. The signal was to be given by an orator
from the pump. Such, at least, was the information given,
and immediately the whole body of the Sixth in Price's
house, where the secret oozed out, moved down to the
scene of action, gathering up or summoning all the other
Praepostors for the expected conflict. It was a striking
scene. The quadrangle was swarming with the excited
Demos when we arrived, and I remember thinking how
few we were — the Thirty Tyrants, as they chose to call us
 and how easily they would have bowled us over if the
fight had once begun. Just, however, when things looked
most angry and the hubbub was loudest, there went round
a sudden murmur (a cprjuv the Greeks would have called
VOL. I. K

146 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. v.
it) of ' Tait, Tait ! ' and the thought that he would hear us.
and that the knowledge of what was happening would be
bad for him, acted as an instant sedative. At the same
time one of the masters, brother of the present Dean of
Westminster, then acting as his substitute, appeared on the
scene, and (pu/cpos $ep,a<; aWa p.axvrV'>) fearlessly charged
the rebels. They, having already lost their first impulse,
and awed partly by the show of present authority, partly
by the thought of him who was absent, began slowly to
disperse ; and when Bradley began to chase a small boy
who would not disperse round one of the cloister-columns,
the whole affair ended in merry laughter, and the hneute
was over. But for the moment a rebellion was imminent ;
and but for the sudden thought of the Head-master, lying
sick and suffering close by, an outbreak probably would
have followed.
" After this I remember nothing but the acclamation
which greeted his return. It was on a warm summer day
when we were playing cricket in the Close that his well-
known, stately form was seen, supported by Mrs. Tait,
walking under the elms. Instantly every bat and ball was
laid aside, and such a cheer arose, again and again repeated,
as may well be imagined. It was the beginning of a
wholly new relation between boys and master. It was the
first expression of a popularity which went on increasing
till he left us, and which, I believe, has been, rarely equalled
at any public school. It was not that he had changed
outwardly to any great extent. He was always rather the
statesman than the schoolmaster, the ruler than the friend.
But everything between us took a warmer tone. We had
been drawn to him in his illness ; we understood him better.
We felt (many a word that fell from him in his later
sermons quickened the feeling) what a depth of almost
passionate emotion lived under that calm and dignified

¦ 1842-50] A. G. BUTLER'S REMINISCENCES 147
exterior. And when the time came, two years after, for
him to remove to Carlisle, the flood of loyalty and affection
rose to its height.
" One more scene, and these reminiscences, too long
already, must come to an end. It was, I think, the day
before his departure when we were to present him with a
testimonial. The head of the school, Goschen,1 in a truly
eloquent address, had assured him of our gratitude, our
affection, and last, not least, our high hopes and expecta
tions for him in the future, when he rose to say to us his
last words. It was a perfect speech. Still, after nearly
forty years, I can recall many of the tones and gestures
with which he stirred and thrilled and carried us along, as
he dwelt on the great work begun by Arnold, which he
had striven, however imperfectly, to carry on. He could
remember, he said, how often in old days he wished that
he had been a Rugbeian, and what a privilege he felt it to
have become one in his manhood. There was indeed a
spirit in the place from which he had learned far more
than he had ever taught, and from which he had derived
lessons which would abide with him during his life, and
after life was over. And then he bid us remember that,
after all, the welfare of the school depended mainly on
ourselves, not merely the welfare which is proved by large
numbers and University honours, but the higher welfare,
which consists in making the school a place where God is
feared and loved. In comparison with this, he said in
conclusion, perish the honours, perish the intellectual dis
tinctions, which can be but the lot of few ! It was the
high tone and high character of the School which were its
real, imperishable greatness, and which he prayed might
long continue.
" Such topics were, of course, only natural on such an
1 Now the Right Hon. G. J. Goschen, M.P.

148 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. v.
occasion, but it is the manner which makes the orator ;
and though afterwards I heard him speak most effectively,
both at Exeter Hall and in the House of Lords, yet he
never came up to the grace and fire and dignity of that last
speech at Rugby. After this nothing remained but on the
following day to take out the horses from his carriage and
draw him to the station. I have a confused memory of
much shouting, one or two short speeches, and shouting
again, and then we turned sorrowfully homeward. On the
way back three friends thus discoursed upon the day's
proceedings. One said, ' After all, wasn't it a queer way
of showing regret to drag him to the station ? It was as if
you were glad to be rid of him.' And the second said, ' I
wonder what he thought of it himself?' And the third
answered, ' Probably he would have said ' (to use his own
favourite expression) ' there was a good deal to be said on
both sides.' And then one of the others said, ' How
shall we ever get on without him ? ' — with which boylike
mixture of jest and earnest, of criticism and affection, we
took leave of our old Head-master."

CHAPTER VI.
DEANERY OF CARLISLE — OXFORD UNIVERSITY
COMMISSION. 1849-53.
FORTY years ago the position of a Dean was regarded as
one of dignified retirement rather than of active useful
ness, and if his friends now expected any further work
from Archibald Tait, it was probably only such work as
<^erold be done by a scholar whose active days had come
early to a close, and who might, at the best, vary by an
occasional pamphlet, or an article in some grave Review,
the classical or theological researches of an uneventful
life. It is not too much to say that this view of decanal
responsibilities was at that time almost universal. In
offering to submit his name to the Queen the Prime
Minister wrote as follows : —
Lord fohn Russell to Rev. A. C. Tait.
"Pembroke Lodge, Richmond, Oct. 17, 1849.
" Rev. Sir, — Your reputation for learning and sound Divinity
have induced me to propose to you to recommend you to the
Queen for the vacant Deanery of Carlisle. I should be unwilling
to deprive Rugby of the advantage it derives from your superin^
tendence, had I not been assured that your health is scarcely
equal to the labour which the direction of a great school imposes.
I trust, however, that you would pursue with greater opportunity
those studies which have already made you eminent. — I have
the honour to be, your obedient servant, J. Russell."
The congratulations of his friends struck the same
149

150 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAfT [ch. vi.
note. Lord Cockburn, in a characteristic letter, advises
him thus —
"I see redeeming advantages in your new position. It will
give you ease, consequently health, leisure, and, I trust, ambition
to embalm yourself worthily in some original work. ... I know
that in point of usefulness and celebrity the crosier has no chance
against the pen in the long-run. Don't doze upon the cushion,
which is too often the only use that high official cushions are
put to. I want you to write a great book on a good subject.
Next to this — though they may be united— do, pray, distinguish
yourself as the apostle and the type of that common sense which
is perhaps more rare than it might be among some Churchmen,
though it be the Church's only true buttress."
A somewhat different view was taken by his old friend
and pupil, Samuel Waldegrave, whose hopes corresponded
so closely with the facts which followed that it is interest
ing to quote the letter which expressed them : —
" I do hope that in your hands the post of Dean will prove
not to be a completely useless office. For, indeed, it seems to
me that if a man has judgment and courage, a Dean might prove
an invaluable person in a Cathedral town. Not only might he
take the lead in the works of mercy and in the business of educa
tion, but he might also be the foremost man in preaching the
Gospel to the people. But this last will require that he should
step out of the beaten path by instituting some such thing as an
Evening. Service, or a service at some suitable hour for the poor.
Often as I walk in the nave of our Cathedral * do I wish that our
Dean had the health to make that large building available
for the poor. . . . How good would it be for you to take
the lead in such a work — good for the people and good for
yourself. ... Of course I know that you must wait and feel
your way, and gain the confidence of others before you act ; but
all I wish to impress upon you is the importance of attempting
some such thing, and of not being deterred by the numerous
lions which the slothful habits of chapters put in the way of any
attempt to make Cathedrals of use. I remember well your effort
to save the poor College servants, and I cannot but hope that
1 Mr. Waldegrave was at this time a Canon of Salisbury.

1 849-53] APPOINTED DEAN OF CARLISLE 151
you will prove that you have still the same mind, now that you
are not a College but a Cathedral Don. Again, may I ask you to
forgive me if I suggest another subject for.serious thought? Can
not you as Dean be kind to some of the poorer clergy ? It is quite
painful to see how great people forget our Lord's command to invite
those who cannot repay them. At Salisbury, if a Bible or Mis
sionary Meeting bring the poor clergy in, they may (except in one
or two cases, as when the Bishop happens to take the chair) seek
refreshment at inns. Now, this ought not to be ; for great luncheons
are provided when the rich come in to infirmary sermons, to which
they and their wives and their daughters go, while the utmost
a poor clergyman can expect is a dinner for himself occasionally,
while his wife and children may go anywhere. Do, my dear Tait,
be kind to the poor clergy. And if the Whigs carry you up higher,
and make you a Bishop, never forget the advice of a truly affec
tionate friend, who does long to see you breaking through the
miserably unchristian customs of most Cathedral dignitaries, and
proving yourself to be one who is willing, not to make a show in
society, but by simple-minded preaching of the Gospel, by self-
denying simplicity of habits and tastes, by self-humbling endeavours,
to show kindness to the poor in all classes, to earn from your
Master the name in your Deanery of a good and faithful servant."
The following from a former pupil is one among several
of a like sort : x —
" To you, sir, more than to any one else do I owe the soften
ing of more than one harsh prejudice against the Church of Eng
land, for in you I found a liberality towards those of other sects
for which I had never given the members of that Church credit,
and I cannot but rejoice that there will now be wider scope for
its exercise. There would be but little enmity from Dissenters
to the Church had they been treated by the ministers of that
Church as you have treated me."
Before he finally resigned the charge of the School he
was called upon to meet a somewhat serious attack. The
Guardian newspaper, in reviewing a book written by Mr.
Highton, one of the assistant masters, warned the public
in impressive tones against the character of the religious
1 The writer afterwards took Orders in the Church of England.

152 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. vi.
teaching given at Rugby. This teaching, it was said,
" has undergone of late years a development which would
have shocked the celebrated man whose great name still
rests upon the School"; and the accusation was expanded
at some length. The article, appearing as it did just when
public attention was directed to the School by the vacancy
in the Head-mastership, seemed likely to work consider
able mischief, and drew from Dr. Tait an immediate and
vehement reply. If it is difficult to recognise in his
somewhat fiery letter the man who in later years had a
very different way of meeting such onslaughts, it must be
remembered that it was less his personal opinions which
were challenged than the Christian character of Rugby
School. The Dean of Carlisle to the Editor of " The Guardian!'
" Schoolhouse, Rugby, 17M Dec. 1849.
" Sir, — My attention has been directed to an article in your
last number, in which, in terms as direct as it usually suits the
purpose of an anonymous calumniator to employ, you speak of
Rugby School as having become, under my superintendence, ' a
refuge for heresy and latitudinarianism ' ; and endeavour to
represent ' the spirit now paramount in the place ' as that of 'a
sectarian ' and ' a freethinker.'
"However indifferent I and my colleagues may be to any
personal attacks on ourselves, I feel that I ought not lightly to
allow this great place of religious education to be vilified. . . .
As to the words ' sectarian ' and ' latitudinarian,' and even 'heretic,'
I suppose you use them considerately ; but I believe that coming
from you they will be rightly understood by the public to mean
simply that the person to whom these epithets are applied differs
from your particular views in interpreting the formularies of the
Church of England, though he may be supported in his inter
pretation by the authority of many of the wisest and most pious
of those whom the Church delights to honour. ... I do not
intend to enter here on any indication of Mr. Highton's opinions
as to the particular subject to which you allude. ... If you
really wish to know whether the charge you have made against

1849-53] ANGRY LETTER TO THE GUARDIAN 153
the School is unfounded, I beg to refer you to such books as I
have distinctly recommended in the School, e.g. to Mr. Cotton's
admirable book of Prayers and other Helps to Devotion, or to his
short work on Confirmation, or to my own writings, which last is
the most obvious source whence a clear idea of the - theological
teaching of the School may be derived. . . . We who teach here
have much to lament in our own unfitness for the difficult part
assigned us in the Church : but amidst discouragements it is a
great comfort to think of the abundant blessing which God has
given, in enabling us to be the instruments of training many
young minds in an intelligent and earnest faith. It is a comfort
to us to know how many have looked back with gratitude on their
religious training at Rugby, as having been blessed to their use
fulness and peace in life, and, I may add, in not a few instances
to their calmness in the hour of death, when all the false supports
' of an artificial system must have failed them.
" Allpw. me, sir, to beg that you will consider the injustice you
have been guilty of, and let me, as a minister of our common
Master, remind you that slander of those who are labouring in
His Church, if persisted in, is great wickedness.
" I need hardly say that I expect, as an act of justice, that you
will publish this in your next number. — I have the honour to be,
Sir, your obedient, humble servant, A. C. Tait."
To this letter The Guardian called attention in a
courteous leading article, expressing its cordial admira
tion for " the energy of Dr. Tait's character, his manly
straightforwardness in avowing such opinions as he de
finitely holds, his generosity, and the tone of honour and
morality which he has always endeavoured to maintain
both as College Tutor and as a Head-master of Rugby."
It proceeded, as was natural, to justify or explain to some
extent the language which had been used, urging that,
whatever Dr. Tait's own views,
r"the opinions of some of his fellow-workers are of the laxest
kind. Is not Germanism (to use a common word) the avowed
admiration of some ; Carlylism of others ; Cobdenism of others ?
Is there any political or religious theory on the so-called liberal
side which might not find its supporters there? Now, this is

154 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [cn. vi.
what we call a Freethinking spirit : not that Dr. Tait is a free
thinker any more than Dr. Arnold was a freethinker, but because
the tendency of a system of education conducted by either of
them is to a false and irreligious liberality."
Though appointed in October to the Deanery of
Carlisle, Dr. Tait acquiesced in the wish of the trustees
that he should retain his Head-mastership until the fol
lowing spring. He went to Carlisle, however, for his
formal installation in the Cathedral. The ceremony took
place on Saturday, 5th January 1850. Next day he
entered in his diary, with much dismay, that though it
was Sunday and the feast of the Epiphany, there were
only nine or ten communicants. Some days were spent
in a vigorous inspection, not only of the Cathedral pre
cincts and all belonging to them, but of the condition
generally of the various parishes in the town. He
noted the want of order in one of the National Schools,
the fact that there was no chaplain at the Infirmary, and
many other details of Cathedral and parochial short
comings ; he issued new orders regulating the Minor
Canons' interchange of duty and the attendance of the
bedesmen at divine service, and returned to Rugby, having
given evidence that, in Lord Cockburn's phrase, he
at least did not mean to " doze on the decanal
cushion." In the early days of May 1850 they were settled with
their three little children1 in the Deanery of Carlisle.
Mrs. Tait used to describe in after years the thankful
ness she at this time felt that her husband had, after all,
'escaped alive' from his Rugby work, and her expecta
tions of comparatively quiet and uneventful usefulness in
the Border City.
1 Catherine Anna, born March 15, 1846. Mary Susan, born June 20,
1847. Craufurd, born June 22, 1849.

i849-S3] - FIRST DAYS AT CARLISLE 155
Diary.
" Carlisle, Sunday, $th May 1850. — This is our first Sun
day in our new home. What great blessings have we received
from God ! How graciously has He dealt with me in providing
a quiet useful retirement when the bustle and work of Rugby
seemed too much for me ! O Lord, enable me to use the retire
ment of this place for my own increase in spiritual-mindedness,
by Thy Holy Spirit's help. Enable me to labour faithfully for
others. Pardon my sin, and bless to my soul the Holy Communion
which I have this day received. Through Jesus Christ. Amen."
At Carlisle he rapidly regained a large measure of his
former strength, and though he was never again a robust
man, and his heart was always irregular in its action,
the work he succeeded in doing during the six Carlisle
years was sufficient evidence of his physical energy.
In the Cathedral itself there was much to be done ; but
his reforms did not greatly commend themselves to all his
colleagues, and he had an uphill fight to wage before he
carried them. There was special difficulty, for example,
about the establishment of an afternoon sermon in the
Cathedral on Sundays, although he took the entire re
sponsibility of it upon himself. But he was not easily
daunted, and he gained his points one by one.
With returning strength came new calls for its exercise,
in what was practically the opening of his public life. He
had for many years been known by his Oxford friends as an
advocate of wide reforms in the system of the University.
His pamphlet on the subject in 1839 * had attracted con- ¦
siderable attention, and he had continued while at Rugby
to give expression to the same views in magazine articles
and elsewhere. And the subject was now coming to the
front. From his accession to the premiership in 1846
Lord John Russell had been alarming the more conserva
tive among the clergy by his avowed sympathy with what
1 See p. 71. ^ 1

156 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. vi.
they deemed a dangerous liberalism in the Church. True,
he had passed the Manchester Bishopric Act in 1847 m
the teeth of Radical opposition, but then he had appointed
Dr. Prince Lee, an avowed Liberal, to be its first Bishop ;
and, far worse, he had promoted Dr. Hampden to the
See of Hereford, and now the cry was raised that the
Universities were themselves to be handed over to the
reformer. On April 25th, 1850, Mr. Heywood, the Radical
member for North Lancashire, moved in the House of
Commons a long resolution to the effect that all systems
of academical education require modification from time to
time ; that the ancient English and Irish Universities
have not made such modifications, and therefore are not
promoting as they might the interests of religious and
useful learning, and requesting the issue of a Royal Com
mission of inquiry into the state of the Universities, " with
a view to assist in the adaptation of these important
institutions to the requirements of modern times."
The last thirty years have so familiarised us with
inquiries of this sort that it is difficult now to realise the
indignation which such a proposal called forth at the time.
The debates upon the resolution were of the highest
interest and importance, the motion for inquiry being
strenuously resisted as unconstitutional, unnecessary, and
altogether mischievous. Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Roundell
Palmer, and Sir Robert Inglis were the recognised
champions of the party which opposed the appointment
of such a commission, and at first it was quite uncertain
what course would be taken by Lord John Russell and
his Government. Lord John rose early in the debate, and
while disclaiming any wish to attack the Universities,
and declining therefore to vote for Mr. Heywood's resolu
tion, promised on behalf of the Government that a Royal

1849-53] OXFORD UNIVERSITY COMMISSION 157
Commission should issue. No hint of this intention had
transpired, and the announcement took the House of
Commons completely by surprise. At the instance of
Mr. Roundell Palmer, the debate was adjourned for some
months, that the friends of the Universities might consider
the situation. Lord John, however, without waiting for
a formal decision of the House of Commons, wrote
privately to Dean Tait, and to one or two other friends
of the Universities, to ask whether they would be willing
to serve on such a Commission when appointed.
Tait at once replied as follows : —
The Dean of Carlisle to Lord fohn Russell.
"Carlisle, ^th June 1850.
" My Lord, — I shall very gladly undertake the duties which
your Lordship's letter, received this morning, intimates your wish
to impose upon me. The deep attachment which I feel to the
University of Oxford will make me most anxious to fulfil zealously
and to the utmost of my ability any of the duties that may be
assigned to me. I am unwilling to conclude without expressing
my conviction, if your Lordship will allow me, that the best
friends of Oxford ought to feel deeply indebted to your Lordship
for having undertaken and persevered in the appointment of this
Commission ; and my belief that, notwithstanding the present
symptoms of opposition, the wisdom of the course adopted, as
conducive to the best interests of the Universities, will in time
be acknowledged by all who are anxious for their welfare."
In a subsequent letter he adds : —
" I fear it is hopeless to expect to secure anything like a cor
dial reception for the Commission from the Heads of Houses,
but I shall be very much surprised if we are not welcomed by
those who have much more real influence in Oxford than they ;
I mean the most active and intelligent of the College Tutors."
Meantime the opposition gathered strength and
volume. The Heads of Houses at Oxford were almost
unanimous in their denunciations ; pamphlets and pro-

158 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. vi.
tests were circulated broadcast among the clergy, and
the Ecclesiastical and Conservative newspapers joined
loudly in the cry. Prince Albert incurred some un
popularity by taking the opposite line, and it became
very clear that the Commissioners, when appointed, would
have no easy task.
It was a serious matter to oppose the opinion of so
great a majority of those entitled to speak officially for
the University, and it began to be rumoured that the
Government would, at the last moment, give way, pro
bably under the pretext of postponing action for a time.
In a series of vigorous letters to The Times, signed
' Oxoniensis,' Mr. Goldwin Smith, who was already pro
minent in Oxford, tried to stimulate their drooping
courage, and Dean Tait thought it well to assure Lord
John privately that he, at least, was not afraid to go for
ward. The Dean of Carlisle lo Lord John Russell.
"Deanery, Carlisle, 2gfune 1850.
"My Lord, . . . The more I consider the state of the
University, the more convinced I am that the Commission ought
to lose as Httle time as possible in setting about and completing
its work. I shall hold myself in readiness to begin at once, so
soon as I hear who my colleagues are to be, and that we are
authorised to proceed. The mere publication of such a Report
as the Commission is sure to put forth — drawing attention to evils,
many of which the several Colleges might alter any day if they
pleased; must do much towards the removal of such evils. . . .
I confess a careful perusal of the Debates in Parliament only con
firmed my opinion as to the wisdom of issuing such a Commission,
and the great benefits which the University and the nation may
hope for if it rightly discharges its duties . . ."
Thus encouraged, Lord John resolved to stand . to his
guns. The appointment of a Royal Commission rested
of course with the Government, and not with Parliament

l849-53] COMMISSIONERS NOMINATED 159
but the question was debated at full length in the House
of Commons, where Mr. Gladstone, in a long and vehe
ment speech, appealed to the Government not thus
"to fall back upon arbitrary and undefined prerogative, and,
regardless of the interests you are sacrificing or the rights you are
invading, to resort to an intermeddling and inquisitorial power
which is neither supported by history nor law." 1
In the final division, which was taken on a question of
adjournment, the Government were in a majority of 22,
and the names of the Commissioners were soon afterwards
announced. The Oxford Commissioners were as follows :
Dr. Hinds, Bishop of Norwich ; Dean Tait of Carlisle ;
Dr. Jeune, Master of Pembroke ; 2 The Rev. H. G. Liddell,
Head-master of Westminster ; s Professor Baden-Powell,
Mr. John Lucius Dampier, and the Rev. G. H. S. Johnson.4
The Secretary of the Commission was the Rev. Arthur
P. Stanley, afterwards Dean of Westminster, and the
Assistant Secretary was Mr. Goldwin Smith.
These gentlemen were appointed a Commission "for
inquiring into the State, Discipline, Studies, and Revenues
of the University of Oxford, and of all and singular the
Colleges in the said University." Diary.
"fine 8, 1850. — Yesterday a new means of great useful
ness was opened up to me, and a very solemn responsibility.
Lord, grant me Thy grace to acquit myself as Thy faithful servant.
Make me to labour in all that concerns it with a single eye to
Thy glory. May it be Thy good pleasure to employ us as instru
ments whereby that great seat of learning to which I owe so much
may be made more to fulfil its high vocation. Strengthen our
hands ; let us labour in love and in the spirit of prayer. And
1 Hansard, July 18, 1850, p. 1506. Mr. Gladstone's opposition was
throughout directed against the proposed mode of inquiry, rather than against
the suggested reforms. 2 Afterwards Bishop of Peterborough.
8 Now Dean of Christ Church. 4 Afterwards Dean of Wells.

r6o LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. vi.
meanwhile, Lord, enable me to redouble my efforts here [in
Carlisle] for the good of souls ; direct me in a wise course ; assist
me this day in preparing to preach to-morrow. Direct us to
wise and energetic efforts amongst the poor."
The Commissioners met for the first time on October
19th, 1850. Their place of meeting was the Prime
Minister's own house in Downing Street. They at once
issued respectful circulars to the University authorities
and others, asking for statistical information of various
kinds. Most of those addressed declined absolutely to
render any such assistance to a Commission of which they
disapproved ; but, from many of those best qualified to
give information and advice, the inquiry met, as Dr.
Tait had anticipated, with a civil response ; and, in the
opinion even of hostile critics, the Commissioners proved
themselves to have steered wisely at the outset.1 Mrs. Tait
had naturally shared the almost unanimous apprehensions
of those with whose opinions on Church questions she
was in personal sympathy, and it was with trembling
that she saw her husband enter upon so perilous a
task. He writes repeatedly to reassure her : —
" Dearest Wife, — I have thought a great deal of what you
said the last morning. I am sure we are all working here with
a deep feeling of the importance of what is intrusted to us, and
I cannot think that the feeling you expressed is well founded."
His Diary has daily such entries as the. following:
"O Lord, bless and guide this University Commission, on
which we have now fully entered. May we seek Thy glory with
a single eye, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."
And again :
"Grant me, O Lord, at the Commission a more quiet and
conciliatory spirit; a greater desire to be kind to all; a greater
feeling of the deep responsibility of the work we have in hand.
1 See, e.g. the Guardian, Dec. 4, 1850.

r849-53] OPPOSITION TO THE COMMISSION 161
Lord, make me more to realise that in this too I have Thy work
to do. Give me more of a spiritual mind, for Jesus Christ's sake."
In his letters to Mrs. Tait he recounts step by step
the progress of their work : —
"51st October 1850. — . . . To-day we received several im
portant letters. A thundering one from the Bishop of Exeter,1
declaring that he would oppose us to the death, was far outweighed
by the Archbishop of Canterbury's letter promising to help us to
the utmost. The Duke of Wellington merely acknowledged our
letter." During the following spring and summer they had to
face incessant opposition. A fresh attempt was made to
test the legality of the Commission, and four eminent
lawyers 2 on a ' case ' laid before them by the University
formally pronounced their opinion " that the Commission
1 This letter, which may be taken as a specimen of the kind of opposition
which the Commissioners had to face, is as follows : —
" BiSHOPSTOWE, October 30, 1850.
" My Lord, — I yesterday had the honour of receiving a letter from you
'on the part of Her Majesty's Commissioners.' ... I had hoped to be spared
the necessity of saying anything on the subject of this Commission ; but thus
called upon officially to become a party in the execution of it, I should be
guilty of a culpable dereliction of my duty if I were to forbear expressing my
sentiments. ... I cannot see without the deepest concern and astonishment
the name of our present gracious Sovereign used by her advisers to ' authorise
and empower' your Lordship and your colleagues to institute an inquisition
which no precedent could justify, and which, ... as relates to the venerable
bodies which are now concerned, has had absolutely no parallel since the fatal
attempt of King James 11. to subject them to his unhallowed control. It is
under the solemn conviction that your Lordship, and the other eminent persons
who have consented to act on the Commission, have no right whatever to call
before you any members of the College of which I am Visitor, . . . that I shall
require the Rector, Fellows, and other members to weigh well all the injunc
tions of their Statutes before they can feel themselves at liberty to testify any
deference to your authority. Especially I shall enjoin them, under the sacred
obligation of their oaths, to beware how they permit themselves to answer
any inquiries, or to accept any directions or interference whatsoever which
may trench upon that visitatorial authority which their Statutes, under the
known law of the land, have intrusted solely to the Bishop of this See. . . .
Your Lordship's most obedient servant, H. Exeter."
(Vide Report, Appendix B, p. 7. )
2 G. J. Turner, Richard Bethell, Henry S. Keating, J. R. Kenyon. On
VOL. I. L

162 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. vi,
is not constitutional or legal, or such as the Univer
sity or its members are bound to obey." In respect
to this opinion a characteristic memorandum was drawn
up by Dean Tait, who, while disclaiming any intention to
dispute the lawyers' technical arguments, drew attention
to their deliberate avoidance of the term 'illegal,' and
pointed out that their expression 'not legal' simply
meant that the Commission, as all were aware, possessed
no compulsory powers.
"It will be found that the much-vaunted opinion leaves the
Commission where it found it. The Hebdomadal Board has now,
as it has had all along, only one point to settle, namely, 'Does
it choose to answer the questions of the Commissioners, though
not compelled to do so? Will it act in the conciliatory spirit
adopted at Cambridge, or resist ? Will the Board assist a friendly
Royal Commission, or will it, by throwing impediments in the
way, do what it can to ensure the appointment of an unfriendly
Parliamentary Commission, whose powers will be compulsory?'
The Commission itself is very little interested (except for the re
gard which its members entertain for the University) in the way
in which the Board settles this question. Nay, we should not
be surprised if the Report appears before the Hebdomadal Board
can make up its mind."
The Hebdomadal Board, however, invoked the aid of
the Convocation of the University, and on May 21st, 1851,
a petition to the Crown was adopted by 249 votes against
105, praying Her Majesty that Her Commission be
"forthwith revoked and cancelled" as "unconstitutional
and illegal."
The Commissioners meanwhile persevered steadily
with their task, and were, as they hoped, drawing their
labours to a close, when, on February 23d, 1852, Lord
John Russell's Government was defeated, and Lord
the other hand, the Commission was declared by the law officers of the
Crown not to be " in any respect illegal or unconstitutional." (Vide Report,
Appendix B, pp. 25-33. )

1849-53] CHANGE OF MINISTRY 163
Derby became Prime Minister. Both the friends and
the foes of the Commission believed that Lord Derby's
accession might very possibly be its death-blow, and, at
the least, that its work must now be carried on under great
disadvantages. The following are extracts from Dean
Tait's letters to his wife : —
"Friday, 27th February 1852. — Yesterday the Bishop of
Norwich called on Lord John to ask what ought to be done. He
first said Lord Derby would extinguish us ; then, on consideration,
that he dared not, for that he (Lord John) and his friends would
be down upon him. He advised that we should not meet at
Downing Street to-day, as Lord Derby would be coming into
the house, and it might have an unpleasant air to take posses
sion of his room without his leave. The Bishop wrote a note to
Lord Derby requesting an interview to-morrow."
"Saturday, 28th Feb. 1852. — The Bishop saw Lord Derby
at 2 o'clock. Lord D. had not an idea for what purpose the
Bishop sought the interview; and when the Bishop, with proper
apologies for intruding at such a time, etc., said that he had come
on the part of the Oxford Commission, to ask whether they might
continue to hold their meetings as heretofore in Downing Street,
he was a little taken aback, and said he would take time to con
sider. The Bishop (canny old boy) replied that he was very sorry
. to intrude, but what was to be done ? Here were the members
of the Commission all in town — one come from Carlisle — and
this by arrangements made before the change of Government was
contemplated ; what were they to do ? Lord D. — ' Where are they
meeting at present ? ' The Bp. — ' Oh, they are holding no meet
ing; they wait your Lordship's answer.' Lord D. — 'Where is
the room in Downing Street ? ' The Bishop described it, and Lord
Derby ended by saying there was no reason why we should not
meet as usual. Without the Bishop's skilful diplomacy I doubt
whether Lord Derby would not have put us off, and then, in the
interval, have been got hold of by the Oxford people and per
suaded to refuse. Now he is committed to a certain extent, and
we shall hold our own. And depend upon it, there is more
chance now than ever of a vigorous measure of University reform,
for Lord John and his friends will urge it in opposition, which
they could not have done in power. So much for our prospects,

1 64 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. vi.
... As regards the political world, last night's display on the
part of Lord Derby seems to be regarded as a proof that he can
not keep his ground. He said in plain English that he would
restore protection if he could get. a majority in favour of it, but
not propose it if he could not. This is simply to disgust both
parties. The farmers will clamour and not be satisfied at his hold
ing it back ; and the other parties — Whig, Peelite, and Radical —
will be thoroughly alarmed by the prospect of his threatening pro
tection in the distance."
"Draper's Hotel, Sackville Street, Sunday, 29th Feby. 1852. —
. . . This afternoon I went as usual to Lincoln's Inn and heard
Maurice. He is preaching a course of sermons on the Prophets
• — to-day on Hosea. He dwelt very forcibly on the way in which
his family distress — from the misconduct of his wife — was an
emblem to him of God's feelings with regard to Israel, and how the
distress also was a preparation to him, as all sufferings even of the
most harassing kind may be, for his great office. I walked home
with Wood. . . . He is now a barrister, and tells me that he looks
forward all the week to these sermons of Maurice's on the Sunday.
... I think I hardly did justice to Lord Derby's speech in my
letter yesterday — I was speaking only of its political aspect — for
certainly it had a good tone in the end of it, which it' is very
pleasant to find in statesmen. He is too straightforward a char
acter to assume what he does not feel, and he certainly spoke
very pleasingly of the deep responsibilities which had come to
him. It is a pity that so fine a fellow should have put himself
at the head of so hopeless a movement, and not have stuck to
his early opinions. A good man in power may do much if he
understands the feelings and wants of the age, but he is simply
mischievous if he is vainly trying to thwart them instead of giving
them a right direction."
The following reference possesses an interest of its own.
Rich additions were to be made both to the associations
and to the beauty of Lambeth Palace Chapel before the
close of Archibald Tait's connection with it, thirty years
later : —
"March 8, 1851. — I enjoyed dining at Lambeth yester
day. There was no one present but the family, and Johnson,

l849-53] REPORT OF THE COMMISSION 165
who was staying in the house. The Archbishop is a very kind,
unaffected old man. Before I left in the evening we all went
into the chapel, — the chapel where a long line of Bishops for
many hundred years has, as you know, been consecrated — and
had quiet family prayers, the Archbishop himself officiating."
At last, on 27th April 1852, the Commissioners issued
their Report, perriapsTlfrom a literary point of view, the
most remarkable Blue-book of our time. Arthur Stanley
had thrown himself with characteristic energy into the
compilation of its historical records,1 and the result was a
masterly volume of the highest public interest and im
portance. Dean Tait was recognised in the letters of
his brother Commissioners as largely responsible for its
final shape, and especially for the form of its practical re
commendations. One at least of them was indignant at
the ' conservative spirit ' he had shown. " I am almost
tempted to say that I will not consent to it. I am reduced
to the difficulty of signing what I dislike ... or of
making myself an ass by not signing. It will not take
much to make me give up the whole concern." He is
conciliated, however, by Tait's reply, and writes again :
" You know my principle is to say what I think, and so,
being very angry with you, I said so. But I am sorry,
and you have had an opportunity of showing your better
temper, for which I thank you."
The voluminous and often argumentative character of
the Report renders it singularly difficult to give a satis
factory abstract of its recommendations, dealing, as they
do, with every department of the University. But the
subject is connected so closely with the life of Archibald
Tait that it cannot be entirely passed over. Broadly
speaking, the aim of the Commissioners was to popu
larise the University ; first by giving to its governing
1 These include an elaborate paper by Mr. Goldwin Smith on the
History of the Colleges and Halls of Oxford.

1 66 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. vi.
body a quasi-representative character, and secondly (to
quote the words of the Report) by opening the University
" to a much larger and poorer class than that from which
y the students are at present almost entirely taken." Deal
ing first with the Constitution, they recommended the
revival, with certain modifications, of the ancient ' House
of Congregation,' once a reality, but now for some two
centuries a mere shadow,1 — its former executive functions
having long been discharged, in a more or less perfunctory
manner, by the small and irresponsible Hebdomadal
Board, consisting merely of the Heads of Houses and the
Proctors. Under this proposed scheme the revived
'Congregation' was again to become practically the
legislative body of the University, and to consist of about
one hundred members, representing the whole teaching
staff at work in Oxford.
In this teaching staff they suggested large and funda
mental changes. They pointed out that the instruction of
the undergraduates had practically passed from the hands
of the Professors recognised by the statutes of the Uni
versity into the hands of College and private tutors.
Though certain individual Professors, such as Arnold, had
succeeded in gathering round them large numbers of
students, professorial teaching had practically ceased. The
Commissioners pointed out the loss suffered both by
Oxford and the country at large " from the absence of a
body of learned men devoting their lives to the cultivation
of science and to the direction of Academical education ;"
and gave it as their opinion that " for any healthy and
complete scheme of University reform it will be neces
sary to reconstruct the professorial system, to procure for
1 The House of Congregation, as it existed in 1850, is described in the
Report, p. 10, as meeting " only for the purpose of hearing measures pro
posed which it cannot discuss, of conferring degrees to which candidates are
already entitled, and of granting dispensations which are never refused."

1849-53] RECOMMENDATIONS 167
the Professors ample endowments, to raise them to an
important position in the University, and to call to their
aid a body of younger men under the name of Lecturers."
While recognising the importance of that connection
with the Church of England to which, they said, "the
University mainly owes its greatness," they stated the
many obvious objections to the existing system under
which holders of fellowships were obliged to take Holy
Orders, and urged that this obligation should be very
largely relaxed. Such a relaxation did not appear to them
likely to make a very material change in the clerical
character of the teaching staff; they thought it probable
that " if the rule were abrogated in all the colleges, the
great bulk of the resident teachers would after all remain
clerical," and they claimed that the Church, no less than
the nation, would be the gainer by the change. " If it be
desirable that moderation and a spirit in harmony with
the institutions of the country should prevail among the
ministers of the English Church, it is important that the
zeal of their instructors in its chief seminary should be
tempered by the calmer judgment of lay colleagues, who
would themselves imbibe the moral and religious tone of
the clerical circle in which they lived."
In the effort to retain men of ability in the service of
the University, they made an advance in the direction of
more recent legislation, by recommending that the Pro
fessors and other University teachers should be allowed,
though married, to share in the emoluments of College
fellowships. In addition to these important constitutional changes,
the Commissioners recommended the removal of many of
the restrictive conditions, local and other, which fettered
the ordinary candidature for College scholarships and
fellowships. They urged the total abolition of the provi-

168 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. vi.
sions as to 'gentlemen-commoners,' 'Bible-clerks,' and
others, which, by a series of artificial distinctions, had
tended to emphasise differences of rank and wealth in a
manner equally harmful to the rich and to the poor. But
the most important, in Dean Tait's opinion, of all their
recommendations was the suggestion that facilities should
immediately be given for the admission to the Uni
versity of a great body of ' unattached students,' who,
while obtaining the advantages of an Oxford education,
should yet be spared many of the expenses connected,
apparently of necessity, with collegiate life.1 On the great
question of religious tests the Commissioners found them
selves precluded, by the terms of their appointment, from
giving any formal recommendation ; but they expressed
an emphatic opinion " that the imposition of subscription,
in the manner in which it is now imposed in the University
of Oxford, habituates the mind to give a careless assent
to truths which it has never considered, and naturally leads
to sophistry in the interpretation of solemn obligations." 2
Dean Tait had evidently desired that the Commis
sioners should enter more fully into the whole question
of the oaths imposed by Colleges upon their members.
It was precisely one of those subjects which stirred his
serious and straightforward spirit, and he was unable to
share the unconcern with which some of his colleagues
regarded it. The Tutors' protest against Tract XC, which
he had drawn up ten years before, had practically turned
upon a question of subscription, and the facts which the
inquiries of the Commissioners brought to light as to the
imposition of College Oaths appeared to him to be of the
1 Not till sixteen years later (in 1868) did this plan take practical shape
in Oxford. When it did so, under the wise auspices of the present Dean of
Winchester, the detailed arrangements corresponded almost precisely with
the suggestions made by the Commissioners of 1852.
2 Report, p. 56.

I849-53] RECOMMENDATIONS 169
highest moral importance. Accordingly, he drafted a
careful paper for insertion in the Report, protesting
vehemently against the reckless imposition of oaths, in
which the solemnity of the form of invocation contrasted
painfully, and even ludicrously, with their now antiquated
and unmeaning substance.1
"Why," he asked, "should a man be forced solemnly to call the
Holy Trinity to witness that he will obey statutes which he knows
to be almost entirely abrogated? To require this is surely to
trifle with things most sacred. Any one who reads carefully the
oaths required by some of our College statutes will grant that
they are relics of a barbarous and irreligious state of society, and
these awful denunciations will strongly remind him of the device
by which William of Normandy tried to entrap unawares the
superstitious conscience of his guest whom he thought neither
promise nor common oath could bind. Some at least of the
College oaths seem to be constructed on this principle of terrify
ing into superstitious obedience those whose consciences were not
to be trusted. . . . These College oaths are often profane ; they
are always liable to be misunderstood, and they are apt to strain
and destroy the fineness of the conscience. . . . We earnestly
recommend that the Legislature declare the imposition of such
oaths to be altogether illegal."
A few sentences from the Dean's paper were inserted
by the Commissioners in their Report,2 but they seem to
have decided that the great question of oaths, religious
tests, and subscription in all its branches, lay outside the
terms of their Commission, and that any attempt on their
part to deal with it would divert attention from the
subjects more immediately before them. Dean Tait
accordingly was forced to content himself with embodying
his paper in a condensed form in an article which he
1 As examples of such oaths the Dean instances the obligation in some
Colleges upon a newly-elected fellow to swear, "under the pain of anathema
and the wrath of Almighty God, that he will always wear a ' lilliput ' (what
ever that may be), and that he will never walk abroad in the 6elds without
having another fellow as his companion," 2 Pp. 146. T47-

170 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. vi.
contributed two years later to the Edinburgh Review,
on the general subject of educational legislation.1
The whole tenor of the Report was in the direction of
throwing the University doors more widely open ; and
when Archbishop Tait, in 1876, rose in the House of Lords
to move a resolution in favour of a yet further extension
of the same principle, he was able to describe his motion as
the natural and legitimate sequel of the Report for which
he had himself been so largely responsible a quarter of a
century before. The interest aroused by its publication
was immense, and voluminous as it was,2 the first edition
was sold out in a few days. The Edinburgh Reviewer
described it as " a truly remarkable document, and one
which is destined, we are persuaded, to form an era in the
constitutional history of this country." As soon as it was
in circulation, letters poured in upon Dean Tait, congratu
lating him upon a result which was ascribed in no small
degree to the part he had himself taken in the work of the
Commission. The constant journeys between Carlisle and London —
journeys very much more tedious then than now — and the
immense labour which the Commission had involved, had
again told seriously upon his health, and he was glad to
return to a quieter and less interrupted life. The work of
inaugurating University Reforms had, for the present,
passed from the hands of Royal Commissioners into
those of politicians ; and Dean Tait's hope was that Mr.
Gladstone, notwithstanding his objection to the mode in
which the inquiry had been instituted, might now, as
Member for the University, be induced to support in
Parliament the recommendation of the Commissioners.
1 Vol. xcix. pp. 158, etc.
2 The actual Report, apart from its immense appendices, occupies 260
closely-printed foolscap pages.

1849-53] MR. GLADSTONE'S ATTITUDE 171
He accordingly wrote to Mr. Coleridge,1 asking him to use
his influence with Mr. Gladstone in this direction. Mr.
Gladstone replied very fully, declining to pledge himself
" either in regard to University Reform or to any other
subject." " Practically," he continued, " I much doubt whether public
declarations of opinion on such questions by a burgess of the Uni
versity would tend to promote their own purposes : whether they
would not perhaps generate a positive reaction : whether they would
not most probably be found inconsistent with that respect and
deference, which in the face of the world he is bound most studi
ously to cherish, especially towards the resident body charged
with the teaching and discipline of the place. ... I consider that,
subject to the restraints imposed by the law of society, a burgess
of the University becomes a confidential adviser of the resident
body in particular. It is his duty to point out to them the dangers
of which his position enables him to perceive the approach, and not
to be content merely to deal with those which have already arrived,
but to make provision, as far as he can, for the future. ... As
to my opinions, I will say at present no more than this. To the
principles of Oxford education I am deeply, and I think immovably,
attached, while it is my earnest and ardent desire to see all the
great power and resources made available in the highest possible
degree, according to these principles, for the proper purposes. I
am much obliged to the Dean for the frankness with which he
writes, and I hope this letter will not appear to be written with
any intention of shutting the door against further inquiries."
Mr. Coleridge sent this letter to the Dean, and ap
pended to it a request that, in view of the General
Election which was then approaching, he would allow his
name to be placed on Mr. Gladstone's Election Com
mittee. The Dean's reply may be quoted in full, as bearing
on his political and ecclesiastical position at the time.
The Dean of Carlisle to Mr. f. D. Coleridge.
"Deanery, Carlisle, 25^ May 1852.
" My dear Coleridge, — I have delayed to answer your letter
1 Now Lord Chief- Justice of England.

172 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. vi.
for three days, that I might fully consider both it and Mr. Glad
stone's note, which you kindly enclose. I can understand the
difficulty which a person in Mr. Gladstone's position must find
in speaking very explicitly as to University Reform, but I fully
believe from the tone both of his note and of yours that he is
not less anxious now than I have understood him to be formerly
for the extension of the University, and the more efficient develop
ment of its system. I believe, myself, that with his great influence
he might, with perfect propriety, and with every prospect of ex
tensive usefulness, publicly take the initiative in those particular
measures of Reform, in which I feel no doubt he would be sup
ported by the 'Liberal' party in the University, as well as by
those whose opinions more nearly resemble his own. But no one
can judge for another of the difficulties which such a position
as Mr. Gladstone occupies must involve. For myself, I am quite
ready to vote for Mr. Gladstone again as at the last election, and
to do my best to induce any friends whom I can influence to
the same course, trusting that opportunities will arise when he
may be able to use the weight of his influence to advance an
efficient improvement of the University system, and feeling con
fident also, that in the ordinary political topics of the day he
will more adequately represent the opinions held by myself, and
those with whom I am in the habit of acting, than any candidate
who is likely to be brought forward against him. These feelings
are quite enough to justify me in giving my vote for a candidate
whom, however much I differ from him, I acknowledge to be so
great an ornament to the University. But it would be going a
good deal further to have my name placed on his committee.
I think on mature consideration that I could not with propriety
do this, feeling that on principles of the greatest importance I
differ so very widely from him.
" You may therefore reckon on my vote if there is a contest,
and are at liberty to say so to any one whom it may concern;
but my name on the committee would be out of place, and, see
ing the many other points on which I differ, could only have
been justified by some more public declaration of approval of
our scheme of University Reform than circumstances allowed
Mr. Gladstone to make. — Believe me to be, my dear Coleridge,
yours most truly, " A. C. Tait."
The election took place in July, and after a sharp con-

1849-53] MR. GLADSTONE IN OFFICE 173
test Mr. Gladstone was returned.1 A few months later he
accepted office as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Lord
Aberdeen's ' Coalition Ministry,' and his re-election was
fiercely opposed by many of his former friends, who dis
trusted and feared his Whig colleagues, especially Lord
John Russell and Lord Lansdowne. His opponent, Mr.
Dudley Perceval, was proposed by Archdeacon Denison,
who had six months before been a member of Mr. Glad
stone's committee.2 Dean Tait, on the other hand, wrote
as follows : —
The Dean of Carlisle to Mr. G. Portal.
"Deanery, Carlisle, 8th January 1853.
" My dear Portal, — I fully intend to go up to Oxford and
vote for Mr. Gladstone : I have only delayed from the impossi
bility of my leaving this place during the earlier days of the poll.
In answer to your request that my name may appear on the
committee, I beg to state that if the committee think my name
can be of any use it is at their service, as I consider Mr.
Gladstone's having joined a Liberal Government with Lord John
Russell and Lord Lansdowne as a sufficient guarantee for the
principles on which he is to act in office. I must request that
this letter be read to the committee before my name is added to
the list. — I remain, yours faithfully, A. C. Tait."
His hope that Mr. Gladstone, notwithstanding his oppo
sition to the appointment of the Royal Commissioners,
would in the end support their recommendations, was
amply justified in the result. Lord Aberdeen's Govern
ment, in its second year of office, introduced a sweepingv
measure of University Reform, based almost entirely upon
the Report of the Royal Commission, and its champion
and spokesman in the House of Commons was Mr.
1 The numbers were as follows : — Sir R. Inglis, 1368 ; Mr. Gladstone,
1 108 ; Dr. Marsham, 758.
2 See the account given in Archdeacon Denison's Notes of My Life,
pp. 101, etc

174 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. vi.
Gladstone. One incident in the debate, though uncon
nected with the subject of this book, may be worth recall
ing upon other grounds, at a time when the two men
concerned in it have been the alternate Prime Ministers
of England. The brilliant maiden speech of Lord Robert
Cecil, in fiery opposition to the Bill, drew the following
eulogy from Mr. Gladstone : —
" It has been no common gratification to me to listen to-night
to the noble Lord, whose first efforts, rich with future promise,
indicate that there still issue forth from the maternal bosom
of that University men who in the first days of their career
give earnest of what they may afterwards accomplish for their
country." 1
After a somewhat stormy passage through Parliament,
the Bill passed into law on the 7th August 1854, to the
infinite satisfaction of Dean Tait, who had never wavered
for an hour in its support.
1 Hansard, April 7, 1854, page 754.

CHAPTER VII.
CARLISLE. 1852-56
His constant journeys to London as a University
Commissioner had hitherto interfered greatly with the due
progress of all the work he had planned at Carlisle. Now
that he was released from these interruptions he threw
himself into his local duties with characteristic energy.
Besides such efforts as have been already referred to
for infusing new life into the somewhat sleepy parishes and
schools of Carlisle, and for promoting a better attendance
at the Cathedral services, he was intent upon two larger
undertakings — the entire re-organisation of the Capitular
revenues under the scheme which had just been approved
in Parliament, and the restoration of the fabric of the
Cathedral itself. With reference to each of these a
few words seem to be necessary.
It would be difficult, without sacrificing either accuracy
or clearness, to describe the complicated and technical
legislation which was at that time transforming the whole
tenure of Church property in England. It is scarcely too
much to say that the system upon which the lands belong
ing to Cathedral bodies, and other ecclesiastical corpora
tions, had ior many generations been managed, was one
which would not have been tolerated in any other institu
tion. The estates were usually leased by these corporations
either for terms of years, or for a certain number of
'lives,' whose duration was of course uncertain. The

175

176 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. vii.
rents paid under these leases were, in most cases, of
merely nominal amount, but the conditions of tenure in
volved the payment by the lessees from time to time, and
at necessarily uncertain dates, of a 'fine,' which some
times amounted to several thousands of pounds ; such
fines going into the pockets of the then members of
the Capitular bodies, and constituting one of the main
sources of their revenue. Neither owners nor tenants
were able, under this mischievous and complicated system,
to calculate with any accuracy their future income or
probable outgoings. And yet it was practically impossible
for them, in the absence of powers of sale and purchase,
to bring the wasteful process to a close.
The great ' Cathedral Acts,' the first of which was
passed in 1840, provided for the gradual transfer to the
Ecclesiastical Commission of portions at least of the
estates hitherto belonging to the Cathedral bodies. The
Commissioners steadfastly refused to renew ' on fine ' the
beneficial lease of any property which thus came under
their control, and in 1851 another Act of Parliament was
passed,1 the outcome of much discussion, " to facilitate the
management and improvement of Episcopal and Capitular
estates." It would be impossible, without wearisome and
technical details, to enter fully into the origin and results
of that important Act. Suffice it to say that it afforded a
process whereby the property belonging to the Cathedral
Corporations could be economically and advantageously
administered for the benefit alike of the tenants, the
chapters, and the Church at large. But the changes
involved in adopting the new system were considerable,
and could not be applied without difficulty. They involved
much laborious, responsible, and costly work on the part
of the chapters, and, like other measures of Church reform,
1 14 and 15 Vict. cap. 104.

1852-56] CATHEDRAL REFORMS 177
they were from the first keenly opposed by not a few of
those concerned. It thus happened that many Cathedrals
hesitated long before taking the voluntary steps necessary
for subjecting themselves to the new arrangements. Dean
Tait felt no such timidity. In 1852 — within a year, that
is, after the passing of the Act — the example of forward
movement was set by the two Cathedrals of Carlisle and
York, and it has since then been generally followed. The
estates were transferred en bloc to the Ecclesiastical Com
mission, which was to hold them for a time, and to give a
fixed annuity to the Cathedral body. It thus became
practicable for the Commissioners to apply to the trans
ferred estates a process of enfranchisement (whether by
sale or purchase) which would substitute for the baneful
system of leaseholds renewable on fine a new and un
fettered freehold tenure. In other words, either the
Commissioners or the leaseholders might thus become the
absolute owners of the property, the other party receiving
in each case the money-equivalent of his interest. It is
obvious how much responsible and difficult work was
involved in the effecting of such arrangements. In the
case of Carlisle, the negotiations were intricate and of
portentous length ; and although the Dean found them
extremely irksome at the time, he used to maintain that
the experience he had gained proved afterwards to be of
the greatest service to him when, as Bishop of London, he
became one of the members of the Estates Committee of
the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and had to take part in
similar transactions with respect to some thirteen other
Cathedrals. In the Chapter of Carlisle strong opposition was raised
to the " innovation " of substituting a fixed payment for
the former system of fines upon renewal, and the Dean
had great difficulty in effecting his purpose.
VOL. I. M

178 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. vii.
Diary.
"This day in Chapter I was betrayed into unseemly anger.
O Lord, forgive me ! I will not let the sun go down upon my
anger. O Lord, give me self-denial as a Christian, and more
regard for the feelings of others, through Jesus Christ."
And again, a few days later : —
"At times I feel greatly depressed here by the uncongenial
spirits amongst whom I am thrown. But, O Lord, give me to
understand that nothing great was ever done without effort,
and amidst much opposition. Lord, give me wisdom, zeal, love,
and make me faithful in every work. This day we have been
engaged in very important business as to the transfer of our estates
to the Commissioners. Guide us, O Lord. May all the matter
redound to Thy glory. We hope to rebuild our Cathedral, and
thus infuse a love for the outward house of God."
In this hope he was not disappointed. Under the
direction of Mr. Christian as architect, the restoration
of the very dilapidated Cathedral was taken in hand at
once. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners had arranged,
in connection with the transfer of the estates, that £15,000
should be expended on the Cathedral fabric. The roof
was entirely rebuilt ; a new and rich doorway was opened
in the south transept ; and the east wall and windows,
which had been in a disgraceful state, were renewed at
great cost ; while other necessary changes of structure and
arrangement were effected in various parts of the building.
During the progress of these works he was able, to his
great satisfaction, to reside more continuously than had at
first been possible, and the record of his multifarious
labour, in matters great and small, for the good of Carlisle
and its inhabitants, stands in strange contrast to what
would at that time have been usually deemed appropriate
to the position of a Cathedral dignitary. The home
was a very bright and happy one, and there seems by

1852-56] RESTORATION OF CATHEDRAL 179
universal testimony to have been something strangely
attractive — not to their parents only, but even to the least
emotional of guests or strangers — in the group of little
daughters who made music and sunshine in the old
Deanery. At the same time it may be doubted whether either
the Dean or Mrs. Tait ever thoroughly enjoyed their
Carlisle life. To a mind like his, which at all times found
its pleasure rather in the action and intercourse of life than
in close study or retirement, Carlisle presented a very
marked contrast to either Rugby or Oxford. Had he
anticipated after his Rugby illness that his health would
ever again be what it soon became, it is probable that
he would have declined the Deanery. But once there
he set himself with determination to face the task before
him. A few extracts, taken almost at random from the
diaries and letters of those years, will perhaps give a
truer picture than even the reminiscences of friends can
furnish. Diary.
"Saturday Evening, j,\st August 1850. — To-day is the meet
ing of Rugby. Seeing Shairp pass in the express, I have thought
much of that dear place. O, my God, grant a blessing on it, and
on all who labour in it. How strange it seems to be sitting here
while so many are hurrying up there. The place that knew me
knows me no more. . . . Chalmers' Life, which I have been read
ing to-night, reminded me forcibly of the great and holy work that
lies upon me here. Arnold's, which I have also been reading, re
calls how little I was able to do at Rugby as he did it. But,
without greater vigour than for the last two years I have possessed,
I could not have hoped to improve the system there, and there
fore I must think that my work there was better ended. Certainly
in this place, if God give me grace, and I work in the spirit of
prayer, I am able to do what has not been done before. Lord,
strengthen me for this great work. This Cathedral has never been
what it ought to be. At Rugby I came to a system which had

180 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. vii.
been fully and ably and energetically worked for many years. Here
I come to a system which is dead and powerless, but where there
is every facility for revivification, if only I am regular and faith
ful. By my sermons, by schools, by visiting the poor — especially
the sick and dying — by being earnest and energetic in assisting
those around to undertake any good works. Lord, give me grace
so to labour."
"Saturday, 21st Dec. 1850. — My birthday; I am 39. How
very long a portion of my life have I lived. How little have I
done, especially in that greatest of all works for me, that which goes
on within my own soul. How overwhelming is the thought of
the deep responsibilities through which I have passed. How many
scenes of my life are gone like dreams in the night — each bear
ing with it a thousand opportunities of serving God which can
never return ; each having its recollection of persons into whose
society I was thrown, whom I can never meet again this side the
grave, or whom circumstances have made it now very difficult
for me to influence.
"My life at school, at Glasgow, as an undergraduate, as a
Fellow, at Rugby — what thoughts of God's mercy and of my neglect
crowd into each; and, at Rugby especially, what wonderful in
terests and what great warnings from God. The time of the year
is fast approaching which brings back the recollection of my terrible
illness. O Lord, how great was Thy mercy in that judgment.
And now what duties are there here. Teach me, Lord, to labour
in them faithfully. Keep me near to Thee through Jesus Christ."
"Sunday Afternoon, Deer. 22, 1850. — I have preached twice,
and visited the workhouse. I have been very busy for others.
Lord, grant that the growth of holiness in my own soul may keep
pace with my activity for others. The difficulty for such a character
as mine is inward holiness. Outward activity comes naturally.
Lord, replenish me with the grace of Thy Holy Spirit. O Lord,
give me holy thoughts. May I have no desire but to glorify
Thee." " Christmas Eve, 1850.— Preparation for the Lord's Supper
to-morrow. . . .
"O Lord, help me by Thy Holy Sacrament, for Christ's
sake." "Saturday, 28th Deer.— This day I have had pain in the
heart, evidently intended to remind me that my health is still

1852-56] EXTRACTS FROM DIARIES 181
precarious. Lord, bless to my soul the thoughts which this calls
up. . . . Am I growing more meet for Thy presence ? ... I am
visiting what seem to be three deathbeds. What a difference
between the three ! . . . O God, save me from the danger of
being made callous by the sight of so much misery as is brought
before me in this town."
And again :
"I have been summoned to-day to attend a man apparently
dying; one of our Cathedral almsmen, very ignorant and self-
satisfied. What am I to do to get a better hold over those who
are thus united to the Church ? "
"Angel Inn, Oxford, Sunday Evening, Feb. 9, 1851. — How
greatly I enjoy these visits to Oxford. At this very time of year,
twenty-one years ago, I stood in this inn when I came up to enter
as a freshman. Lord, with what mercies hast Thou surrounded me
since then. This Sunday has passed, not without serious thought,
but yet with too little. I have heard Dr. Pusey preach. The ex
hortation to calmness and love with which he ended was very
good." . . .
"Ash Wednesday, $fh March 1851. — Ash Wednesday has
been a solemn day to me now for many years. I began to mark
it distinctly at Oxford, and tried there to spend it in recollection
and prayer. Six years ago Mary1 was buried on Ash Wednes
day. Three years ago I lay at the point of death on Ash Wed
nesday. I have to-day been talking with my dearest wife of that
solemn time. No one had any hope that I could live. O Lord,
Thou hast been exceeding gracious to me. And now let me ask
myself very solemnly whether my soul has received a blessing.
I will consider my besetting sins. ... I will now go through the
Penitential Liturgy from Jeremy Taylor. O Lord, solemnise my
mind in these prayers. Keep me from wandering, for Jesus Christ's
sake. . . ."
"Sunday Evening, Feb. 20 [1853]. — I have been reading one
of Arnold's travelling journals, and was much touched by the
description of the towers, and old trees, and green turf of Rugby
as he whirled past from Fox How to Dover. ... In this town
where my lot is now cast, there is enough of the ruggedness of
life in the misery of the wretched classes round me to fill rne
1 Mrs. John Tait, sister-in-law of A. C. T.

182 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. vii.
with melancholy views of life. It would be pleasing, doubtless,
to have some home embosomed in trees, with beautiful mountain
views, where my children might grow up; and such a place to
rest in for a few months in each year would be a great blessing.
But though there is no beauty to soothe, there is something good
for the soul in the stern reality of life which such a town as this
presents ; poverty and vice are here before me in their naked
deformity. This sight can only be good for us if we look at it
with real Christian feelings. Otherwise it only hardens and
debases." " Wednesday, gth March 1853. — I have not been well for the
last day or two. To-night while Mr. Page 1 was with me I fainted
quite away. I was standing, and knew nothing till, after about
a minute's insensibility, I found myself lying on the floor with
Mr. Page unloosing my neckcloth. In the midst of life how near
is death ; for syncope, while it lasts, is death. O God, make me
ready. My dear mother died in a faint. She was as little expect
ing death as I this evening. I do not fear death, I trust, because
I know that my Redeemer liveth."
"Sept. 16, 1853. — I have visited the districts of the town to
day in anticipation of the cholera breaking out.2 Lord, make us
ready for any sudden call."
"Sunday, Sept. \8th. — In the midst of the quiet of this
time of waiting, expecting daily that pestilence will visit us, O
Lord, teach us to improve the time. Thou knowest what is best
for us." "Sunday Evening, gth Oct. 1853. — I am here [Deanery] to
day alone. I have been reading, since church, Goulburn's sermon,
' The swelling of the Jordan.' . . . The fact that our first case of
Asiatic cholera has proved fatal, and that the man was buried
early this morning in St. Cuthbert's Churchyard, calls us with loud
voice to be ready."
"Sunday, 16th Oct. — I have preached three times to-day.
Lord, impress the truths I have preached on my own soul.
... I have often in my thoughts the idea that I may soon die.
My many bodily ailments — though not perhaps serious — seem to
show a very weakly constitution shattered by illness. Whether
Thou callest me soon or late, make me ready ; and bless, O bless
my dear wife and children."
1 The Doctor. 2 It was raging at Newcastle and elsewhere.

1852-56] THE PROTESTANT ALLIANCE 183
It may be well to quote one or two letters of this
period, showing his disinclination to identify himself with
some of the religious movements then rife, movements
undertaken with the view of uniting in a common cause
the scattered efforts of various denominations, but tending,
as he thought, to limit practically the legitimate width of
the Church of England, and to narrow the sympathies of
her members.
The strange agitation raised in 1850 and 185 1 by what
was known as ' The Papal Aggression ' took shape, not
only in Lord John Russell's panic-stricken ' Ecclesiastical
Titles Act,' but in the formation of various societies of an
anti-Roman character, for the enforcement or exposition
of this or that department of Protestantism. At an
enthusiastic and influential meeting held in June 185 1,
'The Protestant Alliance' was founded, under the pre
sidency of Lord Shaftesbury—
" Not only," as its prospectus stated, " to oppose the recent
aggression of the Pope . . . but ' to maintain and defend, against
all the encroachments of Popery, the Scriptural doctrines of the
Reformation.' This was to be effected (1) 'by awakening
British Christians of various classes ... to regard the interests
of Protestantism as the paramount object of their concern ; (2)
by uniting the Protestants of the Empire in a firm and persevering
demand that the national support and encouragement given to
Popery of late years shall be discontinued . . . and (3) by
extending as far as may be practicable the sympathy and support
of British Christians to those in foreign countries who may be
suffering oppression for the cause of the Gospel.' "
The new Alliance at once received a wide support,
and its first list of members included scores of the fore
most clergymen in England. Dean Tait's known sym
pathy with Evangelical opinion led to his being early
invited to become a member of the Alliance. His
answer to the invitation was as follows : —

1 84 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. vii.
The Dean of Carlisle to Mr, W. Browne.
" 26th fan. 1852.
"Dear Mr. Browne, — Your letter has been forwarded to
me. In the 'statement of objects' of the Protestant Alliance
are some with which I certainly cannot sympathise. I have
always been decidedly in favour of the Maynooth Grant, and
should consider its withdrawal, except on the ground of proved
abuse, to be unjust. I do not see how one holding this opinion
could co-operate in such an Association as you say it is intended
to form. Generally, also, my opinion, as far as I am yet informed,
is strong that Popery in this country is better met by every
Protestant clergyman and layman zealously doing his duty in the
position God has assigned him than by the agitation which seems
implied in the formation of a Society for the defence of Protes-
'tantism. If Government could be strengthened so as to enable
them to interfere on behalf of Protestants abroad, this were
indeed much to be desired.— Yours sincerely, "A. C. Tait."
Similarly, in reply to a request that he would allow
his name to be added to a widely supported 'Sabbath
Observance Society,' he writes as follows : —
The Dean of Carlisle to Mr. J. Simpson.
" \2th March 1853.
" My dear Sir, — I have attentively perused the Rules of the
Sabbath Observance Society. I do not feel that I can join it.
I think I shall better promote the great object of urging men to
the observance, not only of the Fourth Commandment, but of
all God's commandments, the rules of a Christian life, through
the regularly appointed agency of Christ's Church, than by means
of this Society. The Church of Christ Universal, represented for
each individual Christian by that branch of it to which he
himself belongs, appears to me to open up for each, in its regular
ministrations, the best means through which he may, by God's
help, promote such great objects. — Yours very faithfully, "A. C. Tait."
The following is Lady Wake's account of a visit to
Carlisle, in the last year of the Dean's residence there : —

1852-56] LADY WAKE'S REMINISCENCES l87
"In the autumn of 1855 we, on our way north, spent a de
lightful week at the Deanery, repeating the visit a month later
as we returned home, and by this means had the opportunity
of thoroughly understanding the extent and variety of the Dean's
work, while at the same time we had the full enjoyment of his
family life, which was delightful. There were now six children,
and only one, the third, was a boy ; the five little girls, from the
eldest to the youngest, were full of life, and had such a share in
all that was done that an additional spirit and animation was im
parted to everything. Mrs. Tait had the talent of thus blending
the children's life with that of their parents and their friends with
out making them little bores. In her charities and various minis
trations among the poor the three eldest, Catty, May, and little
Chatty (a peculiarly lovely child), were taught to be a real help,
winning the affections and cheering the sadness of numbers whose
various needs brought them under the influence of the Deanery,
while their active little fingers performed wonders in the clothing
club. Ah ! who could foresee the coming storm ? We were there
one Sunday, and that I might understand all that he was doing,
with the Dean's permission, I remained with him the whole day
(so far as I could without getting up into the pulpit). Besides
the two services in the Cathedral, at one of which he preached,
he found time for a most touching meeting in his night school
room with a number of old people and invalids who were not
able for a Cathedral service. He sat among them like a young
apostle, making choice of such portions of Scripture as brought
comfort, and hope, and strength to their failing powers ; pointing
out to them the bright Beyond to which the Saviour was beckon
ing them, and praying with them, no printed formula of prayer,
but the very voice of their hearts, taking to God all their infirmities
and wants. Later in the day there was a similar gathering of young
women, most of them mothers, to whom he spoke so earnestly
that they evidently hung upon his words. Later still there was
a children's class examined by him, and quite late in the evening,
when, exceedingly fatigued, I thought the duties of the day entirely
over, I found a most interesting gathering of young men in the
Dean's study, to whom he gave instruction more like that given
to the Sixth Form at Rugby, recognising in them the craving for
knowledge felt by thoughtful and educated minds. That he secured
their attention so as deeply to interest them was evident, and the
influence obtained must have been real over those young minds,

184 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. vii.
by God's blessing expanding under the warm sunshine of His
word of truth.
" And this was the work of every seventh day, that of the six
intervening being in keeping with it.
" It was a bright scene that enlivened the old Deanery. Cheer
ful young voices sounded merrily as we gathered in the mornings
in the picturesque old drawing-room to obey the solemn injunc
tion that had been carved centuries before on the ceiling, ' That
here prayer should every day be made.' The golden heads and
cherub faces of the little ones, the gentle, serious calm of the two
elder girls, as they knelt, recalled the groups in the pictures
of the old masters, wherein some opening scene in heaven is
attempted to be delineated."
Early in the year 1856, it seemed more than likely
that he might be appointed to the Bishopric of Carlisle.
On Shrove Tuesday, February 5 th, Bishop Percy, when
apparently in his usual health, was seized with sudden
faintness, " and as it was growing dark that evening,"
wrote Dr. Tait, "Mr. Page waited on me at the Deanery
to announce that the Bishop's long episcopate was over.
An hour after hearing of his death I received a letter
from him written in his usual health. O my God, make
us to live in readiness, through Jesus Christ."
"Sunday, Feb. 10th. — I have preached to-day on the Bishop's
death. O teach me, Lord, to imitate those qualities in which he
excelled, and which my character sorely needs. Not a man-
pleaser, not a dissembler, not hesitating in his principles. O Lord,
strengthen me by Thy Holy Spirit."
" Tuesday, Feb. 12th (56). — To-day we laid our kind old Bishop
in the grave. . . . We shall never see again his upright form and
reverend grey head, and watch his elastic step. This cannot but
be a time of much natural anxiety; but I trust, Lord, that my
heart is fixed on Thee, and, like my dear wife, . I trust I have no
wishes but that Thy Holy Will may be fulfilled, and Thy Church
may prosper, through Jesus Christ."
This last entry requires explanation. Ever since
the recovery of his health in 1850, and his work

1852-56] THE SEE OF CARLISLE 187
upon the Oxford Commission, he had been aware of
the favour with which he was regarded by some of
the leaders of the Liberal party. Lord John Russell,
indeed, had made no secret of his intention to recom
mend him for a Bishopric on the first opportunity.
The knowledge of this fact had often disquieted him, and
again and again in his journal he prays against the
temptation to desire such preferment. He could not,
however, pretend to be unaware of the special aptitude
he possessed for certain departments of the work he
longed to see done in the Church of England; and
now that the See of Carlisle had fallen vacant after the
accession of the Whigs to office, it seemed to his friends
almost certain that his name would be submitted to Her
Majesty, especially as George Moore, a Liberal to the
backbone and a man all-powerful in Cumberland^, was
exerting himself to the utmost on his behalf. But the
Premier was Lord Palmerston, not Lord John Russell ;
and, on the advice of Lord Shaftesbury, Dr. Montagu
Villiers, the Evangelical Rector of Bloomsbury, was
appointed to the vacant See.
"Deanery, Carlisle, nth Feb. 1856, 10.35 P-M- — To-day has
ended a week of great anxiety, and seems to have fixed my resi
dence here for a considerable time, if not for life. I have great
cause to thank my friends who had made exertions to pro
mote me to a greater sphere in this neighbourhood, but such things
are too important for the Church of God not to be distinctly over
ruled by Him, and He knows what is best both for me and His
Church. O Lord, if there be in my lot here some discourage
ments, let me think of the far greater comforts and blessings.
Truly Thou hast caused my cup to overflow, — a loving wife and
dear children, competent health, means sufficient far beyond most
of my contemporaries, a good house, ample leisure, and great
means of usefulness, blessed with the hearty good-will of the poor
around me. O help me daily more and more to do my work
here as in Thy sight.

1 88 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. vii.
"I have felt anxious during the past week; yet have I felt
able also to submit myself entirely to Thy will. This night, after
the first excitement has passed — a feeling of some dissatisfaction
has been creeping over me. . . . O Lord, give me a holy, con
tented frame ; make me to desire nothing but how best to fulfil
Thy holy will. O Lord, in life and in death may I be Thine :
save me from worldly, ambitious thoughts : give me a holy
frame, for Jesus Christ's sake. . . ,"
"Sunday Evening, 24th Feby. 1856. — This day I have felt
much how unformed is my Christian character, how great have
been my past sins, and how little fitted, therefore, I am for great
position in the Church of Christ. O Lord, deepen my sense of
my own unworthiness, through Jesus Christ. Amen."
"Sunday Evening, 2d March 1856. — O Lord, regulate my
mind by Thy Holy Spirit. . . . Give me a more spiritual frame.
This Holy Communion in which I joined this day, may it be
blest to my soul, that I may be less conformed to the world, and
more transformed by the renewing of my mind. Bless my wife
and dear children, through Jesus Christ. Amen."

CHAPTER VIII.
MARCH AND APRIL 1 856.
THIS chapter must be the shortest in the volume. In
vain would any biographer try to describe again the
storm which broke upon the Carlisle Deanery in that sad
spring. The mother's own hand has given to the world a
sacred record which will live in English literature, and
which is already known and reverenced in every land.
It stands exactly as she wrote it in the very hours of
darkness and loneliness which followed upon the storm,
and the impress of its birth-time is stamped upon its every
page. Not for more than twenty years afterwards — not
until she too had passed from earth — was the record seen
by any outside the immediate circle of her friends, and
the occasion of its ultimate publication was of a piece
with the occasion of its birth. To that record, which can
neither be abridged nor paraphrased, those must turn who
desire to realise what the brightness of the Carlisle home
had been, and to know the details of a sorrow, the succes
sive shocks of which were felt, it may almost be said,
throughout England.
Scarlet fever in its most virulent form appeared in
Carlisle, and of the six little daughters whose presence
had brought radiance to the Deanery, the heart-broken
parents were called, within the space of a few weeks, to
part with all except the infant who had just been born.
One by one, between the 10th of March and the 10th of
April, they were laid in the single grave in Stanwix
189

190 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. viii.
Churchyard.1 Is it wonderful that when the parents came
forth from the awful cloud of those spring days their life
was lived thenceforward under wholly new conditions,
and that through all the chequered and busy years that
followed, whether at Fulham or at Lambeth, they carried
consciously upon them the consecration-mark of the holy
sorrow they had known ?
The last entry which has been quoted from the diary
was dated March 2, 1856. The entry which immediately
succeeds it is as follows : —
" Hallsteads, Thursday, 8th May 1856. — I have not had the
heart to make any entry in my journal now for above nine weeks.
When last I wrote I had six daughters on earth ; now I have one,
an infant. 0 God, Thou hast dealt very mysteriously with us.
We have been passing through deep waters : our feet were wellnigh
gone. But though Thou slay us, yet will we trust in Thee. . . .
They are gone from us, all but my beloved Craufurd and the
babe. Thou hast re-claimed the lent jewels. Yet, O Lord, shall
I not thank Thee now ? I will thank Thee not only for the chil
dren Thou hast left to us, but for those Thou hast re-claimed. I
thank Thee for the blessing of the last ten years, and for all the
sweet memories of their little lives — memories how fragrant with
every blissful, happy thought. I thank Thee for the full assur
ance that each has gone to the arms of the Good Shepherd,
whom each loved according to the capacity of her years. I thank
Thee for the bright hopes of a happy reunion, when we shall
meet to part no more. O Lord, for Jesus Christ's sake, comfort
our desolate hearts. May we be a united family still in heart
through the communion of saints — through Jesus Christ our
Lord." 1 The names and ages of the children were as follows : —
Catharine Anna ("Catty"), born Mar. 15, 1846, died Mar. 25, 1856.
Mary Susan ("May "), . „ June 20, 1847, „ April 8, „
Craufurd, . June 22, 1849, ,, May 29, 1878.
Charlotte ("Chatty"), . „ Sept. 7,1850, „ Mar. 6,1856.
Frances Alice Marion, . „ June 29, 1852, „ Mar. 20, ,,
Susan Elizabeth Camp'jell, ,, Aug. 1,1854, ,, Mar. II, ,,
Lucy Sydney Murray, . ,, Feb. 11, 1856.
For the whole narrative, see Catharine and Craufurd Tait, pp. 159-243.

CHAPTER IX.
ENTRANCE ON LONDON EPISCOPATE.
1856.
THE summer of 1856 was spent by the bereaved parents
at Hallsteads, a beautiful house on Ullswater, lent to them
by friends, and near enough to Carlisle to enable the
Dean to resume his work in the Cathedral and elsewhere.
To this work he set himself with unabated courage, and his
diary is full of such entries as the following :
" Sunday, fuly 27 th. — In Carlisle all day. Preached in the
afternoon. Lecture 5-6. Bible-class 8.30-9.30."
"Monday, fuly 28. — 10 a.m. Cathedral service. Visited
Cathedral School. Administered Holy Communion to dying
man. Returned late to Hallsteads."
They had not again occupied the Deanery, but the
question of their return thither had become imminent,
when, on September 17th, the Dean received the following
letter from the Prime Minister : —
Viscount Palmerston to the Dean of Carlisle.
"94 Piccadilly, 15 September 1856.
"My dear Sir, — I have much pleasure in informing you
that I have received the Queen's commands to offer you the See
of London, which is about to become vacant by th resignation of
the present Bishop on the 30th of this month ; but subject to two
conditions. The first is that you should hold the See subject to a
future division of the Diocese if Parliament should pass an Act
for the purpose, and subject, of course, to any arrangement as
to endowments or otherwise which may be consequent upon such
a division, and, secondly, that the Estates of the See shall be

192 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. ix.
placed under the management of the Ecclesiastical Commis
sioners. " If, as I hope, you should be willing to accept the offer, you
will perhaps have the goodness to place yourself without delay
in communication with the present Bishop with a view to settle
with him such arrangements as may be necessary for the transfer
of the duties of the Diocese. — I am, my dear Sir, yours faith
fully, Palmerston."
Diary.
" Wednesday, Sept. 17th, 1856. — I have this morning received
a letter from Lord Palmerston saying that he has the Queen's
command to offer me the See of London. I am now (11 a.m.)
about to take an hour of prayer. The subjects on which to
pray are these — That I may not act rashly, seeing that I have
no doubt of accepting the offer — That I may have the .grace of
the Holy Spirit of God abundantly poured down upon me
during the time of my holding this office — That I may be kept
from worldliness in every form — That I may have a single eye
to the glory of God and the good of His Church — That I may
have such health as is requisite for so great a post.
"O Lord! grant that thy Church may take no injury through
my fault. Give me vigilance over myself first, next over others.
Enable me to arrange my days and all my time so as to have
ample time for prayer and the study of Thy Word. Give me
wisdom — give me holiness — give me strength of mind and body
— give me kind consideration for the feelings of all around me
— give me boldness — give me decision. This is certainly not
the post which I should ever have dreamed of for myself. The
preparation which Thou hast given me for it has been deep
affliction. May the memory of these afflictions help to sanctify
my heart . . . May I undertake this office in the spirit of a
missionary. Soon I shall be called to give account. Teach me
to live in simplicity and in Thy fear, through Jesus Christ.
Amen. " I think I am not rash in accepting it, God knows I have
not sought it. I trust to use it while life lasts for God's glory,
and to go about my work simply in God's faith and fear . . .
As in God's sight I accept it, praying to Him heartily to help
me in all my ways."

1856] NOMINATED BISHOP OF LONDON 193
The exact influences which led to the nomination of
Archibald Tait to the See of London are not now
ascertainable. The position he had filled for several
years in the eyes of Liberal Ministers, as one who had
not been afraid to handle the thorny question of Univer
sity Reform, and who was credited with the successful
issue of the Royal Commission on the subject ; the influ
ence of Lord Shaftesbury, who, as he afterwards wrote
to Lady Wake, had regarded Dean Tait as "by very
much the best " of the dangerous Arnoldian school ; the
esteem in which he was known to be held by the Liberals,
both of Oxford and of Cumberland ; and, last, but per
haps not least, the widespread sympathy and interest
which had been aroused, from the Throne downwards, by
the tragic illness in the Carlisle Deanery ; all these causes
contributed to make it probable that he would be nomi
nated by Lord Palmerston to fill one of the four vacant
Sees. Lord Shaftesbury frankly wrote, a few months
later, that his own wish had been that Mr. Pelham should
be nominated to London and Dean Tait to Norwich or
elsewhere. On this point the Prime Minister took his
own line ; but it was indeed a bold step on his part to
send Dean Tait to London. Only once during the. pre
vious two hundred years had any man, not already a
Bishop, been appointed to that diocese, and, in the case of
Dean Tait, the experiment must to many people have
seemed rash in the extreme. It would not, perhaps,
be possible to find another instance in the last half
century in which a man with so little previous training
of a technical sort has been placed at one step in a
position at once so responsible and so independent.
Oxford, Rugby, Carlisle, had each of them been the scene
of hard work well done, and each had left an impress
upon his life and character. But his duties as tutor and
vol. 1 N

194 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. ix.
headmaster had lain outside the groove of ecclesiastical
organisation, and even at Carlisle he had had little oppor
tunity of taking part in the solution of the wider Church
problems, or the general ordering of Church affairs.
Of duties strictly pastoral he had had ample experience
in his voluntary work, first at Baldon and then at Car
lisle, and as a preacher, thoughtful and earnest rather
than brilliant, he had already some reputation. But he
was unknown upon religious platforms, either in London
or elsewhere ; he had scarcely ever attended a clerical
meeting ; he had never sat in Convocation ; and he found
himself regarded with a certain suspicion by many of his
clerical friends, who looked askance upon his association
with the ' sacrilegious Whigs.' About strictly Episcopal
work he knew absolutely nothing, and it was startling
therefore to others besides himself to see him placed quite
suddenly at the head of the largest diocese in the world,
as the successor of one of the most remarkable Bishops
of our time. To succeed Bishop Blomfield would have
been a formidable task for any man. His indomitable
energy, his penetrating intelligence, and his ready elo
quence and wit, added to his keen business habits and
his organising genius, had gone far to change men's view
of the English Episcopate, and Churchmen were now
wondering who could be found to take up his mantle,
and to occupy his commanding place.
Public attention had been directed to the subject by
the important debates in both Houses of Parliament upon
the question of Bishop Blomfield's resignation. No
arrangement had up to that time been in existence
whereby an aged or infirm Bishop could suitably
resign his See ; and a special Act of Parliament was
passed in 1856 to authorise the retirement, on a
suitable pension, of the Bishops of London and

1856] THE FREEDOM FROM PARTY 195
Durham.1 The Bill was hotly opposed, not only by the
Radicals, as represented by Mr. Hadfield, Mr. Roebuck,
and others of the same school, but also, on totally
different grounds, by such Churchmen as the Bishops
of Oxford and Exeter, Mr. Gladstone, Lord Robert Cecil,
and Sir William Heathcote.
Their opposition was, however, fruitless, and the Bill
became law on July 26th. The long discussions on the
subject had called public notice to the importance of the
Bishop of London's position, both in the Church and in
the country, and had greatly enhanced the interest of the
question who was to be the new Bishop. When Dean
Tait's nomination was announced, public criticism was, to
a large extent, mere guesswork, so little was the Bishop-
designate known in an ecclesiastical aspect outside the
comparatively limited circle of his Oxford and Rugby
friends, and of those interested in University Reform.
But if he was at a disadvantage in thus entering upon a
great position without any of the prestige attaching to
previous successes in a similar field, there was something,
too, to be said upon the other side. He was entirely
untrammelled by any partisan allegiance. Critics who
tried to label the new Bishop with the name of some
party in the Church found themselves able to go no
further than to say that he was certainly not a High
Churchman. Indeed, if he had had himself to choose a
leader from among the Bishops, it is hard to say to whom
he would have been willing to turn. The Episcopal
Bench was on the whole far better manned than it had
been a few years before. Several distinct types of work
and thought were now apparent. The piety and evan-
1 Bishop Blomfield was seventy years old, and had been a Bishop for
thirty-three years. Bishop Maltby was eighty-six years old, and had been a
Bishop for twenty-five years.

196 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. ix.
gelical fervour of the brothers Sumner, the incomparable
energy, versatility, and devotion of "Bishop Wilberforce,
and the masterly thoroughness and accuracy of Bishop
Blomfield's constructive talent, were each of them potent
to recall the Church of England into life, and the
redoubtable Bishop Phillpotts of Exeter, already seventy-
eight years old,~had lost nothing of the ability, the
pugnacity, and the shrewd and caustic wit, which made
him for half a century the champion of every cause that
he supported, and the sturdiest enemy of liberalism in
whatever form. Tait perhaps lacked the power, even
if he had had the will, to tread in the footsteps of
any of these leaders. The line he was to follow was a
line of his own, which, whether better or worse than
any of those laid down by others, at least differed
widely from them all. The Evangelical Bishops and
their followers had made it impossible any longer to
describe the Church of England as " dead to the spiritual
hunger of human souls," but, with a few notable exceptions,
they had failed to gain touch with the intellectual and
critical side of the life and conversation of educated men.
Literature, Science, Philosophy, Art, were by them re
garded as things altogether apart from Religion. Their
view of the antagonism between the Church and the world
led them to a strange distrust of the higher forms of human
usefulness and activity. These belonged to the world, and
the main business of the religious man was with religion
as a personal matter between himself and his God.
Bishop Blomfield and Bishop Wilberforce had each of
them taken a view of the Church's duties very different
from that of the Evangelical Bishops. It is generally
admitted to have been the capacity and vigour of the
former which, in the years succeeding the Reform Bill,
had saved the Church from the destructive zeal of those

1856] THE CHURCH SHOULD BE NATIONAL 197
who wished to represent her as doomed on account
of her obvious abuse of trust and her cumbrous mis
management. Bishop Blomfield, early in his clerical life, speaking of
the then disorganised and torpid condition of the Church,
had said, " It is not too late for us to put fresh incense
into our censers, and to stand between the dead and the
living " ; J and no man ever more fully acted up to the
spirit of his own words. After a thorough overhauling of
her finances, he had successfully endeavoured, with the
constant encouragement and support of the gentler Arch
bishop Howley, to settle the Church firmly down on good
orthodox lines, free, so far as possible, from the taint
either of Tractarian bigotry or of Arnoldian laxity of--
belief. Tait came to London to find an increasing likeli
hood that the Church of England, with all her high claims,
her unquestionable orthodoxy, and her admirable business
habits, might become merely the richest, best-managed,
and most powerful of the English sects. The capacity of
her leaders, and especially, perhaps, the restless earnest
ness of Bishop Wilberforce, had placed her in a new
position before the eyes of men. But strong as was the
growth of her new-found life, it was one of even increasing
isolation from the kindred influences around. She was
not attempting to sweep into her stream or to utilise for
the nation's good the various Christian forces which were
actively at work independently of her system or her
support. Bishop Tait's training and temperament com- \_^,
bined to lead him to take a view of the Church's life, less
ecclesiastical, more national and comprehensive. From
the moment of his appointment he seems to have set
before himself this national position, as the one which
needed all the emphasis he could give to it. Bishop
1 Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 280.

198 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. ix.
Wilberforce in a brilliant account of Bishop Blomfield's
life and work describes him as making it " clear to all that
his sole object was to increase the moral and spiritual
efficiency of the Church of England."1 Bishop Tait
regarded the Church of England's efficiency rather as a
means than an end, a means of raising the Christian tone
of the whole nation, whether in her legislature, her juris
prudence, or her social life. It was his aim to make the
Church, in fact as well as in theory, a National Church, in
a sense quite other than as embodying or expressing the
Official Creed. He was not, in any full sense, an
adherent of Dr. Arnold and his school, differing almost as
widely from them upon the one hand as he did from
Bishop Wilberforce and the High Church Bishops on the
other. But his words and actions must speak for them
selves, and it is necessary to return to the facts of 18*56.
From among the letters he received, as soon as the
appointment was announced, a few extracts may perhaps
be given, selected, so far as possible, to show the opinion
which had been formed of his powers and qualifications
by those who had had the best opportunity of judging.
From former pupils and friends came the following : —
Canon Arthur Stanley lo the Bishop-designate of London.
" Accept, my dear friend, my best wishes — hopes. All is before
you : new scenes, new work, a place where you can speak and
act with the greatest effect for all that you — may I not say for
all that you and I and the best friends of the Church of England
—think most important. God grant you health to fulfil all your
highest wishes, and may the mournful past bear its true fruits in
a happy and useful future. Carlisle, Rugby, Oxford, Scotland,
must all find their proper place in London. ... I will say no
more, except to express my profound conviction of the immense
services which you may render to the Church. Your appoint
ment may, under God, be a new era for us all. . . . O that they
1 Quarterly Review, Oct. 1863, p. 556.

1856] CONGRATULATIONS OF FRIENDS 199
would make Vaughan your coadjutor at Westminster! The
Church of London would then be indeed tota, teres, atque rotunda.
— Ever affectionately yours, A. P. Stanley."
Rev. B. fowett to the Bishop-designate of London.
"... Such a great event is almost above congratulation. I
rejoice heartily in it for your sake and that of the Church of
England. I think you will succeed, because you have succeeded
at Balliol, at Rugby, and at Carlisle ; because you are tolerant,
and keep your eyes open to what is passing around you ; because
I believe you will not suffer yourself to be surrounded with
inferior men.
"Twenty years hence the Church of England will probably have
changed considerably for better or for worse, and you will have
had great influence on its changes. The Times of yesterday
addresses you a homily on your new duties. The only advice I
should venture to offer is that you should do as little as possible :
I mean, seriously, that you should keep yourself up to the work
by getting rid in every possible way of matters of routine. — Most
sincerely yours, B. Jowett.
" Will you tell Mrs. Tait that ' Latitudinarian ' is a tremendous
long name to call a fellow ? "
Mr. Ralph Lingen1 to the Bishop-designate of London.
"... Our pleasure at your appointment is the pleasure of
a crew who love their ship and admire good seamanship — and
who in a trying time find a man in whom they have confidence
called to the helm. The care and the difficulty are the very
reasons why they rejoice that one man was selected rather than
another, both for his sake and their own. Great as are the
labours and the perils, I, for one, look forward with confidence
to your surmounting them in the same spirit that has hitherto
carried success with it, and I anticipate benefits in large measure
both to the Church and country."
Mr. f. D. Coleridge2 to the Bishop-designate of London.
"... London so much wants a vigorous man, and, above all,
a just one, that I entirely rejoice that you are to come there.
1 Now Lord Lingen. 2 Now Lord Chief Justice.

200 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. IX.
You must have changed very much if any one ever gets anything
but kind and generous treatment at your hands."
From the Rugby Masters as a body he received a letter
of warmest congratulation and confident encouragement.
In his reply, he said : —
" No man could possibly undertake such a burden as must
devolve on the Bishop of London without a sense of his insuf
ficiency, and there are many reasons why I, in undertaking it,
must feel 'Almost overwhelmed. It does therefore greatly tend
to strengthen me when I learn that those who have known me
long, and are kindly interested in my personal welfare, at the
same time that they are anxious to see the Church of Christ
fulfil its great vocation, are thus ready to bid me God-speed."
One after another among his oldest friends refers to
the memories of Betty Morton, and to the joy which his
appointment would have given her. His brother James,
for example, writes : —
" I have been hourly thinking : What would my dear Father
— and Betty — have said? John Russell, in congratulating me
yesterday, asked if your old nurse was still alive : and Horner,
in a letter to-day from Berlin, says — ' What would Betty have
thought ? ' "
On grounds public rather than personal Dr. Hook of
Leeds wrote : —
" I should not offer my congratulations, if I did not believe
that your appointment meets with the approbation of the Church
of England generally. I have heard but one opinion expressed
on the subject, and that is, of great thankfulness. ... I
believe the thankfulness at your appointment to arise from the
conviction that you are a just man. The virtue which we require
in a Bishop, in these days of party violence, is justice : we re
quire a just and impartial Ruler, and as you have never been a
partisan, and are known to possess all the other qualifications of
a good Bishop, such we expect you to be."

1856] PROJECT FOR DIVIDING THE SEE 201
In reply to a letter from Mr. Golightly, the Bishop-
designate wrote : — " Hallsteads, 29/A September 1856.
" My dear Golightly, — Yours is the sort of letter which it
is well for a man in my circumstances to receive. Your advice
as to the first hour of the day is, I truly believe, the only rule
for passing safely through the very many temptations which are
before me, and I shall strive to follow it. God's dealings with me
and mine during the last six months have been deeply mysterious,
and, suffering deeply as we do in our hearts from the grievous
loss of children who promised to be everything to us, we cannot
but feel ourselves distinctly in God's hands. If I could tell you
the story of our grief you would see what a call we have to look
upon this world as the merest pilgrimage. But all these soften
ing and holy impressions may in time wear away through the
pressure of business and the deep interest of the continued cycle
of great employments that seems to be before me. I therefore,
my dear friend, greatly need your prayers, and you will not
fail to offer them. I know very well that I am exposed to the
dangers you point out. In these difficult days it is certainly my .
desire not to drive parties to extremes, but this I trust I may be
able to do without any compromise of truth. . . , Still I do love
a comprehensive toleration. The Bishop of Gloucester I do not
know — the Bishop of Oxford I do. Our own Bishop of Carlisle
I highly regard as a heartily and truly religious man. To the
Archbishop I look with the deepest veneration, and he kindly
welcomes me as a friend. — Yours very sincerely, "A. C. Tait.
" We have still one boy and a little baby — a great comfort
to our hearts."
Lord Palmerston's letter, it will be remembered, had
alluded to the possible division of the See of London into
two. In June 1855 a Royal Commission on Cathedrals
had reported in favour of the formation of nine new Sees
in England, one of them being ' Westminster,' to be
separated from the See of London. The project had been
at first received with considerable favour, and the Arch-

202 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. ix.
bishop of Canterbury, in writing to Dean Tait on his
appointment, said : —
" I hope that there is no doubt of the intention to divide the
jurisdiction. More duty has fallen upon the retiring Bishop than
any strength could safely venture to undertake."
But, on further consideration, it was felt to be undesir
able to proceed with the proposed division ; and when the
relief ultimately came, it was effected in a different manner
altogether. Some extracts from his Diary will best show how the
next few weeks were spent, and what were the main
thoughts in his mind. Diary.
"Sunday Evening, $th October. — I have come to the close of
my ministry in Carlisle. In the morning we visited with Crau
furd the dear spot. It was the first time the dear child had seen
it. Some kind friend had strewed it with fresh flowers. . . .
Bid farewell to the Central School at half-past ten, and tried to
urge some plain lessons on the children. Holy Communion at
the Cathedral; 72 communicants, far more than I ever saw
before. ... In the afternoon I preached my farewell sermon —
trying to speak faithfully, and commending many things in which
I feel greatly interested to the Christian sympathy of those who
crowded to hear me for the last time. O Lord, I thank Thee for
the encouragement which this day has given me as to my ministry
here, though I feel how weak and remiss I have been. Visited
the dear girls' schoolroom for the last time, with many tears.
. . . October 8th. — Went to Fulham ; most kindly received by
the Blomfields. Stayed till Monday 13th, when went to Broad-
lands to Lord Palmerston. . . . 1
"Brighton, Sunday Evening, 26th October. ... I have been
reading Trench's Introduction to Sacred Poems for Mourners.
His analysis of the Burial Service is very striking. I have read
one of F. Robertson's sermons ; full of thought, but not much of
religious thought. . . . Catharine and I together received the
1 Page after page of the Diary is filled with tender references to the chil
dren "safe with the Lord, now their life's brief day is past."

1856] THE DAYS OF PREPARATION 203
Holy Communion at Mr. Henry Elliott's church. The calm
time during that long Communion enabled me to call up in
prayer the long succession of the many friends whom I feel a
desire to remember now before the Throne of Grace. This quiet
time of waiting till the day of my consecration comes is a great
privilege. O Lord, give me strength and spirituality to use it as
I ought. . . . Give me strength to conquer my temptations.
How difficult do I find it to secure proper time in the morning !
This really is one of my great difficulties. Lord, give me energy
for this, or the most precious time for my soul's improvement —
for bracing it to meet the trials of the day — will be frittered
away. And now at the close of another week let me dedicate
myself afresh, O Lord, to Thee. ... In this new sphere give
me more than ever

The spirit of prayer,
The spirit of holy meditation,
The spirit of holy zeal,
The spirit of right judgment,
The spirit of Christian boldness,
The spirit of Christian meekness.

Grant that the insidious temptations of the trappings of worldly
greatness may not impede my heavenward course. I feel the
danger. Raise my soul heavenwards through Jesus Christ our
Lord. . . .
" Sunday Evening, November gth. ... I have to-day read a
very striking sermon of F. Robertson's ' Sleep on now, and take
your rest.' The thought is how opportunities lost cannot be
recalled — especially opportunities of prayer, and thus a man
enters unprepared on the temptations before him. Lord, enable
me so to use this quiet time that I may be braced by prayer for the
great work before me and its many trials. ... I have been read
ing some more of Blunt's Duties of the Parish Priest. In what
I have read to-day, ' on the reading of the parish priest,' there is
too much of the old via media — Scripture, tradition, fathers,!
reformers— sort of theology ; but the advice to consult original \
sources is good, and no doubt it is very useful for young men to
have pointed out to them how great and interesting a field of
reading their profession opens up.
"Monday, November 17. — Yesterday I heard the Bishop of
Rupertsland preach twice. Strange that he and his three boys

204 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. ix.
and sister should have been kept safe during these seven years
in the wilderness and on the great ocean, and that five little
weeks should have made such a change in our little home
society ! O Lord, keep me from the hurry of business. The
solemn time of my consecration is fast approaching. I would
be much in prayer. . . .
"20th November, 37 Lowndes Square. — This day my election
was confirmed in Bow Church. The empty forms have this
reality connected with them — First, that we began with the
Litany; secondly, that oaths were taken full of meaning. O
Lord, grant, I humbly beseech Thee, that this day's solemnities
may not have been in vain — though they have been mixed up
with unmeaning forms.1 To me at least it is a great reality, as
the third step in placing me in this great post, great from the
boundless influence it may exercise for good or evil on so many
thousands. . . . Let me resolve to live in prayer. As in old
days at Balliol let me have regular intervals of prayer, however
short, in the midst of the business of the day, as each hour
passes, when I can be disengaged for a few moments.
"November 22. — I sit down to-day, in the quiet time secured,
to think of the great duties which are to devolve upon me, and
of the solemn vows by which I am to be bound. O Lord, my
God and Saviour, who hast watched over me from my earliest
years till now, who hast brought me through great prosperity,
and in the midst of sad suffering, to this hour, be with me, I
beseech Thee. Lord, solemnise my mind, through Jesus Christ.
... I have re-read the Service of Consecration, having read it
many times before during the last two months. To be diligent
in the study of the Scriptures ; zealous in the attempt to practise
what they teach ; to be careful to drive away strange doctrine ;
to be kind to the poor ; to be very careful in giving Holy Orders ;
to rule my own household well ; above all, to live in prayer — O
God, give me grace, for Jesus Christ's sake.
" 11.30 p.m. — I have now looked through the Office for Order
ing Priests and Deacons. Twenty years have passed since I was
ordained deacon on Trinity Sunday 1836. How eventful a time !
Balliol, Rugby, Carlisle, and now London. . . . Grant that
what remains of my life may be dedicated entirely to Thee.
1 In later years he was accustomed, as Archbishop, to impress upon others,
who thus criticised the old 'Confirmation' ceremonial, that the forms in
question were full of meaning, historical and practical.

1856] CONSECRATION 205
What wisdom will be required ; what kindliness ; what deep
conviction of Christian truth ! Lord, who is sufficient for these
things?" On November 23, 1856,1 he was consecrated2 in the
Chapel-Royal, Whitehall, together with Dr. Cotterill, a
former Senior Wrangler, who had been appointed to the
See of Grahamstown.3 In the reviving interest which was
beginning to be felt in such services, a wish had been
widely expressed that the Consecration should take place
in St. Paul's Cathedral. But ecclesiastical usage required,
it was strangely said, that the Bishop should not appear in
his Cathedral before the day of his enthronement. The
preacher, appointed at his request, was his dear friend
George Lynch Cotton, his former colleague at Rugby, who
had now for four years been headmaster of Marlborough.
The sermon set forth in striking words the comprehensive
character of the Church of England, and the greatness of
the issues before her in the conflict against sin and unbe
lief. The preacher dwelt with special emphasis on the
growing ' secularism ' 4 of the great towns, a fact which
dwarfed into insignificance, by its very magnitude, the
petty disputations about smaller things.
The Diary that night reiterates the prayers of the pre
vious days, and the chequered memories of Rugby and
Carlisle. " Cotton's sermon was excellent. O Lord, make me to real
ise the greatness of the office which has devolved on me. Hear
me, and guide me, weak and stained with sin as I am, through
Jesus Christ our Lord."
1 Twenty-seventh Sunday after Trinity.
2 The consecrating bishops were Archbishop Sumner of Canterbury,
Bishop Gilbert of Chichester, Bishop Jackson of Lincoln, and Bishop Villiers
of Carlisle. 3 He held that See from 1856 to 1871, and was Bishop of Edinburgh from
1871 to his death in 1886.
4 He used the word ' secularism ' apologetically, as one just coming into
use.

206 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. ix.
"November 24, 11.30 p.m. — I now sit down to record my first
day's Episcopal experience. I feel my weakness. To-day in
my interview with Mr. Lowder, I feel that I did not produce on
him the impression I desired, and when he asked me for my
blessing, I was so taken aback that I only gave him half the
blessing. Also I felt awkward at the meetings of Church Build
ing Commission, etc., but perhaps there my wisdom was silence.
With my ordination candidates I was more at home, and I trust
that, by the short prayer offered up with each, some good may
have been done. Lord, I would remember them now in
prayer. ..."
On the following Sunday he preached, in St. James's,
Piccadilly, his first sermon as Bishop of London. The
church was reopened on that day with the addition of 1 50
' free and unappropriated ' seats, and an opportunity was
thus given to the Bishop of striking at the outset of his
Episcopate the note which was to ring through it all — the
call for a better provision for bringing home the Gospel
message to the poor.
On December 4th he was enthroned in his Cathedral,
and next day he went to Windsor to do homage to the
Queen. His Diary says : —
"The ceremony was imposing, and I felt that to her
kind heart I owed much. She spoke very kindly to me after
the homage. ... [I was] conducted by Sir George Grey into
the Queen's closet — a very small room — where I found the
Queen and Prince Albert. Having been presented by Sir
George, I kneeled down on both knees before the Queen, just
like a little boy at his mother's knee. I placed my joined hands
between hers, while she stooped her head so as almost to bend
over mine, and I repeated slowly and solemnly the very im
pressive words of the oath which constitutes the Act of Homage.
Longley, the new Bishop of Durham, who had accompanied me,
then went through the same ceremony. He had not escaped so
quietly from the ceremonial when he was consecrated Bishop of
Ripon. His oath was then taken to William iv., and no sooner
had he risen from his knees than the King suddenly addressed
him in a loud voice thus : — ' Bishop of Ripon, I charge you, as

1856] WHO SHALL BE HIS CHAPLAINS? 207
you shall answer before Almighty God, that you never by word
or deed give encouragement to those d  d Whigs who would
upset the Church of England.' ... I was afterwards sworn of
the Privy Council, where met and was introduced to most of the
Ministers. Lord Lansdowne said he had known my mother."
Almost his first aim on appointment to the See had
been to secure the help of a thoroughly efficient body of
chaplains, and to this end he took counsel far and near.
In the light of subsequent events, the following letter is
too remarkable to be omitted : —
Canon A. P. Stanley to the Bishop of London.
" Oct. 12, 1856.
"... I am very glad you have applied to Temple. I am
sure that he is the best choice, and now, in case he should fail
you at Christmas or any other time, I shall be very happy to
supply his place.
"  has many qualifications ; active, learned, and liberal.
He is over-Maurician, and has some of the savage qualities of
Cantabrigians. He has also eccentricities of his own. . . .
If you cannot think of any one else, you might go further and
fare worse. I cannot call to mind any younger Cambridge
pupils. By far the best Cambridge man of fit age and the like
that occurs to me is Benson, Fellow of Trinity, now at Rugby.
He has very pleasing manners, is a very good scholar and divine,
preaches well, and is a thoroughly religious man. I think he
might be worth inquiring after. He must be about twenty-eight
or thirty. A man of the same kind, but I don't know much
about him personally, is Westcott of Harrow. They are both
more agreeable in manner than  .
" One other Cambridge name occurs to me — Lightfoot, Fellow
and, I think, Tutor of Trinity — of the same stamp as Westcott
and Benson, but with the advantage of having a more inde
pendent position. All I know of him is an article in the Cam
bridge Philological Review, which contained an attack on the
scholarship and accents of my book on the Corinthians, but was
written with great candour and kindness, as was also a corre
spondence consequent thereon. And I have heard that he is a
good man. . . . — Ever yours, A. P. Stanley."

208 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. ix.
Mr. Temple, on account of other work, declined the
post, and those appointed were — Arthur Penrhyn Stanley,
Frederick Gell, George Lynch Cotton, Frederick Blom
field, William Knight, and Ramsay Campbell, with
Edward Parry as domestic chaplain and secretary. Dr,
Lightfoot became an examining chaplain a few years
later. But these appointments were not made, as the
following letters show, without the murmurs of a storm :—
The Earl of Shaftesbury to Lady Wake.
"St. Giles' House, Cranbourne, Nov. 12, 1856.
"My dear Lady Wake, — You spoke to me about your
brother, and it was in no slight measure owing to your represen
tation of what was in him, that I urged his name upon the con
sideration of the Prime Minister. I had my fears— I do not
disguise it— of the Arnold school, but I felt sure then, as I feel
sure now, that he was by very much the best of that section.
Now I will tell you what has alarmed me. Pray read this
extract from a letter :
'"Dr. Tait has appointed A. P. Stanley to be his examining
chaplain.' "The letter proceeds thus: 'The views of Mr. Stanley on
Inspiration are startling. He is, moreover, much inclined to
combine ritualism with latitudinarianism, and this appointment
will effectually dim the lustre of the choice made by Lord
Palmerston.' Hear me, I myself could have appointed Stanley
a dean. I like much that he has written, but as for examining
chaplain, avert it for heaven's sake ! The writer of the letter I
quote adds, ' Mr. Stanley takes it to oblige the Bishop.' Pray
let me say that the Bishop knows not the gulf that he is opening
for himself, the distrust, the suspicions, the covert, the manifest
opposition, I fear, that he is preparing for himself among his
angel?— Yoand h'S ^^ Can y0U interfere as a guardian
ours truly, SHAFTESBURY."
The Bishop of London to Lady Wake.
"MY DEAREST CHATl31E^f7i!DES S?UARE> ^OV. 26, 1856.
letter of yesterday, and am'tmi e thls moment received your
y Sorr^ to hear of Lord Shaftes-

1856] LORD SHAFTESBURY'S ALARM 209
bury's fears with regard to Arthur Stanley's appointment as my
examining chaplain. I am sure, however, that he will soon be
convinced that they are groundless. I have known Stanley now
for twenty years and more, and that very intimately. He is a
man against whom efforts have at times been made to excite
prejudice, but you know as well as I do how admirable is the
Christian simplicity of his character. As to what was said in
the Record of his being inclined to unite ritualism with latitu-
dinarianism, it is to any one who knows him simply ridiculous,
and about as correct as the absurd unfounded statement in the
same paper,' that he is the head of St. Augustine's College in
Canterbury, in which he holds no office whatever.
"That he will be invaluable in testing the literary qualification
of the candidates, no one of those who most differ from him will
doubt, and those who have a distrust of him otherwise still
know that the examinations will, of course, always be conducted
under my own eye, if God gives me strength. I am sure Lord
Shaftesbury, and those who think with him, will have no reason
to regret Stanley's appointment, and the whole list of my five
chaplains, as it shows my own real leanings, will, I trust and
believe, very generally approve itself to earnestly religious men
throughout the country. — I am, with much love, yours affec
tionately, A. C. London."

The Earl of Shaftesbury to Lady Wake.
"December 1, 1856.
"My dear Lady Wake, — It is all quite right. I have no
more apprehensions. I met your brother, the Bishop, who
treated me with the greatest kindness, smoothed away my fears,
and showed no displeasure that I had presumed to interfere.
" I attended his first sermon yesterday, and was much grati
fied. I had not expected to hear the second and personal
advent of our blessed Lord preached by the Metropolitan Bishop
in the pulpit of St. James's. May God give him grace and
strength, and abundant success in his spiritual warfare ! — Yours
sincerely, Shaftesbury.
" R.S. — A short conversation with himself has produced this
reassuring conviction."
vol. 1. o

CHAPTER X.
EARLY YEARS OF LONDON EPISCOPATE, 1856-60.
DIVORCE ACT— RITUALISM^CONFESSION—
ST. GEORGE'S IN THE EAST.
The Parliament of 1857 was signalised, among other
things, by the passing of the Act for the establishment of
the Divorce Court, and it has been not unusual to describe
Bishop Tait as one of the foremost promoters or sup
porters of the change. The facts do not bear out this
theory. Though the Bishop very early acquired an influ
ence in the House of Lords, and took part from the first
in its debates, the Law of Marriage was not a subject on
which he ever came prominently to the front. The
' Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Bill ' had now been
thrice introduced as a Government measure. A Royal
Commission had in 1853 reported — with only one dissen
tient — in favour of the substitution of a court of law for
the parliamentary discussion and vote which had hitherto
been the only legal means of procuring a divorce. The
cost of these special Acts of Parliament was enormous,
and the scandals incident to such a process had been long
a subject of complaint. It had become customary never
to refuse the divorce if sufficient cause could be shown,
and if the applicant were rich enough to pay the necessary
expenses of a special Act of Parliament. The principle
had thus been long admitted, but the ' relief was of neces
sity confined to the richest class of the community — a
210

1856-60] THE DIVORCE BILL 211
fact which became the subject of constant criticism both
in the Law Courts and in Parliament.
In a case, for example, tried before Mr. Justice Maule,
the prisoner, a poor man, being convicted of bigamy, was
called upon to say why sentence should not be passed upon
him. He said, " My wife was unfaithful : she robbed me,
and ran away with another man, and I thought I might
take another wife." The reply of the learned judge was :
" Prisoner at the bar, you were entirely mistaken. The
law in its wisdom points out a means by which you
might have rid yourself from further association with a
woman who had dishonoured you. But you did not
think proper to adopt it. I will tell you what that pro
cess is. You ought to have brought an action for
' criminal conversation.' That action would have been tried
before one of Her Majesty's judges at the assizes. That
might have cost you money, and you say that you are a
poor working man. But that is not the fault of the law.
You might perhaps have obtained a verdict with damages
against the defendant, who was not unlikely to turn out
a pauper. But so jealous is the law (which you ought to
know is the perfection of reason) of the sanctity of the
marriage tie, that in accomplishing all this you would
only have fulfilled the lighter portion of your duty. With
your verdict in your hand you should have instituted a
suit in the Ecclesiastical Court for a divorce 'a mensd
et thoro! Having got that divorce, you should have
petitioned the House of Lords for a divorce ' a vinculo!
and should have appeared by counsel at the bar of their
Lordships' House. Then, if the Bill passed, it would
have gone down to the House of Commons ; the same
evidence would possibly be repeated there : and if the
Royal assent had been given, after that you might have
married again. The whole proceeding would probably

212 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. x.
not have cost you more than £1000, and you do not
seem to be worth a thousand pence. But it is the boast
of the law that it is impartial, and makes no difference
between the rich and the poor. The richest man in the
kingdom would have had to pay no less than that sum
for the same means of obtaining freedom from the
marriage tie. The sentence of the Court is, that you be
imprisoned for the term of one day, and, the assize being
now two days old, you are at liberty to quit the dock."
Such a system.itwas argued, could no longer be defended.
Hence the Royal Commission of 1850 and the consequent
legislation, Lord Chancellor Cranworth being responsible
in two successive Governments for the introduction of a
Bill. In 1854, and again in 1856; the Bill obtained a
second reading in the House of Lords, and in the latter
year it was further reported on by a Select Committee.
But it was in each case crowded out in the House of
Commons. In 1857 Lord Cranworth introduced it for
the third time, and the Government announced a firm
intention of carrying it at all costs. The minority against
the Bill, though comparatively weak in numbers, were
strong in determination, and met the measure with stern
opposition at every stage. Bishop Wilberforce in the
Lords, and Mr. Gladstone in the Commons, used every
weapon to defeat the plan. The difficulty of the subject
was proved by the fact that each of these leaders had
changed his mind during the course of the discussions.
Mr. Gladstone, as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1854,
had shared the responsibility of introducing the very Bill
which he was to oppose so bitterly three years later,1
and Bishop Wilberforce publicly modified in 1857 the
opinions he had himself expressed ten months before*2
1 Hansard, August 4, 1857, p. 1051.
3 Ibid., May 19, 1857, p. 523-

1856-60] THE BISHOP SUPPORTS IT 213
The Archbishop of Canterbury supported the Bill, and
was followed into the lobby by nine other Bishops, in
cluding Bishop Tait, who had spoken briefly in support
of it, " because in his conscience he believed the time was
come when the haphazard legislation of the last 150 years
ought to be done away with." 1 Haphazard indeed it was.
More than 250 such 'Divorce Bills' had been passed, for
the most part unopposed, and at the very time this debate
was in progress, there were four such private Bills upon
the table of the House.2 No one even suggested that
these Bills should be opposed, and the principle had thus
been long conceded for all who could afford to pay. This
was the argument which ' told ' both in the House and in
the country, and, in spite of the earnest and eloquent
opposition of High Churchmen, secured the final passage
of the Bill.
The Bishop refers thus to the subject in his Diary : —
"Sunday, August 30. — On Divorce Bill in House of Lords
last Monday I gave my votes in favour of the Ministerial pro
positions as the Bill was brought back from the Commons. I
spoke, in answer to Lord St. Leonards and the Bishop_of Salisbury,
in favour of accepting the compromise conferring on the clergy
the liberty of refusing to celebrate the remarriage of the guilty
party, and per contra allowing such marriage to be celebrated in
the parish church by another clergyman who did not disapprove.
My reasons for this course will be found in my speech.3
... I was convinced that the clergy would not obtain
such good terms if the Bill were sent back and the dis
cussion opened up again and extended to another session. I
felt also the [evil] of the further continuation of these Divorce
discussions. ... On full reflection now for many months I
believe this Bill right, and the clergy have gained a far greater
concession to their wishes than could have been anticipated in
the provision leaving it to their option to celebrate the remarriage
1 Hansard, May 19, 1857, p. 533.
2 Ibid., July 31, 1857, p. 861.
3 Ibid., August 24, 1857, p. 2058.

214 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. x.
of guilty parties or not. ... I fear my votes on this Bill
have given great offence to many, but I have acted according to
my conscience, and I pray God that all may go right."
A prominent share in another controversy, destined to
arouse a fiercer and more lasting blaze, he inherited
whether he would or no. It was certainly from no per
sonal inclination that he became a party to the Ritual
strife which had begun to agitate the public mind, and
which was to be prolonged with intermittent vigour
throughout his whole Episcopate. The facts of its origin
have recently been told with care in books accessible to
every one,1 and the briefest summary will here be enough.
The famous ' Gorham judgment' of 18502 had seemed
to give a signal triumph to the Evangelical party. But in
the reaction against that judgment, the pendulum swung
far the other way. Old-fashioned Churchmen who had
no liking for the ' Oxford Tracts,' or for Dr. Pusey,
were shocked at a sentence which seemed to them a
flat contradiction of the plain language of the Prayer-
Book, and the result among High Churchmen was a
wider tolerance for the vehemence, and even the
vagaries, of men who now set themselves to emphasise by
outward act as well as spoken word the Sacramental
doctrines which had, as they thought, been unjustly
assailed. With this encouragement there took place an
advance in outward ritual, which had been discouraged
1 See especially Canon Perry's Student's English Church History, Period
in., chapters xvii. xxii. xxiii. See also Memoir of Bishop Blomfield, vol. ii.
chapter vii.
2 The judgment turned upon the point whether Mr. Gorham's published
opinions upon the subject of Baptismal Regeneration were or were not so
heterodox as to justify the Bishop of Exeter's refusal to institute him to the
Vicarage of Brampford Speke. The Privy Council decided, upon appeal,
" that the doctrine held by Mr. Gorham is not contrary or repugnant to the
declared doctrine of the Church of England, and that Mr. Gorham ought not,
by reason of the doctrine held by him, to have been refused admission to the
Vicarage of Brampford Speke. "

1856-60] THE ST. BARNABAS RIOTS 215
as unnecessary or inexpedient by the earlier Tractarians,
but which commended itself to some at least among their
followers as the necessary and logical outcome of what
had gone before. Foremost among these ' Ritualists,' as
they now began for the first time to be called, was the
Rev. W. J. E. Bennett, Vicar of St. Paul's Church, Knights-
bridge. He was indefatigable as a preacher and a pastor,
and the result of his appeals to a wealthy congregation
was the erection of the district Church of St. Barnabas,
Pimlico, which was consecrated by Bishop Blomfield on
June 11, 1850. Mr. Bennett's ritual in the parish church
had been of so ' advanced ' a type as to call for several
remonstrances from the Bishop, but St. Barnabas', it was
evident, was to be the scene of much more develop
ment, and the storm soon began in earnest. It was the
year of the 'Papal Aggression,' and when Lord John
Russell, in his famous ' Durham Letter,' fanned the anti-
Papal fury by denouncing the "unworthy sons of the
Church of England " who were " forward in leading their
flocks step by step to the very verge of the precipice," he
gave the signal for a clamorous outcry against Mr.
Bennett, to whom he was known to be referring, and a
series of disgraceful disturbances began.
" The Protestant cause," says Bishop Blomfield's biographer,
"was taken up by those to whom all religions were equally
indifferent, and all excuses for a riot equally acceptable, and
every Sunday saw the Church doors besieged by a mob of
disorderly supporters of the Reformation, and the services inter
rupted by their groans or hisses." J
Far from yielding to this clamour, Mr. Bennett became
firmer than ever in his resistance, not only to the mob, but
to the Bishop, and he formally signified his intention of
taking 1 Memoir of Bishop Blomfield, vol. ii. p. 146.

216 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. x.
" three standards to guide him in the ritual of St. Barnabas :
first, whatever was practised in any other churches in the
Diocese, and as yet undetected by the Bishop ; secondly, what
ever had been done in the Bishop's presence at the consecration
of the church ; and thirdly, whatever he could find practised in
any of the English Cathedrals. To such rules of ritual obser
vance the Bishop, of course, was not likely to give his consent,
and finding no other way of ending a controversy, the protracting
of which only increased the agitation, he at length accepted an
offer, made more than once by Mr. Bennett, of resigning his
living." 1
After a short interval of comparative quiet the contro
versy began again. Mr. Bennett had been succeeded at
St. Paul's by the Hon. and Rev. Robert Liddell, whose
ritual in both the churches under his control soon formed
the subject of a fresh complaint. In December 1855
judgment was delivered in the Consistory Court of the
London Diocese directing certain changes in the ritual
complained of. The Court of Arches confirmed this
sentence on appeal, and Mr. Liddell at once appealed
further to the Privy Council. Matters had reached this
stage when Bishop Tait's Episcopate began, and he thus
found himself the inheritor of a controversy with the
origin of which he had nothing to do. Within a few
months of his consecration he had to sit as a Privy
Council Assessor to hear Mr. Liddell's appeal, and he took
part in formulating the ultimate Judgment which was
delivered by Lord Kingsdown on March 21, 1857. I* was
the first of what is now a long series of ritual judgments.
The questions raised were comparatively new, and some of
the statements contained in the judgment have since been
seriously impugned in the light of historical evidence, sub
sequently unearthed, upon a subject which is admittedly
both intricate and obscure. It was evident, however, that,
1 Memoir of Bishop Blomfield, vol. ii. p. 140.

1856-60] THE WESTERTON JUDGMENT 217
on the basis of such information as was then available,
no effort had been spared to make the judgment both
accurate and complete. Some of the decisions of the
Courts below were affirmed, others were reversed, the
net result being that Mr. Liddell was directed to remove
the stone Altar from St. Barnabas' Church, and to sub
stitute a wooden table, with or without the re-table or
super-altar belonging to it ; that he was also to remove
as illegal the cross attached to the Communion Table, and
was to discontinue the use of certain embroidered altar
linen which had been objected to ; while, on the other
hand, in reversal of the decision of the Courts below, he
was permitted to retain the various coloured frontals and
hangings for the Holy Table, a credence table for the
bread and wine, and, finally, crosses of whatever material,
when erected as ' architectural ornaments ' not attached
to the Holy Table, or intended to be objects of super
stitious reverence. The judgment concludes by expressing
the " satisfaction of their Lordships that both the Arch
bishop ofXa-n-terbury and-+he-BishpjD_of_JLondon (the two
Assessors who had heard the case) concur in the judg
ment which has just been delivered." The result of the
appeal was, on the whole, distinctly favourable to Mr.
Liddell and his party, and the injunctions of the Court
of Appeal were immediately complied with. A few weeks
after the judgment was delivered, the Bishop, whose
personal relations with Mr. Liddell continued to be of the
most friendly kind, preached in St. Paul's Church at his
request, and took occasion, while plainly expressing his
disapproval of some of the services at St. Barnabas, to
defend Mr. Liddell from the charge of intentional lawless
ness, and to bear testimony to the zeal and efficiency of
his work. A technical question was raised as to the
interpretation to be put upon the Privy Council direction

218 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. x.
with respect to the cross as an ' architectural ornament.'
The Privy Council had distinctly refused to condemn
such a cross when on the chancel screen, and Mr. Liddell
now asked the Bishop whether he might interpret the
decision as applying also to the reredos.
The Bishop replied as follows : —
The Bishop of London to the Hon. and Rev. Robert Liddell.
" London House, 6th April 1857.
"My dear Sir, — I should be truly glad if I could think it
consistent with my duty to yield to the request you have pre
ferred. I am sure you will believe me when I say that I am
most unwilling to do anything which may have an appearance
of want of sympathy with good and earnest persons such as
those whose charitable and pious labours you speak of. But
having taken part in the deliberations on which the decision of
the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council was founded, I
feel that I should be departing widely from its spirit if I allowed
the wooden cross when removed from the Communion Table to
be replaced by another of stone in the ' architectural structure
of the reredos.' Such a change could scarcely be regarded
otherwise than as an evasion of the decision, and I cannot but
think that the calmer judgment of your people will, on reflec
tion, see that I could not with any propriety accede to this
request.1 " Trusting and believing that the attachment of your flock to
the Church of England is far deeper than to be liable to be
shaken by such a cause as this plain discharge of my duty, I
would conclude with an earnest prayer that at this sacred season
the doctrine of the Cross and of our close union in Him who
suffered thereon, whether represented or not in our' churches by
the presence of its outward symbol, may be present to all our
hearts. — I am, my dear Sir, faithfully yours,
" A. C. London."
1 The technical point with which this letter deals came again before the
Privy Council a few years later (on June 22, i860) in the second suit Oi
Liddell v. Beal, when it was decided that such a cross in such a position
had not been declared by the previous judgment to be illegal.

1856-60] ST. PAUL'S, KNIGHTSBRIDGE 219
Soon after the judgment in the case of Liddell v.
Westerton was made public, the Bishop received complaints
from several other parishes in his diocese. Most of these
he was able to allay by his personal intervention and
authority, and even when this was unsuccessful he was
strongly averse to bringing the questions at issue before a
court of law, although such litigation was at that time
advocated as the proper course by the Ritualistic clergy
themselves. A single example will make this clear. One of the
charges against Mr. Liddell was that he had placed
candlesticks and candles, presumably for ceremonial pur
poses, upon the Altar of St. Paul's Church. In giving
judgment upon this point in the Diocesan Court on
December 5, 1855, the judge, Dr. Lushington, spoke as
follows : —
" I hold that all lighted candles on the Communion Table
are contrary to law, except when they are lighted for the purpose
of giving necessary light."
The candlesticks and candles therefore, to which
exception had been taken, were declared not to be in
themselves illegal ornaments of the Altar, but the
ceremonial lighting of them was in Dr. Lushington's
opinion contrary to law. Against this judgment no
appeal was raised when Mr. Liddell brought his
case before the Privy Council, and, so far as Mr.
Liddell was concerned, the judgment was not dis
obeyed. But other clergy took a different line, as is
shown by the following correspondence between the
Bishop and the Rev. Edward Stuart, a well-known and
representative clergyman of the 'advanced' school, and
one of the original founders of the English Church
Union.

220 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. x.
The Bishop of London to the Rev. E. Stuart.
"Fulham Palace, $th March 1858.
" My dear Sir, — I have very carefully considered what passed
at my interview with you yesterday in London House, and I feel
myself obliged to adhere to the opinion I then expressed. I
must, therefore, lay my commands upon you to discontinue the
practice you have introduced without any authority in St. Mary
Magdalene, Munster Square, of lighting the candles on the Com
munion Table in broad daylight, except when they may reasonably
be considered necessary or convenient for purpose of light.
I cannot hold it to be a good reason for lighting them at the
celebration of the Holy Communion in our Reformed Church,
that lighted candles were, in Roman Catholic times, or even dur
ing the short period of transition before the Reformation was
fully settled in England, placed before the Sacrament on the high
altar at the celebration of the Mass. I earnestly trust that on
reflection you will see the extreme impropriety of an individual
clergyman, on the authority of his own private judgment or that
of his friends, as to what he considers an admissible return to
ancient usage, disregarding the distinct commands of those who
are set over him in the Lord. To a person like yourself, I need
not urge further that this obligation is rendered if possible stronger
by the oath you have taken to obey your Diocesan in all things
lawful and honest.
" You will, I am sure, believe that I fully sympathise in the
self-denying efforts which I know you have made and are making
for the flock committed to you. And I think our conversation
yesterday must have convinced you that I am anxious to allow
you as great liberty as possible in so applying the services of our
Church as you deem most likely to affect your people's hearts,
but you will grant that a heavy responsibility devolves on me
not to sanction the introduction of innovations or returns to old
usages of the unreformed Church which I believe likely to break
down the barriers which mark in the minds of simple people the
distinction between our worship and that of Rome. The point
beyond which a private clergyman must not go, in following his
own private judgment in the forms of public worship must surely,
in the very lowest view of Episcopal authority, be settled by the
Bishop, and I cannot but hope that when your Diocesan, having
given his best attention to the law and customs of the Church,

1856-60] LETTER TO MR. STUART 221
forbids an innovation, you will drop the practice objected to, even
though you may think it right for your own justification to place
on record that you do so merely out of deference to an authority
which you feel bound to respect, and to which, indeed, the
Prayer-Book distinctly refers you in all points which admit of any
doubt. I have told you that I have no intention at present of
bringing such matters into a court of justice, believing that I best
consult the well-being of the Church, already too much disturbed
by the agitation of questions of ceremonial, by endeavouring to
rule as long as I can by the quiet and private exercise of that
power of godly admonition with which I am intrusted. Let me
call to your mind that if, notwithstanding the legal grounds I
have stated to you, you still suppose my exposition of the law to
be erroneous, your dutiful acquiescence in my decision does
in nowise prejudice the general question, while I believe you
will, on calm consideration, find such acquiescence satisfactory
to your own conscience, and far more likely than a contrary
course to further the great object you have in view — viz., your
gaining and retaining a wholesome spiritual influence over your
people's souls. Such influence, I cannot doubt, would be likely
to be lessened by the unseemly spectacle of your setting me at
defiance. " I know that I write to one whose life shows that he feels
deeply the ministerial responsibilities, and, therefore, I am the
more hopeful of your acquiescence. — Believe me to be, my dear
Sir, faithfully yours, A. C. London."

The Rev. E. Stuart to the Bishop of London.
" 1 Munster Square,
Monday, March 8, 1858.
" My Lord, — I write to acknowledge the receipt of your letter
of the 5th instant, containing a command to me to discontinue
the use of lights at the celebration of the Sacrament.
" I must respectfully decline to obey this command, as I
believe that in issuing it you have (unintentionally, of course)
transgressed the limits of that authority which the Church of
England has committed to her Bishops.
" I believe that you have done this by forbidding what the law
of the Church distinctly authorises, for the Rubric (which is our
law in this matter) distinctly authorises ' such ornaments of the

222 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. x.
Church, and of the ministers thereof, as were in use in the
Church of England, by authority of Parliament, in the second
year of Edward vi.' Now I have no doubt whatever that lights
were generally used at the celebration of the Sacrament through
out the Church of England, by authority of Parliament, in that
year. If I am wrong in this belief I am, of course, subject to
correction. " I must deprecate the use of such a phrase as that of ' set
ting you at defiance.' It is simply impossible for a priest of the
Church of England to set at defiance any lawful exercise of the
authority of his Diocesan, since the Church has given abundant
power to her Bishops to compel obedience in such a case ; but
a matter of advice implies of necessity a discretionary power in
the person advised. . . . — I remain, my Lord, your obedient
servant, Edward Stuart."

The Bishop of London to the Rev. E. Stuart.
"Fulham Palace, March [io], 1858.
" My dear Sir, — I greatly regret that you should think it
right to disobey my command on your own private interpretation
of what you deem to be the law. Had you read the judgment
of the Privy Council in the Knightsbridge case, and Dr. Lush-
ington's previous judgment on the same, with the care that they
deserve, you would, I doubt not, have seen your error as to the
point of law. Your view of the obedience due to a Bishop and
of the interpretation of your oath seems to resolve itself into a
claim of right to resist all his admonitions unless he thinks it for
the good of the Church to enforce them by penalties in a court
of justice. " I most deeply regret that one whom I believe to be so much
in earnest in his endeavours to labour among his flock should be
so far misled, and I earnestly trust that you will one day see how
wrong is the course you are pursuing. I shall not fail to be
ready to assist you in any way that may be consistent with the
unfortunate position in which you have, to my great sorrow,
placed yourself. — Believe me to be, my dear Sir, yours faithfully,
"A. C. London."
Grave difficulties had in the meantime arisen upon a
totally different subject ; and again the arena of the strife

1856-60] CASE OF MR. POOLE 223
was the parish of St. Paul's, Knightsbridge. The Rev.
Alfred Poole, one of the curates of the parish, was
accused, at the instance of several parishioners, of
habitually asking outrageous questions from persons who
came to him in Confession. The Bishop investigated the
matter, and came to the conclusion that the accusation
which had been made was unsupported by the evidence,
and ought to be dismissed. It was elicited, however, that
Mr. Poole's views on the subject of the Confessional had
led him to adopt practices which the Bishop regarded as
at variance with the teaching of the Church of England
on the subject. The Bishop accordingly wrote to Mr.
Poole as follows : —
" While I fully admit that the statements you have made to
me tend to make me look with much suspicion upon the par
ticular evidence laid before me, I regret to say that, quite inde
pendently of that evidence, I am led by your own admission to
regard the course you are in the habit of pursuing in reference
to Confession as likely to cause scandal and injury to the
Church. . . . Under the circumstances I feel I ought to mark
my sense of the impropriety of what you describe as your
practice, and I shall therefore feel myself bound, though with
great pain, to withdraw your licence as curate of St. Barnabas,
and shall send you formal notice accordingly. I earnestly pray
that this solemn protest on my part against a course in which I
believe you have departed from the spirit and practice of the
Church of England, and assimilated your mode of dealing with
your people too much to the system of the Church of Rome,
may cause you to pause and reflect on the dangers to which such
a course of action as you have adopted may expose both your
self and those over whom you exercise influence ; and I trust
you will allow me to add that I shall at any time be glad to give
you my best advice and assistance in the difficulties in which
you are involved. — I remain, reverend and dear Sir, yours faith
fully, A. C. London."
Mr. Poole replied in a long and perfectly temperate
protest against the Bishop's action. He asked for a

224 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. x.
specific statement of the particular charges on the
strength of which the licence was withdrawn, and
solemnly asserted that he had " never put any questions
of a nature, or in a manner, or in language 'calculated
to bring scandal on the Church,' or otherwise than was
calculated to assist the penitent, and to enable him or
her to receive more effectually the consolation or advice
which, as the minister of the Church, it was his duty to
impart." But the Bishop declined to give way. He testified
strongly to his own belief that Mr. Poole was " a con
scientious and upright man," for whom he had "a most
sincere personal regard," and he showed that he was not
unwilling to license him afresh in some other parish
where party feeling did not run so high. But he deemed
it necessary, on public grounds, to give this emphatic
expression to his views about the teaching at St. Barnabas',
and the licence was accordingly withdrawn. Mr. Poole,
with the Bishop's entire approval, and even encourage
ment, appealed to the Archbishop of Canterbury, by
whom, after a full hearing, it was formally decided 1 that
there was "good and reasonable cause for the revocation
of this licence, and that the Bishop of London has exer
cised a sound discretion in revoking the same."
Mr. Poole then carried his appeal to the Judicial
Committee of the Privy Council, who, after hearing the
fullest legal arguments upon either side, decided that
there was no such right of appeal from the Archbishop's
decision, and that they must therefore decline to enter
into the merits of the case. This decision, however, was
not given till March 13, 1861, three years after the com-
1 The Archbishop had at first given judgment upon the case in camerd,
but on Mr. Poole's request a mandamus issued from the Court of Queen's
Bench commanding the Archbishop to hear the appeal in Court. He did so,
and gave formal judgment as above.

1856-60] THE CONFESSIONAL CONTROVERSY 225
mencement of the dispute, and the general question had
in the meantime been under vehement discussion on
every side. The Bishop had taken pains to show from
the first that it was on no grounds personal to Mr. Poole
that the licence had been revoked. It was intended to
be a distinct and public declaration of his opinion — an
opinion to which he adhered to the end of his life — that
the inculcation of the practice of habitual auricular con
fession was contrary to the doctrine and practice of the \
Church of England. Accepting this as the issue, Mr.
Liddell and other London clergymen espoused with the
utmost zeal the cause of Mr. Poole, while pamphlets and
letters not less vehement poured forth upon the Bishop's
side. While the strife was at its height the time came for
the Bishop's primary Charge. Its general purport and
the remarkable facts of its delivery are described else
where.1 But the importance of this particular question,
and the care with which it was treated in the Charge,2
seem to require that a few extracts should be given.
" In pointing," he said, " to the difficulties which beset a young
pastor, I would especially refer, as an example, to questions
as to the authority and claims of the ministerial office, which
have in these days grown to an importance such as has scarcely
ever before attached to them in our Church since the Refor
mation. "On this matter I must be explicit. First, then, let us not
forget in approaching such questions that nothing can exceed
the solemnity of the words in which it has been thought proper
in the Church of England to confer the full rights of the office of
the Presbyter. Also let us not forget that these words of ordina
tion have always in our Church been interpreted by a large and
influential body — by many, indeed, of our most honoured divines
— as conferring the right, derived from Christ Himself, not only
to administer His Holy Sacraments and preach His Holy Word
1 See p. 265.
2 Twenty-five pages of the Charge are devoted to this subject alone.
VOL. I. P

226 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. x.
in the congregation, but also to speak of pardon with authority
in Christ's name in the Church's service in a way in which other
men cannot speak, for the comfort of distressed souls. . . . The
claim, I say, of such authority for Presbyters of the Church of
England has hitherto been usually expressed with guarded
moderation even by those who thought most highly of it.
Isolated passages may be adduced from our great divines up
holding the Priest's absolving power ; but any dangerous appli
cation of such passages is guarded against by the whole tenor
of those more moderate sentiments which we find breathing
through the works quoted when we view them as a whole.
"At the risk of being tedious, I think it right to enter some
what at length into this matter. The silence of the Church of
England Formularies, as compared with the fulness of the
Church of Rome, in treating of systematic Confession is itself,
to my mind, an irrefragable argument to show that the mind of
our Church is quite against the practices now sought to be
introduced.1 . . .
" Moreover, I would observe, for myself, that it is no wish of
mine to insist on other people adopting my own opinions as to
the exact nature of the Presbyter's office, and thus to narrow
those bounds of a wise comprehensiveness, according to which
the Church of England has always allowed her children, if they
chose, to believe that some very especial blessing and comfort
to the penitent soul is to be derived from listening to the
promises of God's mercy, pronounced by his minister on those
limited occasions where alone the Formularies have authorised
him officially to pronounce them as Absolution. What I do
utterly disapprove of, and what I feel constrained most strongly to
protest against, is something very different from the common pas
toral intercourse which is indicated in the three passages of the
Prayer-Book I have cited, and which the Church always must
uphold. It has been said that I have not explained myself
when I have spoken against a systematic introduction of the
practice of Confession as opposed to such common pastoral
intercourse. But I really believe even those who make this
objection will, when they reflect, allow — all men of common
discernment must know and distinctly recognise — the difference
between the pastoral intercourse I have spoken of and that
1 The Charge contains at this point sixteen printed pages of elaborate refer
ence to authorities, ancient and modern, on the subject of Confession.

1856-60I THE CONFESSIONAL QUESTION 227
which is now endeavoured to be set up amongst us under the
name of the Confessional. If any clergyman so preaches to
his people as to lead them to suppose that the proper and
authorised way of a sinner's reconciliation with God is through
confession to a priest, and by receiving priestly absolution ; if
he leads them to believe (I use the illustration I have found
employed by an advocate of the Confessional) that, as the Greek
Church has erred by neglecting preaching, and the Church of
Rome by not encouraging the reading of the Scriptures, so our
Church has hitherto been much to blame for not leading her
people more habitually to private auricular confession ; if he
thus stirs up the imagination of ardent and confiding spirits
to have recourse to him as a mediator between their souls
and God, and when they come to seek his aid receives them
with all the elaborate preparation which is so likely unduly to
excite their feelings, and for which there is no authority in the
Church's rules of worship — taking them into the vestry of his
church, securing the door, putting on the sacred vestments,
causing them to kneel before the cross, to address him as their
ghostly father, asking a string of questions as to sins of deed,
word, and thought, and imposing penance before he confers
absolution ; the man who thus acts, or — even if some of
these particular circumstances are wanting — of whose general
practice this is no exaggerated picture, is, in my judgment, un
faithful to the whole spirit of the Church of which he is .a
minister. . . . But if any will not be stayed by mild remon
strance and affectionate warning, those invested with authority
in the Church must use the other means of influence which they
find their position gives them to prevent evil. How that influ
ence shall be wielded in particular cases it must rest with the
Bishop's own discretion to decide, whether in some less penal
form, or necessarily by severe examples of discipline, such as it
has greatly pained me of late to feel myself constrained to use
against a zealous and pious and truly well-meaning but mistaken
brother. All I can distinctly intimate on this public occasion is
that if what I deem a dangerous systematic invitation and
admission of his people to Confession is endeavoured to be
maintained by any clergyman in this diocese, I shall feel myself
bound to watch his proceedings very carefully, and shall hold
him most deeply responsible for any evils that ensue ; considering
carefully in each particular case what power the law gives me to

228 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. x.
correct what is amiss. One thing I wish to add, that if I have
abstained hitherto from giving in any church distinct directions
on this subject, it has been because I have received no assurance
that my directions are likely to be obeyed. Clergymen who
seek to introduce this bad system may indeed express a general
readiness to follow my advice as to the mode in which they will
carry it into practice, thus endeavouring to gain for it the aid of
my authority. On such terms I am not likely to give advice.
What I do advise and urge is that they abstain altogether from
seeking to introduce amongst their people any systematic and
habitual Confession such as I have described. Believe me, my
reverend brethren, our Church has not erred in being so guarded
and cautious in this matter. There is within the limits of her
calm and reverent piety full opportunity to satisfy all the really
spiritual longings of the faithful soul, while she leads it to direct
personal intercourse with the Lord Jesus Christ. Other longings
which her system has made no provision to satisfy we shall be
right to scrutinise very carefully before we think well of them ;
putting on the guise of religion, they may be but some subtle
form of the yearnings of the unregenerate heart. Be it yours
in such matters gently to restrain and guide the morbidly sensi
tive, and to teach your people daily better to understand and
appreciate the blessings offered in. the authorised system of our
own Reformed Church."

Whether in consequence of this Charge or for other
reasons, the 'Confession Controversy,' as it was called,
passed almost out of sight for many years. Its vehement
revival when Bishop Tait had become Primate will form
the subject of a later chapter.1
A few weeks after the Charge had been delivered, new
troubles arose, in a different part of the diocese from that
which had been disturbed before. The riots of St. George's
in the East are still remembered as a remarkable episode in
the public life of the Metropolis. Of the various mission
centres for the Church's work among the poor of London,
none has earned a worthier claim to a place in history than
1 Chapter xxm.

1856-60] MR. LOWDER'S MISSION 229
that which was set on foot by Mr. Charles Lowder and
his colleagues in the great riverside parish of St. George's
in the East. How much of the success which attended
the efforts of these devoted men is to be attributed to the
personal power and magnetism of Mr. Lowder's presence,
and how much to the system he adopted, is a question on
which opinions will continue to differ. It may also be
fairly questioned whether Mr. Lowder's work, during its
earlier years, gained or lost by its association with the
scenes of excitement and controversy which, for some
months, were witnessed week by week in the great Parish
Church from which his mission was an offshoot. Painful
and mischievous as were the riots of St. George's in the
East, discreditable as their continuance undoubtedly was
both to the civil authorities and to the partisan wire-pullers
who instigated the controversialists on either side, the pro
minence which was thus given in the public mind to the
devoted work which was going on in St. George's mission
for the civilisation of one of the roughest neighbourhoods
in London, was not without its very practical advantages
both to the mission itself and to the Church at large.1
Examples of such work were less common then than now,
and the enlistment of sympathy for the Church's self-
denying workers was a frequent, though unintentional,
result of the endeavours to put them down by force of law,
and even by personal violence.
The keepers of the dens of drink and infamy, who reap
their nightly harvest from the sailors and others in the
neighbourhood of London Docks, were doubtless ranged,
to a man, under the so-called ' Protestant ' banner during
the St. George's riots of 1859. But it would be a simple
error of fact to confound the mission work of Mr. Lowder
1 For emphatic testimony to this advantage, see Charles Lowder's Life,
pp. 150, etc.

230 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. x.
with the ' movement,' such as it was, which produced
these disturbances. Mr. Lowder, as he has himself
recounted in a volume of the highest interest,1 was ap
pointed in 1856 to take charge of a separate mission
district, now the parish of St. Peter's, London Docks. The
work was carried on from the first upon the lines of the
' Catholic Revival,' of which Mr. Lowder had become a
warm adherent. But although he encountered the usual
amount of opposition from the disorderly and degraded,
there seems to have been little if any attempt during his
first three years of progress to enlist against him the
sympathies of ' Protestants ' as such. Those who knew
anything about his work must have seen that the evils
with which he was endeavouring to grapple were not of a
kind to make men critical as to the precise means adopted
for the fight. He was even assisted from time to time by
such men as Arthur Stanley, Frederick Maurice, and
Thomas Hughes, and had the parish been in his hands as
Rector its history might have been very different.
The Rector was the Rev. Bryan King, a man of
intense earnestness, high courage, and unflinching prin
ciple, but unsuited, in a singular degree, for the charge of
such a parish as St. George's in the East.
He had been appointed to the Rectory in 1842, the very
year in which Bishop Blomfield's famousCharge to the clergy
of London, enjoining the use of the surplice in the pulpit,
and the prayer for the Church Militant, had aroused the
fears and the hostility of the Evangelical party. Mr. King
not only made these changes, as in duty bound, but en
deavoured in many other ways to give a different character
to the slovenly services which had prevailed before his time.
Some of his friends subscribed to the support of a paid
choir, and the Psalms and Canticles, and, before long, the
1 Twenty-one Years in S. George's Mission, pp. 18-40.

1856-60] ST. GEORGE'S IN THE EAST 231
Litany, were chanted, to the great dislike of the old-
fashioned members of the congregation. Unfortunately,
Mr. King, with all his earnestness, had not the gift, in
introducing such changes as he thought necessary, of doing
it in a conciliatory manner. His congregation, partly
from the removal of the richer parishioners into the
suburbs, partly from other causes, grew steadily smaller,
and when in 1856 he announced his intention of adopting
the then almost unheard-of Eucharistic Vestments, a more
widespread dissatisfaction began. The dissatisfied, how
ever, contented themselves with grumbling and absenting
themselves more and more from the unpopular services.
Outside the Church's walls, in the meantime, Mr. King's
influence and authority were yet further on the wane. He
has himself described his position as follows : —
" The number of souls nominally intrusted to my charge was
about 38,000. . . . When I allude to the amount of the merely
ordinary routine of clerical duties, in the celebration of the daily
services and the occasional religious offices, ... [as well as] the
merely secular duties which devolved upon me as Chairman of
the Vestry, ... it will not be a matter of any surprise if I now
confess that, beyond the exercise of something like discipline in
regard to a few extreme cases — such as the refusal to give
Christian burial to unbaptized children, or to permit the bodies
of some who had died in open sin to be taken into the Church
for that portion of the Burial Service, and the refusal to communi
cate one or two notorious evil livers — I was never able even to
make any attempt at anything like active aggression upon the
seething mass of evil and sin by which I was encompassed." :
The examples of discipline here instanced by Mr.
King himself as his sole attempts at active aggression
upon the evil around him serve well to illustrate the
character of his earnest but ineffectual ministry at St.
1 Letter from Mr. Bryan King in Mr. Lowder's Twenty-one Years in
St. George's Mission, p. 227. The italics ate Mr. King's.

232 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. x.
George's in the East. It would be easy to name clergy
of views similar to his who might have made far more
sweeping changes in the services of the Church than any
that were made by Mr. King, and who would yet have
retained the enthusiastic support of at least a large section
of their parishioners. It was the misfortune of Mr. King
that his efforts after ritual improvement had the result of
irritating beyond endurance many of the old-fashioned
parishioners, chiefly of the middle class, who still con
tinued to attend their parish church ; while he had, as he
himself says, no such agencies among the poor as might
have served to attract them by degrees within the Church's
walls. One of the memorials to the Bishop of London,
adopted in open vestry without a dissentient voice, states
that " on account of the religious difference between the
Rector and his parishioners there had not been a single
charity sermon in the church for sixteen years, either
for "the National Schools or for the local and medical
charities, although these sermons were frequent before
that time."
It is essential to bear these facts in mind for the proper
understanding of what followed.
From the beginning of his Episcopate Bishop Tait had
been receiving periodical complaints and memorials from
one or other of the parties in the distracted parish, and
the following letter shows that even before his consecra
tion he had been in communication with Mr. Lowder
upon the difficulties of his work.
The Bishop-elect of London to the Rev. Charles Lowder.
,[M "Brighton, Nov. 1 3th, 1856.
earnest eXDreA^ionRrfetrmv thank y°u for sendinS me the

1856-60] LETTER TO MR. LOWDER 233
" I sincerely trust that God may bless all earnest and single-
hearted efforts to spread the Gospel of His Son through the
masses of the metropolis. You certainly may rely on my readi
ness to give what aid my guidance and advice afford.
" I doubt not that God will so direct the zeal of those who
seek Him earnestly in prayer, as to save them from any dangerous
errors in doctrine or practice. And though there may be many
zealous men in the diocese to which God has called me, from
whom I must greatly differ, I still trust that I may be a fellow-
worker with all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Mr.
King has communicated with me respecting the chapel to be
opened. I have put him in communication with Mr. Lee, of
Dean's Yard, and I hope all the legal difficulties may speedily
be arranged, when I shall be very glad to see the chapel secured
as a chapel-of-ease. — Yours faithfully, " A. C. London (Elect)."

Matters came to a point in the autumn of 1858, when
the Bishop's attention was called to certain books and
tracts in circulation in the parish,1 as well as to the ritual
istic ' innovations ' of the Rector. A long interview be
tween the Bishop and Mr. Bryan King resulted in the
following letter : —
1 Among these was a Catechism from which the following are extracts : —
Q. Are all the Bishops equal ?
A. All are equal in their office, but some are higher in honour than
others, as Archbishops, Metropolitans, and Patriarchs, of whom the first is
the Bishop of Rome, the Patriarch of the West.
Q. What is the fourth commandment of the Church ?
A. To confess our sins to our pastor or some of the priests whenever they
trouble us.
Q. At what time may children begin to go to Confession ?
A. When they come to the use of reason, so as to be capable of mortal
sin, which is generally supposed to be about the age of seven years.
Q. What is the Holy Eucharist ?
A. It is the true Body and Blood of Christ, under the appearance of
bread and wine.
Q. How do the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ ?
A. By the power of God, to whom nothing is impossible or difficult.

234 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. x.

The Bishop of London to the Rev. Bryan King.
" Fulham Palace, Dec. 3, 1858.
" My dear Sir, — I think I ought to commit to paper the
result of our interview yesterday, for, indeed, in such interviews
it is difficult to keep the main points in view ; and I am sure it
is due to your standing in the Diocese, as well as to many per
sonal qualities which have secured you the respect of all who
know you, that I should state my opinion and wishes for your
calm consideration apart from any of those unpleasant feelings
which an interview to investigate complaints may call up.
"With respect to what has been laid before me by the
churchwardens, I am glad to be assured by you that the candles
are not lighted at the celebration of the Holy Communion except
for purposes of light.
" As to the green vestments, stoles, or whatever they may have
been, which it appears you yourself and Mr. Burn wore on the
occasion of the anniversary, I very deeply regret that you should
think it right to assume the unusual garments you described to
me. I am convinced there is no sufficient warrant for it, and if
you continue this, it is against my express order. Surely, if in
any matters a Bishop is entitled to require the canonical obedi
ence of his clergy it is in such a case as this. You cannot believe
that there is any legal obligation on you to depart in this respect
from the usage of our Church, as explained and enforced by all
her living authorities. The very utmost point to which you can
go must be to consider that the law of the land does not posi
tively forbid you to use such vestments (as, indeed, there are
many other strange things which it has never contemplated, and
therefore does not forbid), and that, by giving an order for their
disuse, I am abridging your liberty. Surely your regard for the
office I hold, and the rubric enjoining upon you to refer to the
Ordinary, must suggest that in such matters your own private
opinion ought to be waived in deference to those set over you ;
especially when I urge upon you to give up your own wishes out
of regard for the 30,000 souls committed to you, to your useful
ness among whom I feel convinced these excessive ritual
observances are a great hindrance, as is found, it pains me to
think, in the emptiness of your great church.
" As to Mr. Burn's wearing such garments, I am glad to have

1856-60] LETTER TO MR. BRYAN KING 235
been assured yesterday both by you and him that he will dis
continue them, and I shall be truly glad if you will resolve to do
the same yourself. I have only allowed him to officiate on his
probation under very peculiar circumstances, and require
obedience as one of the conditions of his probation.
" The same objections that apply to the garments apply also,
though perhaps in a lesser degree, to other matters which I
pointed out to you in the written description which the church
wardens have given of your service on the occasion of the
anniversary, and which I am certain have raised and kept alive a
grievous prejudice against your ministry in the minds of your
parishioners. I know that you are anxious for the good of
their souls. I pray you to consider whether you cannot sacrifice
your own peculiar tastes in such matters to promote your
spiritual usefulness.
"As to matters brought before me by others, and not by the
churchwardens, it was very satisfactory to me to be assured by
you that the Catechism complained of as teaching Romish
doctrine had never been distributed in the parish, or used in the
school, with your knowledge or sanction. I understand your
curate, Mr. Lowder, to have given me before the same assurance
as to his district of your parish. I take leave to advise that you
should let your people understand that you disapprove of this
Catechism, if it is still circulating among them through any dis
honest influence of those two of your curates who lately joined
the Church of Rome. . . .
"And now allow me, my dear sir, to conclude by repeating,
what I endeavoured to express to you at the close of our inter
view, how gladly I would endeavour to strengthen your hands if
you could bring yourself to alter your course. I do beg you to
give up the matters complained of, which are, I believe, a
grievous impediment to your usefulness. In carrying out the
simple Scriptural system of our own Church, you will receive, I
assure you, all sympathy and assistance from me ; and I cannot
but think that the high opinion of your high and gentlemanlike
bearing under trying circumstances which I have heard expressed,
even by those of your people who are strongly opposed to you, if
you showed willingness to act differently in the matters com
plained of, would not be without its proper weight in enabling
you to do our common Master's work in the fearfully responsible
position in which you are placed.

236 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. x.
" One word more. You seem to have felt aggrieved yester
day that I should lay my commands upon Mr. Burn not to
follow your example as to these (you must excuse me for calling
them) foolish vestments. But I think, on reflection, you will
see that a Bishop, in such a case, must exercise his power to guide
and control a curate, where he conscientiously believes an in
cumbent is leading him astray ; and Mr. Burn is not even your
curate, he is simply a gentleman on his probation, assisting you
by special favour.
" I have thought the simplest way of answering the present
ment, if I may so consider it, of the churchwardens is to send
them a copy of this letter.
"I wish to draw your attention to their statement that the
congregation at the parish church is less than 150 at the most,
while the number of regular attendants in the pews and free
seats together is only about 40, and that in the mission chapels
the united congregation altogether consists of only about 35
adults. — Believe me to be, my dear sir, yours faithfully,
"A. C. London."
By an Act of Parliament passed in George H.'s reign,
the Vestry possessed the right of nominating a lecturer for
the parish Church, who should " be admitted by the Rector
to have the use of the pulpit from time to time." And
the Vestry of St. George's in the East now proceeded to
elect to that office the Rev. Hugh Allen, already dis
tinguished for the vehemence of his ' no Popery ' tenets.
Mr. Allen's testimonials and other papers were presented
in due form, and although the consequences were not
difficult to foresee, the Bishop found he had no power to
intervene, and Mr. Allen was duly licensed on May 17,
1859. On the following Sunday, according to Mr. Lowder's
biographer —
" Mr. Allen entered the pulpit triumphantly brandishing the
Bishop's licence in his hand, and was greeted with shouts of
applause. He had a band of devoted and noisy adherents who
filled the Church with uproar, and, elated by their success,
invaded it on the next Sunday during the usual service, the

1856-60] RIOTS IN ST. GEORGE'S 237
clamour and violence reaching such a pitch, that the clergy and
choir were with difficulty extricated from the mob by the
police." 1
It would be tedious as well as painful, to recount the
repetition, Sunday after Sunday, of these disgraceful
scenes. The riot, disorder, and buffoonery grew worse
instead of better, and the civil authorities believed them
selves unable to interfere. In August the churchwardens
appealed to the Bishop. It seems right to reproduce the
Bishop's reply in full, notwithstanding its length, as it
gives expression to his opinions not only on the particular
points at issue, but on some of the principles which under
lay both this and other strifes.
The Bishop of London to the Senior Churchwarden of
St. George's in the East.
"Llandudno, 5 September 1859.
" Sir, — I beg to acknowledge your official letter of the 2d
instant, respecting the late disgraceful proceedings in the parish
of St. George's in the East. It reached me yesterday (Sunday),
and I also beg to acknowledge the copy of a report made to the
vestry of St. George in the East by a Committee appointed by
that body.
"In answering your letter, I' think it necessary to draw your
attention to a distinction as to Episcopal authority, very
commonly lost sight of in such disputes. A Bishop's authority
is of two kinds. Within a certain range defined by law, he has
power to give orders and enforce obedience to them by penalty
of law. Over a much wider range, he has authority from the
good feeling of all well-disposed members of the Church, who
voluntarily accept his paternal advice and guidance. It is not
too much to say that by far the greater part of a Bishop's
government of his Diocese is carried on through the willing
deference which good Christian feeling suggests to the members
of his Church, both lay and clerical, that he is entitled to claim
on account of the very nature of his office.
1 Biography of Charles Lowder, p. 173.

238 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. x.
" Now, a difficulty arises in answering your letter, from your
not distinctly intimating in which of these two capacities it is
that the aid of my authority is now invoked.
" I. I shall consider the matter brought before me in reference
to that authority which I can enforce by legal penalties.
" You are aware that two parties in this dispute have invoked
my aid.
"(1) I am informed, on the part of the Rector, that the
parish Church is desecrated by disorderly persons, the public
worship of God interrupted, and the Rector, or other officiating
minister, with the choristers, habitually insulted during or after
Divine Service. No language can be too strong to express the
abhorrence with which all persons of any true Christian feeling
must regard such outrages, if they really take place, as is not
denied. It is the grossest self-deceit to suppose that they can be
justified by any provocation which the Rector's choral service or
unusual habiliments may have given. But what is the legal
remedy for these disturbances ? It is that to which I have had
recourse. I have required the Churchwardens to be present at
the service in which the riotous proceedings complained of are
alleged to take place, and to exercise the powers inherent in
their office, for the suppression of disorder. These powers are
well defined by Statute 1 William and Mary, cap. 18, clause
18— " ' If any person maliciously or contemptuously come into any Church
and disquiet or disturb the congregation, or misuse any preacher or teacher,
such person, upon proof thereof before any justice of the peace, by two or
more sufficient witnesses, shall find two sureties, bound by recognisance, in
the penal sum of £50, and 'n default of such sureties, shall be committed to
prison, there to remain till the next general or quarter sessions, and upon
correction, shall forfeit ^20 to the use of the Crown.'
" At common law, a person disturbing Divine service may be
removed by any other person there present, but the duty of
maintaining order lies especially on the churchwardens. If they
are absent, or being present do not repress disorder, they
neglect their duty. I grant that the performance of their duty,
in the present instance, is difficult, but the law seems to point
out with sufficient distinctness how they ought to act. The
Rector, as I learned from the report of the Committee of Vestry,
has formally intimated to the churchwardens that he will hold
them responsible to an Ecclesiastical Court for the performance

1856-60] LETTER TO THE CHURCHWARDENS 239
of their duty above described, and they are certainly so respon
sible. The Committee of Vestry is of opinion that they are most
assiduous in the performance of their duty, and I shall be truly
glad to find that this is so.
" This is the strict legal aspect of the case, as regards the
complaint on the Rector's part respecting the alleged disturbance
of public worship, and as regards the remedy which ought to be
applied. " (2) The complaint of the Vestry, which you forward to me,
has reference to the alleged exciting cause of such disturbance.
You state, as I understand you, that these disturbances arose
from the exasperation of feeling caused by the objectionable mode
in which you allege that the Rev. Bryan King, the Rector, and
those appointed by him, celebrate Divine Service in the Parish
Church, and also by the inconvenience of the hour appointed by
the Rector for the afternoon lecture.
" You therefore request me to restore the afternoon (lecture)
service to the hour of 3 or 3.30, and to prohibit the use of un
accustomed vestments by the officiating clergy. I gather from
your letter, and the report enclosed, that there are other matters
in the ceremonial of the parish Church, which you consider to
be causes of dissension, and, in particular, you bring under my
notice the mode in which the morning service was conducted on
Sunday, August 28, by a strange clergyman designated the Rev.
Frederick George Lee.
"(a) As to the hour of the afternoon (lecture) service, you
are aware that the arrangements respecting this lecture were very
lately made the subject of proceedings before a Court of Law,
and my understanding of the decision of the learned judge in the
case is, that it was left to the Rector to fix such hour as he
deemed fit and proper for the lecture. I write at a distance from
the means of verifying this impression, but, subject to correction
and better information, I am of opinion that I have no legal
authority to order the hour to be changed. Your request on this
subject must, I apprehend, be addressed to the Rector, and not
to me. '.' (b) With regard to the mode of celebrating Divine Worship
in the parish Church, I understand you to complain that at 4
o'clock on Sundays the Litany is used as a separate Choral
service. " If your objection be to the celebration in the parish Church

240 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. X.
of any additional Divine Service beyond the ordinary morning
service, the afternoon (lecture) service, and the evening service,
I have no power to prevent such additional use of the Church,
and certainly I should not employ such power if I had it. In a
parish so vast as that of St. George's in the East, the more services
there are the better, and the incumbent has a legal right to use
his Church as often in the day as possible, and I highly approve
of his multiplying the opportunities of public worship.
" Again, if your objection is to this additional service being
choral, the law allows the incumbent to have a choral rather than
a read service if he pleases ; and though I may highly disapprove,
as I do, of forcing a choral service on an unwilling parish, I can
only remonstrate. I have, by law, no power of forbidding, or, if
I forbid, of enforcing obedience to my mandate.
" Again, if your objection be to this additional service being
the Litany and not a third regular evening service, I must point
out to you that there is a very commonly expressed desire, to
which utterance has been given in Parliament and elsewhere, to
have the ordinary morning service of the Church of England
shortened, and I have myself, in my place in Parliament, stated
that an obvious way of legally attaining this object is by separat
ing, as the law allows, the Litany from the ordinary morning
service. It is an open question whether the clergyman has not
the power of effecting such a separation in strict accordance
with the rubric, even without any sanction from his Bishop. If
from my common authority as Ordinary, I have legal power to
forbid this practice, I should be very unwilling to do so, unless I
was satisfied in this instance, that it was the fact of this service
being the Litany, rather than an additional repetition of the
common evening service, that is the cause of the exasperation
that you allege.
"But the chief real objection to this 4 o'clock service, I
presume, arises from its being supposed to interfere with the
(lecture) afternoon service. I have already stated to you, how,
as I apprehend, the case stands regarding my legal power to
regulate the hour of that lecture service. I can only point out
to you, further, that I fear the parish would scarcely be satisfied,
if the Rector so far gave way as to incorporate Mr. Allen's lecture
into an afternoon choral service of his own, conducted accord
ing to the model of his own usual services. And if he so far
gave way as to admit the lecturer to his pulpit at his usual after-

1856-60] LETTER TO THE CHURCHWARDENS 241
noon service, he would, I apprehend, have the legal right to
make that service choral. I confess I think it is on the whole
better that these two gentlemen (the lecturer and the rector of
the parish) should have their hours of ministration in the parish
church separate.
" I now come to the only other point you mention — the use
of unaccustomed vestments by the officiating clergy. It is well
known that I have announced my determination to put a stop to
such follies when I can do so by my summary jurisdiction over
those who are placed more immediately under my personal con
trol; and such jurisdiction I have already exercised at St. George's,
and 1 hereby require the churchwardens to give me immediate
information if any clergyman so officiate in the Church, as to
give reasonable offence by this childish mimicry of antiquated
garments, or by so dressing himself up that he may resemble as
much as possible a Roman Catholic priest. Even if it be proved
that such foolish practices are not a distinct violation of the
letter of the law, they may indicate such a wrong-headed and
self-willed determination, for the sake of foolish theory, to
endanger the success of his ministrations among the souls com
mitted to him, as to justify the Bishop in summarily withdraw
ing a curate's licence for the good of the parish. I need not,
however, point out to you that the law does not give the Bishop
any such power in dealing summarily with an incumbent, and in
the case of the Rector of your parish, with whom I had some
lengthened communication last winter on the subject of these
very garments, you are probably aware that on mature considera
tion, I determined to trust rather to my conviction that common
sense will in the end prevail, and not to go into a court of
justice on a matter which appears to me to be so foolish in itself,
and the issue in the "legal prosecution of which, through all the
several courts, must, after all, be uncertain from the very nature
of a controversy turning on the shape and pattern of the clothes
worn at the time of the Reformation, and their points of resem
blance to, and divergence from, the garments made for us in the
present day.
" But though I entertain this opinion myself that prosecutions
on what may be called the vestment question, in a court of law,
are inexpedient and indeed derogatory to the character of our
Church, I by no means wish to bind others by my opinion in
this matter, against their will; and if it is the deliberate desire
vol. 1. Q

242 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. x.
of those whom you represent to prosecute the Rector for wearing
garments which (I grant not unnaturally) offend his parishioners,
I shall be ready when called upon to afford you all due facilities
for the commencement of your lawsuit as far as my authority
extends. " I need scarcely say further that if you have any charge to
bring forward of unsoundness of doctrine, or any distinct viola
tion of the law of the Church which you think you can sub
stantiate, I shall be ready at once to hear and investigate it.
" With respect to the Rev. F. G. Lee, of whom you complain,
that gentleman has no leave to minister in my diocese, and I
have required intimation to be sent to him to desist from so
officiating till he obtains my formal authority. I have written to
Mr. Mackonochie, who is a licensed curate in the parish, desir
ing him to take the service in the parish Church till the Rector's
return. " I have thus stated to you what is the legal power I possess
of interfering by my authority personally to enforce obedience
on both sides of this miserable controversy, and I shall now sum
up my decision as respects this legal power. On the one hand,
I call on the churchwardens, at their peril, to do their duty in
preserving order in the church, and bringing offenders to justice,
according to the Statute. On the other hand, I prohibit all
unusual vestments, such as you complain of, in the celebration
of Divine service. I am ready, when I can, summarily to en
force their disuse, and if you desire it, I am ready to further
your prosecution, in a court of law, of those whom I cannot
myself reach summarily. Any other complaint of violation of
the Church's law I am ready at once to investigate, on its being
distinctly pointed out. I do not consider myself entitled in law
to order the alteration of the hour of service which you may
desire. " You may feel at first surprised that my power as Bishop
should go no further than I have notified, but on the whole, for
my own part, I do not consider it an evil in the Church of
England, that incumbents of parishes are invested with so inde
pendent a responsibility, which, I am bound to say, in most
cases they exercise wisely for the good of their parishioners, and
which it would not be consistent with our manly English spirit
to see suspended by an arbitrary extension of episcopal dominion.
As I have said, it is not by compulsory force of law, but by

1856-60] LETTER TO THE CHURCHWARDENS 243
authority of a gentler kind that a Bishop most effectively works;
and I would now shortly consider, in the second place, how such
authority may avail us, in the present miserable dispute.
" II. If the Rector on the one hand and those who oppose
him on the other, have any right Christian spirit, they must be
thoroughly ashamed of the state into which the parish is now
brought. If the allegations which have reached me are to be
depended upon, bad men have availed themselves of the irrita
tion which has been excited to bring dishonour on the worship
of God, and the name of our holy religion. Under such circum
stances sincere members of our Church cannot, I should think,
hesitate as to the duty of submitting their causes of quarrel for
arbitration to him whom God has placed over them in the
Church for the very purpose of healing differences. Up to this
time, however, I have received no distinct intimation from either
party of their willingness thus to be guided by me as their
Bishop ; on the contrary, indications have not been wanting, at
least on one side, that my advice will not be listened to, unless it
can be legally enforced. If the case were thus voluntarily placed
in my hands, by both parties, for friendly adjustment — if the
clergy of the parish, on one hand, consented to follow my direc
tions as to the ordering of the services, and if the vestry and the
churchwardens, on the other hand, were equally willing to be
guided by my advice as to the best way of allaying the unseemly
tumults which have arisen, I am very hopeful that all might yet
go well. There has, I doubt not, been no lack of conscientious
ness on both sides, but so far as I can at present judge, there has,
I am bound to say, been a sad lack of kindly Christian considera
tion for each other's feelings. I earnestly beseech all concerned,
for the sake of the many ignorant and thoughtless souls in this
parish of St. George's, not to allow another day to pass without
taking such steps towards Christian reconciliation as may by
God's blessing end the present miserable disturbances. Depend
upon it, none can feel any satisfaction in these church riots but
those who are the enemies of the Lord Jesus Christ and of all
true religion.
" My advice to the Vestry is, formally to request the Rector
to join with them in submitting the whole case to my episcopal
arbitration — both parties binding themselves to act as I direct.
If this offer is not made, or if, being made, it is not acceded to,
I do not see how I can aid the parish in any other way than by

244 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. x.
such strictly legal interference as I have indicated. — I have the
honour to be, sir, your most obedient faithful servant,
"A. C. London."
The Bishop's correspondence with Mr. Mackonochie,
which is alluded to in the foregoing document, was of the
most cordial and friendly kind. Mr. Mackonochie, whose
name was afterwards to become so famous in connection
with ritual matters, was curate in charge during Mr.
King's temporary absence, and had a most difficult task
to discharge. On September 15th, 1859, the Bishop writes to him : —
"My dear Mr. Mackonochie,— Let me thank you for your
interesting letter. I trust that by God's blessing the efforts you
have made will not fail to produce their effect, and that this dis
graceful state of things will soon be ended. I am sure that the
manifestation of the kindly Christian spirit of conciliation, at the
same time that you show your determination not to be intimi
dated, must have its effect. ... I cannot but feel much for the
very difficult position in which you are placed."
But it was with Mr. King, and not with Mr. Lowder or
Mr. Mackonochie, that the Bishop had to deal, and the
suggested arbitration proved a matter of the utmost
difficulty. For a long time it was impossible to bring
about any agreement between the Rector and the Vestry
as to the points on which the Bishop was to arbitrate, and
so serious had the riots become, that it was found neces
sary for the public safety to close the Church entirely for
some weeks. After endless correspondence, the Bishop
succeeded in obtaining a quasi-promise, limited, however,
by many provisos, that the controversialists would accept
his decision ; but no sooner was it pronounced, and the
Church re-opened, than the rioting was renewed with
greater fury than before. The presence of a large force
of police for some Sundays put a curb upon the violence

1856-60] THE RIOTS AT THEIR HEIGHT 245
of the mob, but on January 1st, i860, this assistance was
suddenly withdrawn, and once again, as soon as the
Choral Service was attempted, the Church became a
scene of the wildest tumult.
"The whole service," wrote Mr. Bryan King,1 "was inter
rupted by hissing, whistling, and shouting. Songs were roared
out by many united voices during the reading of the lessons and
the preaching of the sermon ; hassocks were thrown down from
the galleries, and after the service, cushions, hassocks, and books
were hurled at the altar and its furniture. I myself, and the other
officiating clergy, had been spat upon, hustled, and kicked within
the Church, and had only been protected from greater outrages,
for several Sundays past, by the zealous devotion of some
sixty or eighty gentlemen who attended from different parts of
London." For more than half a year these disturbances continued
almost without abatement. The matter came before
Parliament again and again. In the session of i860, it
was discussed on six several occasions in the House of
Lords, and advantage was taken of the passing of an
unimportant Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Bill to
introduce new provisions for the summary correction and
punishment of Church ' brawlers.' Bishop Tait explained
on several occasions, in the House of Lords, the difficulty
in which he found himself, owing, on the one hand, to the
Rector's determination to continue the obnoxious ritual,
and, on the other, to the apparent inability or unwilling
ness of the police authorities to prevent the misconduct
of the mob.
"As to the miserable state of things," he said, "in the dis
tracted parish of St. George in the East, he regretted it as much,
or more, than any man, for he had more cause to regret it, but
although much abuse had been bandied about on every side, and
1 The quotation is from Mr. King's pamphlet Sacrilege and its Encour
agement, page 23.

246 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. x.
everything that was done by anybody was wrong in the estima
tion of everybody else, yet no charge of which he could take
legal cognisance had been brought before him. He believed
¦ that this was simply one of those miserable cases to be found in
all parts of society, in which, if men would stand on their legal
rights, there was no amount of disturbance they might not cause.
In the domestic relation, for instance, suppose two persons
determined to make themselves as disagreeable as they could,
each to the other, without infringing the law, what a state of
things would result in the family ! He believed it was the same
thing with those most sacred relations between the pastor and
his flock ; it was possible for a pastor to make himself very dis
agreeable to his flock without violating the law, and for the flock
to make themselves very disagreeable to the pastor ; and it was
very difficult for those who wished to set them right to find by
what means they could do so. . . . He had said, and he believed,
that if the matter were placed in his hands it could be arranged,
but it must be an unconditional surrender to the Ordinary. He
must be called in to settle these disturbances, and he hoped he
was not thinking too much of himself or his office, when he said
he had full confidence that there was so much good feeling
among Englishmen, that whenever they had no doubt as to
where the authority lay, they would be quite ready to give way
to it. If the Rector of that parish would do what he ought to
have done months ago, and say ' I am unable to manage this
parish, I beg the Bishop of the Diocese to manage it for me,' all
the mischief might be put an end to." *
For a time the police were again introduced into the
church, but although they were able to stop actual violence,
they were powerless to prevent the noises and interrup
tions with which the service was accompanied, these last
offences, as the Home Secretary explained, falling short,
in his opinion, of what could technically be called an
'outrage.' At length, on the intervention of Arthur
Stanley and Thomas Hughes, Mr. Bryan King was per
suaded to go abroad for a year, and the parish was in
trusted to the care of the Rev. Septimus Hansard, whom
1 Hansard, May 22, i860, p. 1600.

1856-60] THE RIOTS AT AN END 247
Mr. Hughes described as a man "without an equal for
dealing with the roughest part of a London population."
This arrangement had the Bishop's entire approval, and
it was hoped that peace would follow. Mr. Hansard, how
ever, had promised Mr. Bryan King that he would main
tain certain of his usages unimpaired, and it soon became
evident that, in the temper which had been aroused among
the parishioners, even Mr. Hansard would fail to bring the
strife to an end unless the choral services were discon
tinued. The Bishop and Mr. Hansard made a joint effort
to obtain Mr. King's sanction for such alterations as
seemed necessary, but Mr. King, who was residing at
Bruges, declined to consent, and Mr. Hansard resigned
the charge. The position was now most difficult. It was
easy to point out the mischief of yielding to the demands
of a disorderly mob, but though the weekly scenes of
noisy irreverence were less outrageous than before, no
amount of energy on the part of the police could re
strain the congregation of a crowded church from the
profane amusement of shouting the psalms and canticles
so as to drown the choir, from shuffling with their feet
and coughing, or from banging the pew-doors at intervals.
The choice lay between again closing the church (a mere
temporary expedient at the best) and re-arranging the
services under a new curate in charge. The Bishop after
repeated conferences with those best able to advise him
decided upon the latter alternative. Mr. Bryan King
having declined any further responsibility in the matter,
the Bishop undertook to provide, at his own cost, for the
charge of the parish. A new curate was accordingly
licensed, and the services were so arranged as to corre
spond with what was then customary in London churches.
This re-arrangement was in entire accordance with the
advice of many, even High Churchmen, who had been con-

248 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. X.
cerned in the controversy,1 and whatever its disadvantages,
it resulted in the speedy restoration of peace. After a few
months a memorial .was presented to the Bishop, signed
by 2176 of the parishioners, including churchwardens,
overseers, trustees, guardians, vestrymen, and, it is said,
every resident member of the legal and medical profes
sion, with one exception. "We desire," they said, "to
convey to your lordship our deep sense of the obligation
we are under for the restoration of peace to this long
distracted parish, through your lordship's instrumentality."
In the following year Mr. Bryan King was appointed to
a country parish in the diocese of Salisbury. He left
behind him in the mission districts of St. George's parish
devoted men who maintained in a more excellent way,
and with an earnestness equal to his own, the principles
for which he had perseveringly contended, and Mr. Lowder
and Mr. Mackonochie, before many years had passed,
found themselves loved and reverenced in their daily
work by those who had once been eager to " throw them
over the Dock head."
One other point is perhaps worth noticing. The
curious misuse of the name of Dr. Pusey in connection
with such controversies has seldom been better illustrated
than in the riots of St. George's in the East. ' Down with
the Puseyites ! ' seems to have been the usual war-cry of
the mob, and the ' Society' which promoted the agitation
was 'the Anti-Puseyite League.' It so happened that
the Bishop of London was at that time in correspondence
with Dr. Pusey in connection with the evening sermons in
1 A well-known High Churchman, who as ' Eye-witness ' had, in a
series of letters to the Guardian, described the scenes all through the riots,
advised, in his last letter, that the points at issue should be conceded. '* It
is worse than useless," he said, " to insist, for the sake of so small a differ
ence, on the maintenance of a service of which the only result is such frightful
desecration. "

1856-60] LETTER FROM DR. PUSEY 249
Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's, and Dr. Pusey, on
April 26, 1 860, thus refers to the ritual controversy : —
" In regard to my ' friends,' perhaps I regret the acts to
which your Lordship alludes as deeply as you do. I am in this
strange position, that my name is made a byword for that with
which I never had any sympathy, that which the writers of the
Tracts, with whom in early days I was associated, always depre
cated, any innovations in the way of conducting the service, any
thing of ritualism, or especially any revival of disused vestments.
I have had no office in the Church which would entitle me to
speak publicly. If I had spoken it would have been to assume
the character of one of the leaders of a party, which I would
not do. Of late years, when ritualism has become more promi
nent, I have looked out for a natural opportunity of dissociating
myself from it, but have not found one. I have been obliged,
therefore, to confine myself to private protests which have been
unlistened to, or to a warning to the young clergy from the
University pulpit, against self-willed changes in ritual. Altogether
I have looked with sorrow at the crude way in which some
doctrines have been put forward, without due pains to prevent
misunderstanding, and ritual has been forced upon the people,
unexplained and without their consent. I soon regretted the
attempt which the late Bishop made, and which was defeated.
Had I been listened to, these miserable disturbances in St.
George's in the East would have been saved. . . . May God
prosper your Lordship's plans for the conversion of these long-
neglected souls.1 From what I have seen and heard I believe
that He has ' much people in that place.' — I am your Lordship's
faithful servant, E. B. Pusey."
1 This refers to the special evangelistic efforts which the Bishop was then
inaugurating. See p. 255.

CHAPTER XI.
EVANGELISTIC WORK.
OPEN-AIR PREACHING— EXETER HALL SERVICES— WESTMINSTER
ABBEY AND ST. PAUL'S— SERVICES IN THEATRES—PRIMARY
CHARGE. 1857-59.
IMPORTANT as these controversies were, and deep as
was the mark they left upon his whole Episcopate, it
would be a simple mistake to suppose that they occupied
in other than a subordinate degree either the interest or
the energies of Bishop Tait. On the contrary, he was
frequently accused in those early years of his Episcopate
of devoting too little time to the governance of his Diocese,
and too much time to the Evangelistic work, which the
critics of that day regarded as belonging rather to 'the
inferior clergy' than to a Bishop. He had throughout
his life an excessive dread of what he described as ' over
much machinery.' He used to complain, both at Balliol
and Carlisle, that more time was spent in discussing,
arranging, and systematising the work of the Foundation
than in doing it ; and when he came to London the same
difficulty, as he thought, confronted him in another form.
Bishop Blomfield had set himself with untiring zeal,
and with the largest personal generosity,1 to the task of
Church-building in and around London, so as to overtake,
if possible, the gigantic increase of population. Although
1 His own contributions to the ' Metropolis Churches Fund ' and other
agencies amounted to at least ^25,000.
250

1857-59] THE REAL NEED 251
he consecrated, during his tenure of the See, some two
hundred new churches, there were still, when Bishop Tait
succeeded him, a very large number of overgrown and un
wieldy parishes provided only with a single church. Nor
had the provision of new buildings realised, speaking
generally, the intentions of their founders. It had been
too often assumed that the erection of a commodious
church in a populous locality would of itself, as a matter
of course, attract a full supply of worshippers, and the
subscribers were puzzled and disappointed to find that
many of the new churches were standing almost empty.1
The machinery was there, but no grist came to the mill.
Some fresh impulse, some new enthusiasm seemed to be
wanted, and Bishop Tait bestirred himself to supply the
need. It is difficult for those familiar with the multi
farious agencies by which Church work is now diversified
in crowded parishes to realise the suspicion and even
hostility with which the authorities, forty years ago,
regarded any other ministrations of religion than those
carried on in regular course within the Church's walls.
What Bishop Blomfield had urged was that churches
should be so multiplied as " to bring home to the very
doors and hearths of the most ignorant and neglected ofi
the population the ordinances, the solemnities, the decen-'
cies, and the charities of our Apostolical Church." But
the encouragement of anything like mission preaching,
out-door services, or other ' irregular ' evangelistic efforts,
accorded neither with his theories nor his example. Ready
speaker as he was, he never, save on one memorable occa
sion, preached an unwritten sermon, and, in his earlier
years at least, he objected to an address on week-days,
1 Bishop Blomfield had indeed, in his Charge of 1846, anticipated some
thing of this difficulty, and pointed out the need of waiting patiently for
results which might be long of coming.

252 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xi.
even if delivered in the church itself, "as leading the
people to over-value preaching and under-value prayers."
Where there were two full services on Sundays, such
week-day services were, in his opinion, not required.1 It
is easy to conjecture, therefore, what his attitude would
have been had ' revivalism ' and other movements of the
kind been started under his Episcopate. Bishop Tait's
view was altogether different. In a sermon in St. James's,
Piccadilly, on the Sunday after his consecration, he em
phasised with all his might the need of more evangelistic
work. At his first ordination, held a few weeks later, he
was himself the preacher, and he took occasion to reiterate
the same opinion with the same earnestness, beseeching
the clergy to " go forth into the highways and hedges, and
to proclaim in the simplest words at their command the
Gospel of a living Saviour." Before he had been a month
in office he presided at a great meeting held in Islington
to launch a scheme for building twelve new churches at
a cost of £50,000, and his speech on the occasion gave
occasion to vigorous and, in some quarters, unfriendly
comment. " It will be," he said, " a source of deep consolation to my
venerated predecessor, Bishop Blomfield, in the affliction which
it has pleased God to lay upon him, to reflect that he has been
instrumental in building and consecrating within this Diocese
upwards of two hundred churches. But it is impossible to read
the public prints, and to think seriously upon the subject as it pre
sents itself to us throughout the whole Kingdom, without acknow
ledging that there is a good deal to be said in favour of the
arguments of those who maintain that these schemes of Church
Extension had better, for a little time at least, be allowed to
stand still. It is often urged, and with great plausibility, that
building churches throughout the kingdom is something like the
occupation of a conquered land ; and there is an example ready
1 See Life, vol. 1. p. no.

^Sti ISLINGTON CHURCH BUILDING 253
at hand in the case of Ireland. Garrisons were in former times
stationed at intervals throughout that land, and fortresses were
built for _ them to reside in; and yet no real conquest took place,
for the inhabitants only retired to their fastnesses, and there
remained unsubdued. And so it may be with the Church :
additional churches may be merely the towers which contain the
garrison, and the people whom we wish to bring within the pale
may remain at a distance. It will therefore be wrong if we
mistake the erection of churches for the spread of the Gospel
throughout the land. It will, above all, be necessary to place in
the churches faithful ministers of God's Word. And we must be
very careful to use every means to bring in the poor. It is the
upper and the middle classes who form the church-goers through
out this country ; and a vast mass of the population are estranged,
not only from the Church of England, but from the Gospel
itself. Both in our crowded cities and in our remote country
districts there is a very numerous body of the poor who cannot,
and another who will not, enter the churches. Under these cir
cumstances, when asked to preside at this meeting, I inquired,
first of all, whether the churches are, as much as possible, made
available, whether there are as many services in them as can well
be performed, and also whether attempts are made to build up
the Church spiritually as well as materially."
He went on to press the need of local sympathy and co
operation in the new endeavour, and promised to sub
scribe £600 as a pledge of his anxiety for its success.1
His next public act involved him in some controversy.
It was announced by the Vicar of St. Alban's,' Wood
Street, that on New Year's Day, 1857, the Holy Com
munion would be celebrated at a quarter before seven in
the morning, and the Bishop of London would deliver an
address to the members of the Young Men's Christian
Association. The Bishop immediately received letters
from clergy and others, urging him to refrain from attend-
1 The amount of this subscription to the local fund for a particular parish
was of course exceptional, being more than one-tenth of his total income for
the year, while he was at the same time encouraging many other efforts with
almost equal liberality.

254 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xi.
ing such a service, as many members of the association
were Nonconformists, or, at all events, were unconfirmed,
and could not therefore present themselves at the Lord's
Table. The Bishop, however, adhered to his engagement,
and spoke as follows in the course of his address : —
" If there are any here who are not members of the Church of
England, I rejoice that they should show their friendly feeling
by being present to hear the Word preached by her ministers,
and to join in her Scriptural prayers, and in hearing those por
tions of the Word of God which our Prayer Book sets before us
at this time. As to any such approaching the most sacred rite
of Communion in our Church, that is a matter which they must
weigh well with themselves. We invite those to approach who
are baptized, confirmed, or ready to be confirmed. I can well
understand those who are members of some other National
Church rejoicing to communicate with the Church of England
while they sojourn amongst us, without forsaking the Church of
their country and home. I can understand, also, that many of
our own countrymen, who from their early training have been
kept apart from our Church, may, as years advance, feel a grow
ing desire to unite with her as the great safeguard of Scriptural
Christianity in the land, though they cannot resolve entirely to
separate themselves from some other body with which they have
many tender associations of kindred and of spiritual privilege
enjoyed in times past. Still, I am bound to say, that that seems
to me an unsound state in which a man of mature age and
independent position hangs doubtful between one communion
and another, not feeling himself really united with the Church,
and ready to cast in his lot with it, though he loves its services,
or feels that they do his heart good. There is always some
danger of hanging loose between two systems, and thus failing of
the helps which either, according to its means, endeavours to
afford for the building up of the soul. But enough of these
matters. We are met together to-day to worship in the Church
of England, and we, her ministers, invite you in her name to this
holy feast of love, as believing you to be anxious, through her
teaching and her time-honoured Scriptural forms, to seek closer
union with the Lord she serves. Her zeal in spreading the
Gospel is her highest claim on your allegiance. We meet in our

I857-59] OPEN-AIR PREACHING 255
National Church to-day to devote ourselves for the New Year to
do what we can as citizens of this great nation, that we may
advance the cause of Christ and goodness amongst our fellow-
citizens ; and we seek grace through the Lord's Ordinance that
our hearts may be right while we attempt to guide others."
His efforts in these early weeks of his Episcopate had
the effect of scandalising not a few of his more old-
fashioned friends, who made no scruple of expressing
their disbelief in what were described by one of them
as " the JBishop's undignified and almost_ Methodist pro
ceedings." Worse than all, he now began to set the
example of opj^ajr_jDreaching in the streets. In the
spring and summer of 1857 he gave such addresses in
almost every part of London. Those who remembered
his ill-health were amazed at the ceaseless pressure of the
work he undertook. His diary shows him going off from
the House of Lords to speak to a shipload of emigrants
in the Docks, from the Convocation discussions on Church
Discipline to address the Ragged School children in
Golden Lane, or the omnibus-drivers in their great yard
at Islington. He preached to the costermongers in
Covent Garden Market ; to railway porters from the
platform of a locomotive ; to a colony of gypsies upon the
Common at Shepherd's Bush, and this without in any
way relaxing the accustomed round of confirmations and
sermons and committees which must always occupy a
bishop's time in addition to his huge business correspond
ence. The very novelty of his work seemed to inspire
him for a time with a physical strength and toughness
which surprised his friends.
It was owing probably to the impetus thus given by
the Bishop to evangelistic work that Lord Shaftesbury
and some of his friends opened in 1857 a new religious
campaign, which was destined to cause no small stir in

256 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xi,
London. It was arranged that services should be held on
Sunday evenings in Exeter Hall, and some of the fore
most evangelical clergymen in England consented to give
the addresses, which were intended mainly for those
unaccustomed to church-going.1 Bishop Tait gave his
sanction to the scheme, and was himself present at one of
the services. The hall was crowded every Sunday evening,
but a vigorous outcry soon arose in the Church news
papers and elsewhere. It was stated that the audience
consisted largely of worshippers drawn from church and
chapel, and the incumbent of the parish in which Exeter
Hall stands, the Rev. A. G. Edouart, was induced in
November 1857 to assert his legal right, and to issue a
formal veto against the continuance of these ministrations.
He wrote fully to the Bishop explaining his reasons.
" I am setting my face," he said, " against a proceeding
altogether irregular, which, if permitted, would prove thoroughly
subversive of all discipline and order in the Church, and would
tend beyond all conception to destroy that form of sound words
so essential to the purity and power of our branch of Christ's
Church." By the Bishop's advice the services were thereupon
discontinued for a time, but Lord Shaftesbury immedi
ately introduced a Bill into the House of Lords to deprive
an incumbent of any such right of veto. Bishop Wilber
force protested successfully against what heTcalled the
' indecent haste ' with which Lord Shaftesbury tried to
force his Bill through Parliament. More than one debate
took place, and, in the end, Lord ' Shaftesbury, much
against his will, found himself compelled to withdraw his
measure in favour of an alternative Bill of a less stringent
character introduced by the Archbishop of Canterbury
1 The first list of preachers included Bishop Villiers,' Bishop Bickersteth,
Dean Close, and Dr. M'Neile.

1857-59] EXETER HALL SERVICES 257
with the support of Bishop Tait. In the course of these
discussions Bishop Tait had occasion to refer, very fully,
to the Exeter Hall services, and, unpopular as they were
among most of his hearers, he gave them his unstinted
commendation. " He should be sorry," he said, " if any expression which
had fallen from his lips could be construed into a charge against
Mr. Edouart. That clergyman had acted most conscientiously,
and he (the Bishop of London) should deeply regret it if he were
held up to opprobrium. When, however, so great a movement
as this — which he, as the Bishop of the diocese, esteemed to be
one of the best works that had been undertaken since he entered
upon his office — was stopped by a single incumbent, he did feel
that the gentleman who had put his veto upon it did not exer
cise a sound discretion. He desired to thank the noble Earl
(Lord Shaftesbury) and those who had acted with him for the
good work which had been done, and he was happy to think that
there was a prospect, a near prospect, that the example which
had been so worthily set by these gentlemen would be followed
by our great cathedrals. He rejoiced to be able to announce
that Westminster Abbey would be open for Divine service on the
evening of the 3d of January, and he could express no better
wish for the services to be conducted there and in St. Paul's
Cathedral than that they might be attended by as great and
hearty a body of worshippers as were found at the services in
Exeter Hall. Even although the cathedrals should be thrown
open, there would still be room for other services, and he hoped
that so long as he occupied a position of responsibility he should
encourage every good work, whether it was carried on in a
cathedral or elsewhere."1
With the Bishop of London's recommendation, the
Bishops' Bill passed through the House of Lords ; but it
was withdrawn in the Commons, and in the meantime
Lord Shaftesbury and his friends recommenced the Exeter
Hall services, having been advised that by avoiding the
use of liturgical forms, they would deprive Mr. Edouart of
1 Hansard, Dec. 8, 1857, pp. 343-344.
VOL. I. R

258 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xi.
his legal power of veto. This opinion was disputed by
Mr. Edouart's advisers, but he decided to abstain from any
formal veto, and to throw upon the Bishop, as he said, all
the responsibility for the mischief which must inevitably
follow : —
"But though I thus retire," he wrote, "yet I continue to
object to these services, and again appeal to your Lordship as
my Diocesan to maintain the order and constitution of the
Church." The correspondence was made public at the time, and
the Bishop's final reply, dated July 30, 1858, was the sub
ject of much criticism among the more timid or old-
fashioned of his friends.
" I think," he said, " that you have come to a wise determina
tion in resolving not to move further in the question of the
Exeter Hall services. You are aware that I have all along been
of opinion that it was only in a technical sense that a great build
ing like Exeter Hall — intended for the use of London gener
ally — could be held, in its character of a place of public meeting,
to be included in the Parish of St. Michael's, Burleigh Street,
and therefore subject to you. ... I readily concur in the
opinion of your friends that you can in no way be held respon
sible for these services, and need have no apprehension lest you
be compromised by ceasing to take any further steps against
them. ... On me must devolve the responsibility, if zealous
efforts on the part of my clergy to enable the Church to do mis
sionary work in the midst of our overwhelming population, be
allowed to interfere with sound doctrine or the due discipline of
the Church. ... I do, indeed, most earnestly desire that the
Gospel may be preached to the poor, and that the clergy of our
Church may be the means of preaching it ; but I am not insen
sible, on the other hand, to possible dangers of disorder, and am
quite ready to interfere, if in the exercise of my discretion in the
discharge of the duties of my office I come to think that any
interference on my part is desirable."
The excitement aroused by the Exeter Hall addresses
had at least one happy result: it strengthened the Bishop's

1 85 7-59] THE ABBEY AND ST. PAUL'S 259
hands in his determination to secure the opening of West
minster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral for Sunday
Evening Services for the people. From the very day of
his consecration he had been in communication upon the
subject with his friend, Dean Trench of Westminster, and
it was by their joint effort that one by one the many ' lions
in the path ' were conquered, and at last on January 3,
1858, the first great Sunday Evening Service was held in
the Abbey, in the presence of an overflowing congregation.
The Westminster difficulties overcome, the Bishop had
to face obstacles still graver at St. Paul's. It was at first
in vain that he pressed upon Dean Milman and his
colleagues the imperative necessity of utilising the great
space at their command. The ' impossibilities ' were
endless. "The want of such services," wrote Dean
Milman, " is not felt in the City, where so many churches
are available, and it is extremely doubtful whether a
sufficient congregation would attend to justify so costly
an experiment ;" and, further, " there is no Fabric Fund to
provide for the expenses." The Bishop replied by issuing
an appeal to the public for subscriptions, heading the list
himself with a donation of ;£ioo. The funds were soon
forthcoming, and, after further correspondence, the space
under the Dome was at last thrown open to the public
on the evening of Advent Sunday, 1858, when the Bishop
was himself the preacher. The excitement of the occasion
was immense, and Ludgate Hill was for some time com
pletely blocked by the crowd. An hour before the time
of service every seat was occupied, and enormous numbers
(variously estimated in the newspapers at from 10,000
to "100,000) were turned away for want of room. The
services were well attended throughout the winter, and
the Bishop exhausted every effort in the endeavour to
persuade the Chapter of St. Paul's to continue them in

260 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xi.
spring and summer. He promised to make a further
appeal for funds, and to undertake, if desired, the entire
responsibility of finding preachers for the Sunday even
ings ; but the Chapter, to his openly-expressed disappoint
ment, unanimously declined to accede to his request, and
it was hot till long afterwards that the services were
maintained throughout the year.
While these Cathedral negotiations were still incom
plete, the Bishop set himself to promote in the Parish
Churches of North and East London — most of which
were pew-rented — a series of Sunday Evening Services
for working people. The experiment, strange as it now
sounds to say so, was altogether novel, and therein
perhaps in part lay the secret both of its success and
of the opposition offered to it. The following is one of
the placards which were issued in Bethnal Green : —
"Special Services for the People. — Bethnal
Green.
{All seats to be perfectly open to all.)
" To the Working People of Bethnal Green.
"My Friends, — Nearly a year has now passed since my
appointment to the Bishopric of London, and though I have
visited Bethnal Green, and heard much of its churches, no
opportunity has as yet been given me of meeting many of you in
the House of God or elsewhere. I now propose, if God will, to
begin next Sunday evening a course of special services, to be
continued till Christmas, in which I trust we may meet each
other. Let me affectionately beg of you to give me the oppor
tunity of thus joining with you in worship, and to come, that you
may hear the message which I and the other clergy who will
assist me are commissioned to deliver to you on Christ's behalf,
in preparation for the approaching season of Christmas. — Believe
me to be, my friends, your faithful servant in Jesus Christ,
" A. C. London.
"London House, ijth Nov. 1857."

!857-59] SPECIAL SERVICES 261
1
Describing one of thpse Bethnal Green Services, the
Times 1 wrote : —
" Long before eight o'clock, the time appointed for the com
mencement of the service, the spacious church was densely
crowded by such an auditory as it is quite safe to say was never
before seen in any church in England. The people who
assembled were of the poorest possible classes — men with fustian
jackets and unshaven faces ; women whose faces betokened the
sad privations they are called upon to endure, and many in
absolute rags. . . . The church was crowded to suffocation, and
hundreds of persons who had vainly struggled to obtain admis
sion assembled in the adjacent streets, and occupied them
selves in discussing the nature of this new movement for their
edification." The Guardian 2 thus described the first sermon of the
course : —
" Three-fourths probably of the audience were men — a very
considerable proportion of them being weavers of the district.
. . . The Bishop's sermon was entirely extemporaneous, and the
striking earnestness and sincerity which characterised his affec
tionate and eloquent discourse appeared to sustain throughout
the attention of every member of the congregation. This first
service was thoroughly successful, was unmistakably attended
by the working classes, and is one of the first fruits of the newly-
established London Diocesan Home Mission."
A few words are necessary to explain the origin and
character of the last-named organisation. At the close
of his first year of Episcopal work, Bishop Tait convened
a meeting of the incumbents of the most populous London
parishes, and propounded to them his plan for a ' Diocesan
Home Mission' organisation, which should arrange
periodically for such special services as have been
described above, and should also employ a certain number
of clergy, under the Bishop's direction, for distinctly
evangelistic or 'aggressive' work in crowded districts,
1 Dec. 10, 1857. ! Nov. 25, 1857, p. 910.

262 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xl
with a view in most cases to the ultimate formation of
new parishes. This organisation, the first of its kind, has
been the precursor of many others, more or less like it, in
the various English Dioceses ; and it is at this moment,
after more than thirty years of vigorous though unob
trusive work, employing some twenty-eight missionary
clergymen in London, and has an income of about ^6000
a year. It would be tedious to recount in detail the various
evangelistic efforts, sometimes combined, sometimes iso
lated, to which the Bishop gave his encouragement in
those early years.
" I wish to be very explicit," he said in his primary Charge,
"as to the general principle I have followed in permitting or
sanctioning these various efforts. . . . When persons have come
to me to propose any work of Christian usefulness in the diocese,
which has commended itself to the hearty approval of any con
siderable number of earnest and honest members of our Church
— if it has seemed to me to aim, on the whole, at good ends, and
to be undertaken zealously and in good faith, and to have some
fair prospect of advancing Christ's work, I have not hesitated to
give my sanction to it, though its arrangements and mode of
action might be very different from what I should myself have
suggested. ... I have thought that it was the duty of my office
to present no obstacle to the fair development of each man's
zeal, provided I believed him sincerely desirous of dedicating it
to the service of the Church, in which I am intrusted with
authority ; and if persons, differing widely from myself, through
respect for my office, have thus requested me to allow them to
put themselves under my protection, and professed their willing
ness in turn to have their peculiarities restrained by my authority,
I have not thought myself at liberty to decline. I believe this
to be the spirit of St. Paul's rule. . . . This Metropolitan
Diocese is a world in itself, and its schemes of Christian useful
ness must suit all tastes. Let all zealous efforts, honestly under
taken with the view of advancing our Church's means of
reaching souls, be fairly tried. Properly watched and guarded,
they will soon show whether or not they are likely to advance

!857-59] SERVICES IN THEATRES 263
God's glory. Do what we will, some things, which, as indivi
duals, we do not like, cannot be stopped from working, and they
had better work under proper control. They may be blessed of
God ; if they are not of Him, they will come to naught." J
One such endeavour, neither authorised nor forbidden by
the Bishop, was the plan for utilising the London theatres
for Sunday evening services. At a ' Conference of Chris
tians of all Evangelical Denominations,' held November
22, 1859, Mr. Arthur Kinnaird named seven theatres, be
sides other public buildings, which were open to them, and
stated that "the Bishop of London was in cordial har
mony with them, and cared not whether Churchmen or
Nonconformists conducted the services." This, however,
was rashly spoken. The Bishop wrote, in answer to a
correspondent, that he had grave doubts as to the wisdom
of the movement, though he explained that his attitude
must for the time be one of watchful neutrality. These
services in theatres became, in i860, the subject of pro
longed debate in the House of Lords, when the Bishop, in
answer to a widely-supported remonstrance or challenge
from Lord Dungannon, expressed his determination not
to interfere with an effort which, however irregular, had
undoubtedly been productive of much good. Lord
Shaftesbury, in a long and eloquent speech, described the
impressive and orderly character of the services which had
been held in the theatres each Sunday evening, in the
presence of immense multitudes of the poorest classes.
Bishop Tait followed : —
" It had been supposed," he said, " that this was a public
movement which the heads of the Church were officially
sanctioning. The facts were altogether different. It was a
movement of certain private individuals, who, feeling deeply the
responsibility cast on them as Christian men, determined to try
' Charge of 1858, pp. 89-91.

264 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xi.
an experiment, not perhaps consonant with the general feeling
of the Church, but yet one which they thought might result
in great good. No doubt Episcopal disapproval might have
induced the clergy of London to cease to take part in these
services, but he felt that the responsibility would have been grave
indeed of expressing such disapproval in the face of a mass of
human beings whom either they or their forefathers had hitherto
sorely neglected. Could they — dare they — call upon the clergy,
either by inhibitions or by other means, to refrain from minister
ing to these persons ? He was not prepared to say that he went
entirely with the movement. There were some things in it
which he did not like, but as regards the objection which was
entertained to using places of theatrical entertainment, he did
not know whether one result of this movement might not be that
theatres would themselves become something better than they
had ever been before. He begged their Lordships not to go
away with the impression that, because this great experiment was
being tried, no other efforts were being made in the same direc
tion. True, they must wait long before sufficient churches
could be built, but they need not despair on that account ; and
meanwhile, it would be well if those who felt strongly against this
movement would see that the churches we already had were
thrown open to the poor as freely as possible. It might be very
difficult to lure them in, but at present they were not lured in,
but locked out. No idea seemed to be more deeply ingrained
in the minds of many officials of our parishes than that the
abject poor had no right to accommodation in our churches. In
this and other ways perhaps important results might flow from
this movement. They were not to accept it as the best which
could be imagined ; but that it had been productive of good few
could doubt, and he hoped that many other efforts of a kindred
nature might be made M1
One subject with which the Bishop set himself to grapple
in 1858 was the question of Sunday labour. The time
had come, he thought, for a distinct and outspoken protest
on the part of the clergy and laity of the Church against
the increase of Sunday work in the Metropolis. He
1 See Hansard, Feb. 24, i860, p. 1692, etc.

l857-59] THE BISHOP'S PRIMARY CHARGE 265
arranged for simultaneous sermons on the subject in almost
all the London churches, upon a particular Sunday, and
he himself undertook the responsibility of pressing upon
the great Omnibus Companies of London, in a remark
able letter which was made public at the time, the duty of
a relaxation of the hours of Sunday labour for their
servants. On November 17, 1858, just two years after his conse
cration to the See, he delivered in St. Paul's Cathedral his
primary Charge — to which more than one allusion has been
already made. That Charge remains, in the memory of all
who knew him, one of the greatest achievements of his
life. It practically inaugurated a new order of Episcdpal
utterances, and, for a few days at least, all London sang
his praises. Even the outward delivery of the Charge
was a remarkable feat. For nearly five hours he held
the attention of his hearers, under the dome of St. Paul's,
his steady, sonorous voice reaching every ear from the
beginning to the end. Eye-witnesses have often described
how the short November day sank into twilight, then into
darkness, and still, in clear, quiet, earnest tones he went
on, the only object visible in the great building (for the
dome was then unlighted), turning his pages by the light
of two small lamps upon the temporary desk from which
he spoke. Rightly to estimate the significance of this Charge, it is
only necessary to turn, in an Ecclesiastical Library, to a
volume of the Episcopal Charges which had till then been
usual. With a few noteworthy exceptions,1 they were
stilted, conventional, and jejune to the last degree ; and,
so far as the average layman was concerned, they might
1 Among the exceptions were such Charges as those of Bishop Phillpotts,
Bishop Wilberforce, Bishop Thirlwall. Each of these had its own vigor
ous characteristics, but not one of them was in any way similar either in
matter or manner to this Charge of Bishop Tait.

266 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xi.
as well have been left unspoken. The reception accorded
to the Charge of Bishop Tait gave, by its very warmth,
abundant evidence of what the public view of such utter
ances had hitherto been.
" The day on which the Charge was to be delivered," wrote
the Guardian in a critical and cautious article, " was looked for
with extraordinary interest and even anxiety. There are said to
have been nearly a thousand London clergy gathered on that
day under the dome of St. Paul's — an ecclesiastical army, for it
was nothing less, impressive if not unparalleled in mere numbers ;
but to a Churchman especially suggestive from the place where
it was for the first time held, and very solemn from the thought
of the vast and unspeakably important interests which depended
under God upon the men there gathered under one roof.
Amongst such reflections one of the foremost must be the awful
responsibility of him in whom spiritual agencies, so many and
powerful, centre for direction. It was evident that the Bishop
keenly felt the importance of the occasion, not only from the
earnestness and emphasis of his delivery, but from the elaborate
completeness and finish bestowed on the Charge both in matter
and composition. . . . Truly now, if ever, the mitre is lined
with thorns, and to draw up a Charge, such as was delivered on
Wednesday last, is as delicate and difficult an undertaking of its
kind as a man can have laid upon him."
Other newspapers, not usually giving much attention
to matters ecclesiastical, devoted articles and correspond
ence columns to the subject for several weeks after the
delivery of the Charge.
" A Christian, a gentleman, and a man of sense, is the Bishop
of London, and the ample, unreserved view which he has taken
of church questions in this country, in the metropolis, and in
certain parishes, abounds with evidence to the qualities which
he possesses for the post assigned to him."
Again :
" Bishop Tait has well won his first laurels. Had words as
free from ambiguity, had plain outspoken designation of the

^51-59] RECEPTION OF THE CHARGE 267
things condemned, marked bygone Charges delivered in the
same Cathedral, many of the evils of to-day might never have
been." Among the letters which he immediately received from
men of weight was the following from the aged Arch
bishop Whately, who had known him years before in his
undergraduate days at Oxford : —

The Archbishop of Dublin to the Bishop of London.
"Dublin, 30 Nov. 1858.
" My dear Lord, — I have delayed acknowledging the excel
lent Charge which your Lordship kindly sent me, till I could
present a little tract containing the substance of two of mine.
"Your Lordship's Charge presents a striking contrast — as
all must admit — to the prevailing idea of an Episcopal Charge,
viz., an elaborate and studied inanity, carefully avoiding every
thing that might be displeasing to any of the clergy, and accord
ingly keeping clear of everything on which there may be two
opinions among them ; thence dealing only in vague and barren
generalities, as unprofitable as they are unobjectionable.
" I am glad to see a Bishop (especially of the greatest Diocese
of the world, and which I have always thought ought to be made
two) determined to show that he has at least something to say,
and is resolved to say it. — Believe me to be, your Lordship's
faithfully, Rd. Dublin."
The controversial portions of the Charge have been
already referred to, but it was not to these that the main
interest attached. It was rather to the record and the
promise of the new and larger work by which he was
trying, in the spirit not less of a Christian statesman than
of an Ecclesiastic, to throw fresh life into the Church of
England, to popularise it, and to make it altogether
national. He called attention, in the very forefront of his
Charge, to the position and duties assigned to him in the

268 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xi.
National Legislature,1 and to the influence of London
upon the country as a whole : —
" To provide," he said, " for the spiritual wants of the metro
polis would be conferring a boon on the whole kingdom of
which this metropolis is the heart ; as, on the other hand, to
neglect the masses of the metropolis is to work ruin in the State.
. . . The Church as a spiritual institution, the Church of Christ,
can never perish ; and this our own national development of the
Church of Christ — with its own peculiar institutions, dear to true-
hearted Englishmen from the historical associations of the cen
turies of England's most real greatness ; which has been bound
up with so many crises of the nation's history in times past ;
which men love because it maintains the faith in which their
fathers lived and died, and in which they desire to rear their
children ; to which all the Protestant nations of the earth look
as the great bulwark of that at once reasonable and loving Chris
tianity which commends itself only the more to right-minded
men, the more they love freedom and the more they are educated
— this, our great national development of the Church of Christ,
is in no danger if we, its ministers, are what we ought to be."
Upon these lines he proceeded to consider in copious
(his critics said over-copious) detail the training of
candidates for Holy Orders, the duties of a licensed curate
in his earlier ministry, and then of the parish clergy in
their maturer years, diverging to discuss the incidental
questions of Ritualism and the Confessional upon one
side, and of a sceptical ' intellectualism ' upon the other.
The respective difficulties of town and country parishes,
the peculiar problem presented by the empty churches of
the rich city parishes from which the population had
moved away, and, above all, as has been already said, the
need of more vigorous and • aggressive ' work for those
who had, for one reason or another, become alienated
from the Church's ministrations : such was the compre
hensive theme of this remarkable Charge. Some of the
1 Charge, p. 8.

1857-59] HARD WORK 269
questions (the incidence of Church rates for example) are
now of merely antiquarian importance. Others, such as
the ' City Churches ' problem, remain still unsolved —
perhaps insoluble, considering how various are the con
ditions to be satisfied. But on each and all of these
questions — old or new — he gave abundant food for
thought, and the Charge retains its practical interest to
this hour.
The effort exhausted him completely, and he went to
Brighton to recruit. There, six days later, his diary has
the following : —
" Nov. 23, 1858. — This day two years I was consecrated
Bishop of London. God's mercy has been great since then.
Health : strength : the society of my wife and my boy, with
our dear little L. : a daily increasing interest in my work. I
would fain hope that by God's blessing I have done somewhat
to make this Church more truly the Church of the nation.
Lord, pardon my great shortcomings."
The years that immediately followed were not, so far
as the Diocese was concerned, eventful, though they were
full of unremitting work. The diaries give evidence of
his anxiety — an anxiety inspired by frequent warnings of
ill-health — to strengthen the broad foundations he had
laid, and to arrange the plans of future effort. Such
entries as the following occur more than once : —
"Fulham, Sunday Evening, 20th fuly 1862. — Today and
yesterday I have been again laid up. Very unpleasant symp
toms : fainting and the like. Obliged to stay in bed all yester
day, and to get the Bishop of Worcester to preach for me to-day.
It is good for me to have the nearness of death thus brought
before me. I trust, if God is pleased to call me, I am ready. . . .
O God, watch over me this night, and if it be Thy good pleasure
let this illness pass. But Thou knowest what is best for us, for
my wife, my darling children. I place them, O Lord, in Thy
hands : keep them, I beseech Thee. I have had, as usual, a

270 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [cn. xi.
very busy week, and have been much in God's House. How
great the privilege of thus ministering continually ! . . . I pray
for the Diocese. Prosper the works undertaken in Thy name.
Make them conduce to the good of souls. To-day I have had
an hour's conversation with Hugh, the under-butler, about his
confirmation. How many am I privileged to address at these
confirmations ! . . . My dear boy comes home, I hope, from
school in ten days. It would be a great pleasure to live to see
him grow up. But God knoweth what is best for him and
me. . . ."
The fainting-fits proved difficult to cure, and he went to
Scotland for a holiday.
On September 6th, 1862, Archbishop Sumner died at
Addington, and three weeks later Archbishop Longley
was translated from York to Canterbury. Bishop Tait
was in the Highlands when he received the following
letter :— Viscount Palmerston to the Bishop of London.
"Broadlands, 27/A Sept. 1862.
" My dear Lord, — I have been authorised by the Queen to
propose to you to take charge of the Archbishopric of York, which
will become vacant by the transfer of the present Archbishop to
the See of Canterbury ; and I hope that this proposal may be
agreeable to you. — Yours faithfully, Palmerston."
The Bishop asked for a few days in which to consider
the proposal. He consulted some three or four trusted
friends, and although their advice was, on the whole, in
favour of the move, he was unable to persuade himself
that it would be right to leave London, and on October
5th he wrote to Lord Palmerston declining the Arch
bishopric. The following letters ensued : —
Viscount Palmerston to the Bishop of London. I^UX
"Broadlands, gth Oct. &*8e.
" My dear Lord, — I have received your letter of yesterday,
and I cannot refrain from asking you to reconsider your decision-

l857-59] ARCHBISHOPRIC OF YORK OFFERED 271
It is of course for yourself alone to determine the relative dignity
of the post which I have proposed to you and that which you
now hold, and as to the means of doing good which those posts
respectively afford; but I should certainly not have made the
proposal to you, if I had not thought the balance was in favour of
York. There is, however, another consideration which I should
wish earnestly to press upon you, and that is a regard for your
own health. I may have been misinformed, but I have been told
that your health has been very much affected by the labours of
your present post, and I am very sure that as long as you hold
that post, you will not slacken in the amount of labour which you
may think that a due performance of your duties may require.
But if your health should break down under the continued pres
sure to which it is exposed, a great part of those duties would
necessarily remain unperformed, or would be inadequately per
formed by others, and you would have your personal discomfort
embittered by the reflection that interests which you have at
heart were suffering. The duties of the Archbishopric of York,
though more commanding and extensive in their range and
nature, are nevertheless not so personally harassing, and you
would be able to perform them with less strain upon your health,
and with still greater advantage to the interests of the Church. —
My dear Lord, yours faithfully, Palmerston."

The Bishop of London to Viscount Palmerston.
"Cromer, Norfolk, 8th October 1862.
" My dear Lord, — Accept my best thanks for your letter of
the 6th. I assure you that if I had not, since receiving your first
letter, weighed your very considerate proposal most anxiously, and
viewed it in every aspect before arriving at my decision, I should
have been shaken by your renewed kindness. As it is, however,
I feel that I have already given very full weight to what you so
considerately urge. I fully appreciated the kind motive which
offered me, in the Archbishopric of York, the opportunity of
removing to a post at once of greater dignity, and of less work.
The question of my health was very seriously considered, and I
arrived at the conclusion — in which my usual medical adviser's
opinion confirms me — that, humanly speaking, it is likely to be
as good in the See of London as in that of York. I do not pro-

272 < LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xi.
fess to be a strong man, and at times I am obliged to take great
care ; but certainly I am much stronger than I was six years ago,
when I first entered on the duties of the London diocese, and
from my peculiar temperament I have no particular reason to
think that the work does me any harm. On the other hand, I
have had to consider that a very great assistance to me in the
performance of my present duties is derived from the complete
knowledge of the details of my work in London, which six years'
experience of the diocese has secured — that I might find the
distant and untried work of York less congenial, and, though less
pressing, more difficult for me — that, without some very strong
counterbalancing reason, it is not desirable that I should leave
plans which I have begun, but scarcely matured, in London.
"I am sure, when your Lordship reads this, you will not
think that I have lightly set aside the offer made and renewed to
me, or that I should be justified in now altering my decision. —
Believe me to be, with renewed thanks, my dear Lord, your
faithful and obliged servant, A. C. London."
He was encouraged and cheered by the chorus of
approval with which his decision was greeted in London.
Men of all sorts wrote to him to express their satisfaction.
" Our great fear," wrote one friend, " was that some who might
succeed you in London would be drawn more and more by the
pressing calls of parochial • activity, meetings, etc., away from the
more difficult work of influencing public opinion, whether legisla
tion, or religion, or theology."
" For you to give up London for York," wrote Lady Wake,
" would have seemed to me like a man making a second marriage
while the first wife and family were not only yet living, but
possessed all the husband's thoughts and affections."
The following extracts from his journal give a picture
of what had passed in his own mind : —
"Douglas Hotel, Edinburgh, nth Sept. 1862. — The Lord
Advocate and Sir Harry Moncreiff to dinner, discussing the
accounts of the dear Archbishop's death. Good old man !
' Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the

x857-S9] EXTRACTS FROM DIARY > 273
joy of thy Lord.' After 60 years of faithful ministerial service, he
is freed from its burdens and cares, and has quietly fallen asleep
in Jesus. A great loss. For all who knew the good old man
venerated him. Every newspaper I have since read speaks of
him with respect. An anxious time for the Church. The office
indeed a difficult one. O Lord, whosoever is appointed to it,
guide him by Thy Holy Spirit."
"Weem, Perthshire, Sunday, 28th Sept. 1862. — Last night
brought the announcement of Longley's appointment. . . . My
anxiety is lest the Evangelical and Liberal sections of the Church
may lose what they have gained of late years. But all my
thoughts have been turned in another channel by the most un
expected receipt, before afternoon service, of a letter from Palmer
ston, offering me the Archbishopric of York. I should have at
once declined to leave my great post in London for this quieter
Sphere had it not been that I have some fears as to my health,
and the difficulties which beset the final settlement of what are to
be the limits of the London diocese."
" Palace, Norwich, Sunday night, $th October 1862. — An
anxious week ended. From Weem to Lochearnhead. From Loch-
earnhead to Drummond Castle, where we spent two evenings. Most
interesting and peculiar old place. From Drummond Castle to
Harviestoun, where, on Thursday morning, consecrated the dear
old burial ground. A solemn thing thus to stand and pray over
so many of our dead. ... On Thursday night to York. Friday,
inspected Bishopthorpe and came on to Peterborough. On
Saturday to this place. At the Ely station wrote to Palmerston
declining the Archbishopric of York, and as we drove through the
streets of Norwich stopped and posted the letter. I had scarcely
written it, at Ely, when Mr. Walpole came from the train to ask
whether he was to congratulate me. He seemed quite taken
. aback on hearing that I had declined, and so has every one ; but
I feel satisfied that it was the right course. No doubt the deci
sion has been very difficult. Everywhere the news of the offer
having been made has preceded us, and all friends have thought
we would accept. We have sought God's guidance. On Friday
night at Peterborough I suffered great anxiety and could scarcely
sleep. But the fact is this : there could be no reason for the
change except on the plea of health ; and an inspection of Bishop
thorpe, and full consideration of the nature of the duties and the
vol. 1. s

274 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xi.
sort of life, convinced us both that it was doubtful whether my
health would really be likely to be stronger in that more Northern
climate. And if this was doubtful, no other argument of suf
ficient weight remained to lead me to break off all my London
work in its imperfect state, withdraw myself from the command
of what must ever be the key of the Church of England — a post
second only in importance to Canterbury — and separate myself
also from all the many fellow-workers who helped me and ex
pected to be helped by me. O Lord, in Thy hands are the
issues. Guide all aright. I have desired all through to place
myself under that guidance."
"Cromer, Sunday, igth October 1862. — A very busy week.
Six days' hard work brought me, by dinner-time yesterday, to the
close of the rough draft of my Charge. Every day also I have
had many letters : some, of common business, in which Hassard,
who has been here, greatly helped me ; others in which no one
could help me. One from F. Maurice, announcing his intention
of resigning his Charge. ... I wrote a careful answer, anxious
if possible to preserve so holy a man to the active service of the
Church.1 Many of the letters I have received within these few
days seem to show that I have a place in the Church in connec
tion with men of unsettled minds, which no other of our present
Bishops can occupy. And this, amongst other signs, seems to
tell me more clearly that I have been right in deciding to remain
in London. " During the week we have been reading in the evenings the
third volume of Carlyle's Frederick the Great. A vast improve
ment in style and perhaps also in matter over the two first. To
day twice at Church. Our three little girls very engaging. Baby
has taken to insisting on saying her little prayer to me before she
goes to bed. Little Edith came to us on the sands, saying, ' God
can't see me, can He ? He is in Heaven ; how can He ? He
can't see me when I am in bed. Where is He then ? ' It was
the continuation of an argument with Lucy. I repeated to her
the words of her hymn about ' One I cannot see who loves and
cares for me.' "
The decision as to York made, he returned with re
newed zest to face what were perhaps the busiest and
certainly the most stormy years of his London life.
1 See p. 512.

CHAPTER XII.
ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
1860-64.
A CONTROVERSY had already been for some time in
progress, more important perhaps than any other in
Tait's public life, a conflict in which he was to stand
from the first between two fires, and to run a risk of
alienating the very friends in whose cause he was suffer
ing reproach.
In his primary Charge, to which reference has been
already made, he had expressed himself as follows in
speaking of the temptations and dangers of the younger
clergy : —
" It is not to be denied that there is, in this age, a great danger
of what we may call intellectualism, as contradistinguished from
a sound and vigorous exercise of the intellect. Students in our
Universities, wearied of the dogmatism which ruled unchecked
there some years ago, are very apt now to regard every maxim of
theology or philosophy as an open question. Difficult questions
there undoubtedly are, connected principally with the exact limits
and nature of inspiration, which cannot in this age be avoided by
men of inquiring minds. But I have no fear of such questions if
they are approached in a reverential, truth-loving, prayerful spirit. >
There are exceptions of minds peculiarly formed ; but, as a
general rule, I have no fear of a man becoming sceptical, if he I
has not a secret love of the independence of scepticism and a /
sort of self-sufficient appreciation of the supposed superiority to
the prejudices of ordinary mortals which an enlightened scepti
cism seems to imply. If a young clergyman is a man of prayer,
... if, having a reverential sense of God's presence, he seeks to
* 275

276 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xii.
be taught of God, I cannot myself fear that he will be beguiled
by the dangerous temptations of a sceptical and would-be intel
lectual age. . . . But let him beware in his early days how he
trifles with intellectualism, lest his whole nature be corrupted, and
a shallow half-belief come to be all that he has to offer, either to
his people or his own soul, instead of deep-rooted love and
faith."1 This was the position he maintained from first to last
during the stormy controversies of the next few years.
But it was a position taken, at that time, by comparatively
few. The science of reverent Biblical criticism was, to
most people, absolutely unknown, and it is difficult now,
a quarter of a century afterwards, to realise the vague
terror with which much of what is to-day the general
belief of Christian men was lumped together as ' Ration
alism,' and thereupon condemned as an abomination.
The mob who in their jealousy for Protestantism hooted
and reviled the Ritualists at St. George's in the East,
although more ignorant and noisy, were scarcely more
violent in spirit than many of the earnest and well-mean
ing men and women who, week after week, cried aloud for
vengeance against the traitorous ' Rationalists ' who held
'free-thinking' ideas about the six days of Creation, or
expressed an honest doubt whether the Deluge covered
the Himalayas. But, as in the analogous case, the outcry
was not all unreasonable. If the one found occasional
justification in the fact that a good many Ritualists joined
the Church of Rome, the other was able to point out with
truth that the school of free inquiry led some of its
scholars into sheer negation and unbelief. In no con
troversy was there graver need for a calm sobriety of
judgment on the part of the rulers and leaders of the
Church. Although the echoes of this particular battle have now
1 Charge of 1858, pp. 66, 67.

1860-64] "ESSAYS AND REVIEWS" 277
for many years been silent, the area of the strife was at the
time so wide, and Bishop Tait's position in it was so
peculiar and so prominent, that it is necessary to tell the
story at some length.
In February 1 860 a volume of theological Essays by
different authors was published under the colourless title
of Essays and Reviews. The character and purpose of the
volume were made clear in its short preface or " advertise
ment," which ran as follows : —
" It will readily be understood that the Authors of the ensuing
Essays are responsible for their respective articles only. They
have written in entire independence of each other, and without
concert or comparison.
"The Volume, it is hoped, will be received as an attempt to
illustrate the advantage derivable to the cause of religious and
moral truth, from a free handling, in a becoming spirit, of
subjects peculiarly liable to suffer by the repetition of conven
tional language, and from traditional methods of treatment."
The Essays were seven in number. The first was by
Dr. Temple, Head Master of Rugby, its title being The
Education of the World. The seventh was by Professor
Jowett, On the Interpretation of Scripture. The other
essayists were Dr. Rowland Williams, Professor Baden
Powell, the Rev. H. B.. Wilson, Mr. C. W. Goodwin, and
the Rev. Mark Pattison.
The volume awakened at first no very absorbing interest.
In April a severe but discriminating review appeared in
the Guardian, condemning the book as a whole, but (
drawing a marked distinction between the different essay
ists, and specially exonerating Dr. Temple's essay from
having given any just grounds of offence. Other criticisms
which followed in less guarded terms1 served chiefly to
1 Among these was a long and vigorous article in the Westminster Review^
which attracted great attention at the time. It has been commonly attributed
to the pen of Mr. Frederic Harrison.

278 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT. [ch. xii.
stimulate curiosity as to what the book contained, and
when, in his autumn Charge, Bishop Wilberforce went out
of his way to denounce its teaching in unmeasured tones,
its celebrity and circulation increased at a bound. In
January, Bishop Wilberforce returned to the attack in an
elaborate and weighty article which he contributed to the
Quarterly Review, wherein he arraigned the seven essays
collectively and severally, and declared his distinct con
viction that their writers could not " with moral honesty
maintain their posts as clergymen of the Established
Church."1 So little are the details now remembered, that it
may be well to say something, however briefly, upon the
nature of the volume and of the attacks upon it. The
preface quoted above stated distinctly that the seven
authors had written " in entire independence of each other,
and without concert or comparison," but it was vehemently
urged that the next sentence of the preface practically
admitted " a unity from which joint responsibility cannot
be severed. Any orie who undertook to unite in the free
handling of such subjects in a common volume made him
self responsible for the common effect of all the essays as
a whole." 2
This, however, was the extremest point to which the
theory of their joint responsibility could be fairly carried.
Every unbiassed reader was forced to admit that the two
essays which opened and closed the volume — the handi
work of Dr. Temple and Mr. Jowett — were, in reverence
of tone, earnestness of purpose, and ability of construction,
as different as possible from those which formed the centre
of the book, the contemptuous argument of Mr. Baden
Powell, for example, upon the credibility of miracles, or
1 Quarterly Review, Jan. 1861, p. 302.
2 Ibid. p. 250.

1860-64] AN AGITATION BEGINS 279
the rude flippancy of Dr. Williams with respect to the
Divine claims of the Old Testament.1
The author of the fourth essay, the Rev. H. B. Wilson,
had in 1841 been one of the four tu\ors who, with Tait as
their leader, protested against Tract XC. ; and his views
as to the meaning of honest subscription to the articles
had evidently undergone a startling change, in the twenty
years that had elapsed, for he was now able to argue in
favour of the very mode of interpretation which he had
then denounced, and some pages of his essay upon the
National Church gave more pain perhaps to devout minds
than any others in the volume.2
But if the essayists had, to say the least, blindly com
mitted themselves to rash and ill-considered statements
in one direction, it cannot be denied that those who
stood forth to answer or impugn them used language
on the other side which would nowadays be generally
regarded as scarcely less open to objection. In the judg
ment of Bishop Tait, and of others who felt with him, the
strain of denunciation in which the champions of ortho
doxy indulged, and their dogmatic assertions as to what
is essential to the faith, contributed not a little to the
harmfulness of the whole controversy.3 An agitation of
the wildest sort immediately began. Addresses to the
Archbishops came up from Rural Deaneries on every side,
calling attention to the mischievous tendency of the
1 Even Arthur Stanley in his fiery article in the Edinburgh Review in
defence of the essayists condemns Dr. Williams's 'flippant and contemp
tuous tone ' and the 'unbecoming ' character of his remarks. — Edin. Rev.,
April 1 86 1, p. 479.
2 See Essays and Reviews, pp. 180-183, 186, etc.
s Even Bishop Wilberforce, for example, who was by no means the hottest
of the controversialists, described men as in danger of being " robbed
unawares of the very foundations of the Faith," if they should be persuaded
to " accept allegorically, or as parable, or poetry, or legend, the story of a
serpent tempter, of an ass speaking with man's voice, of an arresting of the
earth's motion, or of a reversal of its motion." — Charge of i860, pp. 69, 70.

280 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xii.
volume, and entreating that some action might be taken
against its authors, who were regarded and sometimes
described as traitors to their sacred calling — traitors,
too, whose position — to quote the words of some of the
memorialists— gave them " opportunities favourable in
no ordinary degree for the diffusion of error." This
it was which mainly excited the public mind. As in
the case of Bishop Colenso, a few years later, it was
not so much the ' what ' as the ' who says it,' which
aroused general attention.
"If other men," wrote Bishop Wilberforce, "had put forth
the suggestions contained in this volume it would not, with
one or two marked exceptions, have been found to possess
either the depth, or the originality, or the power, or the liveliness
which could have prevented its falling still-born from the press.
It has been read, because to all it is new and startling — to
some delightful and to others shocking — that men holding such
posts should advocate such doctrines : that the clerical head
of one of our great schools . . . two Professors in our famous
University of Oxford, . . . the Vice-Principal of the College at
Lampeter for training the clergy of the principality, and a
country clergyman famed in his day for special efforts on behalf
of orthodoxy — that such men as these should be the putters
forth of doctrines which seem at least to be altogether incom
patible with the Bible and the Christian Faith as the Church of
England has hitherto received it — this has been a paradox so
rare and so startling as to wake up for the time the English
mind to the distasteful subject of a set of sceptical metaphysical
speculations regarding many long-received fundamental truths.
. . . We hold that the attempt of the essayists to combine their
advocacy of such doctrines with the retention of the status and
emolument of Church of England clergymen is simply moral
dishonesty." 1
While the excitement was growing to its height both
Dr. Temple and Mr. Jowett visited Bishop Tait at Fulham.
1 Quarterly Review, Jan. 1861, pp. 250-274.

1860-64] ACTION OF THE BISHOPS 281
On January 20th, 1861, the Bishop's Journal has the
following entry : —
" Jowett has been with me for two days. The unsatisfactory
part of his system seems to be that there is an obscurity over
what he believes of the centre of Christianity. As to the out
works, the conflict there is of comparatively little importance ;
but the Central Figure of the Lord Jesus, the central doctrine of
the efficacy of His Sacrifice — in fact St. Paul's Christianity — is
this distinctly recognised by the writers of his school ? I have
urged both on him and Temple, who has also been with me,
that they are bound to state for their own sakes and for the sake
of those whom they are likely to influence what is the positive
Christianity which they hold. It is a poor thing to be pulling
down. Let them build up.
" Lord, fix my own heart and soul on the great Christian
Verities. Thou knowest my failures. Breathe into my heart Thy
Holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ. Amen."
Early in February, while the addresses and memorials
in various forms were still flowing in, the Bishops met in
force at Lambeth, and decided on replying to one of these
addresses in a joint letter, which might serve when pub
lished as a virtual answer to all the remonstrants, whatever
the form of their respective appeals. The particular
address to which they thus replied was one which ema
nated from a Rural Deanery in Dorsetshire. It will be
observed that its objection to rationalistic teaching is
couched in general terms, and that there is no express
reference to the obnoxious volume : —
" We wish," said the memorialists, " to make known to your
Grace and to all the Bishops the alarm we feel at some late indi
cations of the spread of rationalistic and semi-infidel doctrines
among the beneficed clergy of the realm. We allude especially
to the denial of the atoning efficacy of the Death and Passion of
our Blessed Saviour Jesus Christ, both God and Man, for us
men and for our salvation, and to the denial also of a Divine In
spiration, peculiar to themselves alone, of the Canonical Scriptures
of the Old and New Testament.

282 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xii.
" We would earnestly beseech your Grace and your Lordships,
as faithful stewards over the House of God, to discourage by all
means in your power the spread of speculations which would
rob our countrymen, more especially the poor and unlearned, of
their only sure stay and comfort for time and for eternity. And
to this end we would more especially and most earnestly beseech
you, in your Ordinations, to ' lay hands suddenly on no man '
till you have convinced yourselves (as far as human precaution
can secure it) that each Deacon who in reply to the question,
' Do you unfeignedly believe all the Canonical Scriptures of the
Old and New Testament ? ' answers ' I do believe them,' speaks
the truth as in the sight of God."
To this address Archbishop Sumner replied as follows : —
"Lambeth, February 12, 1861.
" Reverend Sir,1— I have taken the opportunity of meeting
many of my Episcopal brethren in London to lay your address
before them.
" They unanimously agree with me in expressing the pain it
has given them that any clergyman of our Church should have
published such opinions as those concerning which you have
addressed us.
" We cannot understand how these opinions can be held con
sistently with an honest subscription to the formularies of our
Church, with many of the fundamental doctrines of which they
appear to us essentially at variance.
"Whether the language in which these views are expressed is
such as to make the publication an act which could be visited in
the Ecclesiastical Courts or to justify the Synodical condemna
tion of the book which contains them, is still under our gravest
consideration. But our main hope is our reliance on the bless
ing of God, in the continued and increasing earnestness with
which we trust that we and the clergy of our several dioceses
may be enabled to teach and preach that good deposit of sound
doctrine which our Church teaches in its fulness, and which we
pray that she may, by God's grace, ever set forth as the uncor-
rupted Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. — I remain, reverend Sir,
your faithful servant, J. B. Cantuar.
1 The reply is addressed to the Rev. H. B. Williams, whose name stood
at the head of this particular memorial.

1860-64] ! POSITION OF BISHOP TAIT 281
( 6
" I am authorised to append the following names :—

C. T. Ebqr.
A. C. London.
H. M. Durham.
C. R. Winton.
H. Exeter.
G. Peterborough.
C. St. Davids.
A. T. Chichester.
J. Lichfield.
S. Oxon.
T. Ely.
T. V. St. Asaph.
J. P. Manchester.

R. D. Hereford.
J. Chester.
A. Llandaff.
R. J. Bath and Wells.
J. Lincoln.
C Gloucester and Bristol.
W. Sarum.
R. Ripon.
J. T. Norwich.
J. C. Bangor.
J. Rochester.
S. Carlisle."

It had not been without debate that this answer was
agreed to. Bishop Tait's close friendship with two at
least of the Essayists made his own position a somewhat
difficult one. But he seems from the first to have taken
the line to which he adhered to the end, drawing a marked
distinction between the different essays, while he joined in
his brethren's censure of the rash and harmful character
of the volume regarded as a whole.1
1 The biographer of Bishop Wilberforce has in this case, as in many others,
published the Bishop's recollection of what took place at the private meet
ings of the Bishops (vol. iii. p. 3). These meetings being regarded as
entirely confidential, no official record is kept of the discussions or rather
conversations which take place. During the years covered by Bishop Wil-
berforce's Biography there was not even a rough minute-book of the proceed
ings. The confidential character of these conversations would obviously be
at an end if the death of any single Bishop were to be regarded as justifying
the immediate publication of his memoranda of what had passed. Whatever
the personal interest of the Bishop's memoranda, as recording the impression
left upon his own mind, they can in no sense be regarded as authoritative
history, and any one who has had the opportunity of comparing them with other
sources of information upon the subject must have been struck by the wide
but perhaps not unnatural dissimilarity which occasionally exists between
the Bishop's recollection of what was said, especially by those who differed
from him, and the recollection of others. No evidence has been given to the
world that Bishop Wilberforce intended, or would have sanctioned, the

284 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [CH' m
When the formal letter of the Bishops was first Pub
lished in the newspapers, it was unfortunately r*0^ accom
panied by a copy of the particular address t° which it
was a reply, and to this mistake may be trace° n°t a
little of the misunderstanding evidenced in sf>me parts of
the following correspondence.1 The omission was soon
rectified, but the mischief had been done.

Canon A. P. Stanley to the Bishop of London.
"Ch. Ch., Oxford, Feb. 16, 1861.
" My dear Bishop, — I do not .k now whdn I have been more
startled than in seeing your name appended to the document
which this morning appeared in the TimHf
" You have yourself expressed to me in a manner so decided
as to allow me to repeat your opinion in various places, that you
saw nothing seriously to condemn in Jowett's Essay and hardly
anything in Temple's.
"You also gave me to understand when I was at Fulham
(and thus effectually prevented me from taking any active step in
the matter) that no measure could be taken by the Bishops
except a general recommendation to the clergy to preach the
truth more actively. This second communication I considered
confidential till now.
" I consider that the subscription of your name to this docu
ment (especially paragraph 3) is in direct contradiction to what
you said to me on the occasion to which I refer. How can I
explain this ? What can I say in your defence ? — Ever yours,
"A. P. Stanley."
publication of these reminiscences of proceedings which he has himself
described as "most confidential" {Life, iii. 114). Strange to say, they have
been incorporated, as though they were authoritative records, in at least
one popular " History of the Church of England."
1 It may be thought that this correspondence is reproduced at unnecessary
length, and that the more personal part of the controversy might well have
been omitted. But after consultation with the Bishop of London, and with the
biographer of Dean Stanley, it has seemed to all to be the fairest and wisest
course that the whole correspondence should be left intact, as serving to throw
light upon the private and personal, as well as the official, side of the charac
ter which this Biography endeavours to portray.

1860-64] CORRESPONDENCE WITH STANLEY 285

The Bishop of London to Canon A. P. Stanley.
"London House, February 18, 1861.
" My dear Stanley, — In paragraph 3 of the Archbishop's
letter, as given in the Times, there is a typographical error which
materially alters its tone. The word 'their' is substituted for
' these.' This shall be publicly corrected.
" If you read the letter with this alteration, you will see that
the paper in question contains simply what I stated to you in
the garden at Fulham as likely to appear. No allusion is made
in the paper to any individual writer, and it is open for each to
show that he is not responsible for what others have written, or
for the general system which the public has put together from
comparing the seven essays.
" Trust me that I have done in this matter what is best, and
what was absolutely necessary.
" As to Temple's essay, I mentioned to you, that, in my judg
ment, there is nothing in it, taken by itself, to which such a
condemnation as that of the Archbishop's letter can apply.
The same must be said of Pattison's. Jowett's has a deeply
earnest tone about it. Those who are acquainted with his other
writings will find far less to object to in this essay than in the
Dissertations or Commentary.
" The book of the Essays and Reviews as a whole is what has
excited so much feeling. Cannot the copartnery be dissolved ?
Surely it is wrong to allow new editions of it as a whole to be
appearing. The variety of names in that list of the whole Bench
appended to the Archbishop's letter ought to convince you of
the gravity of the occasion, of which no one but ourselves (the
Bishops) can judge. I am confident that the course pursued
has been the right one, and the kindest to the writers. I urged
on both Jowett and Temple the duty of their each publishing
something of a positive character, which would show that they
are not to be confounded, say, with Baden Powell. I wish you
could bring this about. Temple at least would have no difficulty
in doing so. — Yours ever, A. C. London."

286 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xii.

Canon A. P. Stanley to the Bishop of London.
" Ch. Ch., Oxford, Feb. 19, 1861.
"My dear Bishop, — Thanks for your letter. The typo
graphical correction makes grammar, where before there was
none, but unfortunately makes the sense (at least till the
world is allowed to see the specification of the opinions thus
denounced) worse than before.
" I had hoped that you would have been able to remove the
contradiction between your acquittal of three of the Essayists to
me in private and the sweeping censure of them in public. I am
deeply grieved for your sake that this contradiction should remain.
" I cannot understand any popular panic justifying such a
course. Of course I am quite aware that Bishops have the
opportunity of hearing what does not reach the ears of ordinary
persons. But ordinary persons hear much which does not reach
the ears of Bishops, and I have unfortunately the means of know
ing quite enough to assure me that, unless this call upon such
men as Temple, Jowett, and Pattison to leave the Church of
England turn out a mere brutum fulmen, which I trust in Heaven
that it may be, you could not have adopted a measure more
calculated to injure the cause of Christianity or of the Church
in this country.
" With regard to what passed between you and myself about
the Episcopal meeting, as it only concerns my own course in
the matter, I need say no more of it. Of your general opinion
of the book, I shall, however, consider myself free to speak, on
all fitting occasions. Indeed it must be sufficiently apparent
from what is known of your own views on these matters.
"I am sure that you will agree with me, that 'until this
tyranny is overpast,' we had better have no more communication
on this subject, at least none of a confidential nature. It can
only lead to misunderstandings.
" It would have been far better that, under the circumstances,
you had not invited me to Fulham on that occasion.
" I do not doubt that you acted with reluctance and with kind
intentions. I have every hope that the catastrophe, which the
Episcopal letter endeavours to precipitate, may, by God's help
and man's courage, be averted. — Yours ever,
"A. P. Stanley."

1860-64] CORRESPONDENCE WITH STANLEY 287

The Bishop of London to Canon A. P. Stanley
" London House, Feby. 20th, 1861.
" My dear Stanley, — I agree with you that there is no use
in continuing a discussion, in which each of us must necessarily
take our own view from the data brought under our particular
notice. I feel perfectly confident of the rightness and wisdom
of what has been done, and I expect you to view the matter as I
do in three months.
" I will only say two things : First, that there is really no in
consistency between the censure of certain opinions contained in
the book, which give it its general tone in the estimate of those
who regard it as a whole, and what I stated to you yesterday,
and have often stated publicly, to be my opinion of certain of the
Essays and Essayists.
" Second, That your visit to Fulham at the time of the Epi
scopal Meeting was arranged weeks before, and that I had no
means whatever of knowing till after you had been with us for at
least half of your visit, how things were likely to go as to this
matter. I believe it is best, as you say, that the matter should
drop for the present between us. I hope to be with you on
the 22d of March to stay till the morning of the 25th. By that
time I almost expect that you will be of my mind in the matter :
but if not, we can agree to differ. — Ever yours,
_ " A. C. London.
" You are of course quite at liberty to repeat what I have said
respecting Temple's, Pattison's, and Jowett's Essays. My
opinions respecting them have been stated continually without
reserve. Would that their Essays were freed from the company
of Powell, Williams, and Wilson."

The Rev. Dr. Temple to the Bishop of London.
"Rugby, 21st Feb. 1861.
" My Lord, — I have just obtained a copy of the Address
presented to the Archbishop of Canterbury by a number of the
clergy of the United Church of England and Ireland, to which

288 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xn.
His Grace's letter to the Rev. H. B.. Williams, signed by yourself
and the other Bishops, was a reply.
" I find among the other extracts which are given as contain
ing opinions against which the Address protests, a passage from
my own Essay, on the Education of the World.
" In His Grace's reply, these opinions are declared to appear
to him and His Right Reverend Brethren to be essentially at
variance with the fundamental doctrines of our Church.
" I hope your Lordship will not think me to be asking more
than I have a fair right to claim if I request you to be so kind
as to inform me with what fundamental doctrines that extract
from my Essay appears to you to be at variance.
"Your Lordship will not, I think, object to my making a
public use of your answer. — Your obedient servant, «' F. Temple."

The Bishop of London to the Rev. Dr. Temple.
"London House, Feb. 22d, 1861.
" My dear Temple, — I have received yours of yesterday's
date. " You must have made some mistake respecting the Address
to which you suppose the Archbishop of Canterbury's letter,
signed by the Bishops, to be a reply. No extracts from your
Essay on the ' Education of the World ' were contained in, or
appended to, any address either of the Rev. H. B. Williams or
any other brought under my notice or laid before the Bishops
by His Grace.
" For my own part I draw a marked distinction between the
tone and substance of the several contributions to the book
called Essays and Reviews. I shall be ready to state publicly, if
you desire it, what is my opinion of your essay, taken by itself.
But the public appears, I must say not unnaturally, resolved to
regard the volume as one whole.
" Without entering on other points to which I object, I will
say that, when taken as a whole, the teaching of the volume is,
in my judgment, not consistent with the true doctrine main
tained by our Church as to the office of Holy Scripture.
" I feel convinced that there is much in this volume of which

1860-64] CORRESPONDENCE WITH DR. TEMPLE 289
you, as well as others of the contributors, disapprove ; and I there
fore the more regret that your high character and deserved
influence should, as matters stand at present, seem to give weight
to the volume as a whole. I shall rejoice if the mode in which
attention is now directed to this subject enables each author to
stand by himself as responsible only for his own opinions, and
influencing the public only by the force of his own arguments
and the authority which attaches to his own name.
" I shall be obliged by your making this letter public, and
remain, my dear Temple, ever yours sincerely,
" A. C. London,"

The Rev. Dr. Temple to the Bishop of London.
"Rugby, 2 2d Feb. 1861.
" My Lord, — I have to apologise for having given you need
less trouble. I find I was supplied, not with the Address pre
sented to the Archbishop, but with one now in course of sig
nature. With the Address really presented I find that I have no
concern whatever. — Your obedient Servant, F. Temple."
The Bishop of London to the Rev. Dr. Temple.
"London House, Feb. 23, 1861.
"My dear Temple, — I have your letter of the 2 2d, whereby
it appears that before receiving my answer to yours of the 21st,
you had become aware of your mistake as to the Address laid
before the Bishops.
" It is still my wish that our correspondence should be made
public, for I think it of great importance to the Church, that the
opportunity should not be lost, which your letter of the 21st
afforded me, of calling upon the contributors to the volume of
Essays and Reviews (and especially on yourself) to declare more
emphatically than they have done hitherto, that they claim to
have their several contributions judged separately, and not as
parts of a connected whole.
" It may have escaped your attention that the short preface to
the volume is ambiguous and unsatisfactory. It consists but of
two sentences, the first of which indeed disclaims any united
vol. 1. TJ

290 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xii.
responsibility; but the second speaks of the contributors as
having one common object, and as approving collectively of
the spirit in which each has endeavoured to promote that
object. " As circumstances stand, I hold that those especially of the
contributors who, like yourself, occupy important public posts,
are now solemnly bound to explain publicly, and with as little
delay as possible, their relation to this book in duty to them
selves, and in fairness to the many who are likely to be influenced
unduly by an apparent combination of much respected names
with others less known.
" The Essays and Reviews have, I understand, passed through
several editions in consequence of the attention which has been
directed to them. It seems to me that, considering the light in
which this volume has been regarded, and the feeling which it
has elicited, whoever undertakes the task of editor ought, on the
commonest principles of right, before now to have been authorised,
or rather charged, to satisfy the anxiety of the public on the
subject I have brought before you. — Believe me to be, ever
yours sincerely, A. C. London."

The Rev. Dr. Temple to the Bishop of London.
" Private and Confidential^ "Rugby, 25 February 186 1.
" My Lord, — I regret that I cannot accede to your wish that
our correspondence should be published ; and although in my
first letter I asked for an answer of which I might make a public
use, yet considering that the whole correspondence arose from a
mere mistake, I can hardly think that you can insist upon pub
lishing it without my consent.
" I do not think the short preface to the book ambiguous.
The first sentence states an exact fact. So completely was the
volume put together without concert or comparison that I never
knew what any other writer was writing, nor even what he was
writing about, till the book came to me from the Publisher's.
The second sentence states the tacit understanding with which
the book was undertaken, namely, that it was to treat of Biblical
subjects, and that each was to write in a becoming spirit, but to
say exactly what he thought. I do not see what is to be gained

1860-64] CORRESPONDENCE WITH DR. TEMPLE 291
by any repetition of this. And in the present state of the public
mind it would be understood as sanctioning the popular clamour,
and that I do not suppose any other of the six writers is prepared
to do ; certainly I am not myself.
" I cannot understand your fear that many will be influenced
by the apparent combination of much respected names with
others less known. That argument might have had weight six
months ago. But surely now it is out of place. Surely the whole
Bench of Bishops is enough to save the many from such influence
without calling on the six contributors to give their aid. The
danger seems to me to be quite on the other side.
" Many years ago you urged us from the University pulpit to
undertake the critical study of the Bible. You said that it was a
dangerous study, but indispensable. You described its difficul
ties, and those who listened must have felt a confidence (as I
assuredly did, for I was there) that if they took your advice and
entered on the task, you at any rate would never join in treating
them unjustly if their study had brought with it the difficulties
you described. Such a study, so full of difficulties, imperatively
demands freedom for its condition. To tell a man to study, and
yet bid him, under heavy penalties, come to the same conclusions
with those who have not studied, is to mock him. If the con
clusions are prescribed, the study is precluded.
"Freedom plainly implies the widest possible toleration. I
admit that toleration must have limits or the Church would fall
to pieces. But the student has a right to claim, first, that
those limits should be known beforehand, and contained in
formularies within his own reach ; not locked up in the breasts
of certain of his brethren ; secondly, that his having transgressed
them should be decided after fair, open trial by men practised
in such decisions.
" Instead of that what do we see? A set of men publish a
book containing the results of their study and thought, which,
rightly or wrongly, they believe to be within the limits traced out
by the formularies. Suddenly, without any warning to them that
they are on their trial, without any opportunity given for explana-
tion or defence, assuredly without any proof that they have really
transgressed the limits prescribed, the whole Bench of Bishops
join in inflicting a severe censure, and in insinuating that they
are dishonest men. And so utterly reckless are their Lordships
how much or how little penalty they inflict, that the censure is

292 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xii.
drawn in terms that are not intelligible without the production of
another document which is not produced, and thus has the added
force which in these cases always accompanies a vague denuncia
tion. How on earth is any study to be pursued under such treat
ment as this ?
" You complain that young men of ability will not take orders.
How can you expect it when this is what befalls whoever does
not think just as you do ?
" I know what can be said against a wide toleration. It may
be said that it would issue in wild and extravagant speculations.
So it would, in a few instances. But you know perfectly well
that there is not the most distant chance of the great mass of
sober Englishmen running into anything of the sort. If there
fore you tolerate extreme opinions, their very existence in the
Church is a guarantee that the moderate opinions are held from
conviction, not from fear of consequences. But if you drive
extreme men out of the ministry, the inevitable result is to poison
the minds of the laity with the suspicion that the clergymen who
remain teach what they do, not because they believe it, but
because they fear the fate of their brethren.
" I for one joined in writing this book in the hope of breaking
through that mischievous reticence which, go where I would, I
perpetually found destroying the truthfulness of religion. I
wished to encourage men to speak out. I believed that many
doubts and difficulties only lived because they were hunted into
the dark, and would die in the light.
" I believed that all opinions of the sort contained in the book
would be better if tolerated and discussed, than if censured and
maintained in secret. And though there was much error mixed
up in these opinions, yet certainly not more than in what was
allowed, and even encouraged. What can be a grosser super
stition than the theory of literal inspiration? But because that
has a regular footing it is to be treated as a good man's mistake,
k while the courage to speak the truth about the first chapter of
the Book of Genesis is a wanton piece of wickedness. A wide
toleration would in time set all these matters in their true relation ;
for if neology has strong defenders, certainly the commonly
received opinions have no lack of able men to maintain them.
But censures, even on the right side, will only do what you said
more than fourteen years ago, — gain you the aid of some trea
cherous waiters upon fortune.

1860-64J CORRESPONDENCE WITH DR. TEMPLE 293
" In conclusion, I must say a few words personal to you and
myself. " If you do not wish to alienate your friends, do not treat them
as you have treated me. Do not, if one of them seem to you to
have done a foolish, or even a wrong thing, ask him to your
house, speak of the subject kindly, condemn in such a tone as
to imply no severe reprobation ; and then, in deference to a
popular clamour, join in an act of unexampled severity. You
might have spoken severely if you had thought severely. Having
spoken leniently, you were pledged to deal leniently. Nothing
would have been easier than to imply to me what you were
going to do, if you then had thoughts of doing it. And surely if
your quiet perusal of the book had given you no such thoughts,
the mere cry of this mob ought not to have influenced your
judgment. " What you did had not the intention, but it had all the effect, -
of treachery. " You will not keep friends if you compel them'to feel that in
every crisis of life they must be on their guard against trusting
you. — Yours faithfully, F. Temple."
From one of the Rugby Masters Bishop Tait had in
the meantime received the following letter : — •
" Since your lordship's answer to the Address has appeared,
we have been placed in a very difficult position at Rugby. As
the Address itself has not yet been published, no one can say
exactly who or what has been censured. Most of us think that
Dr. Temple's essay is not included in the general censure. I
am one of the few who hope that your lordships have only
agreed in condemning certain specified opinions not maintained
by Dr. Temple.
"Under these circumstances, would you pardon my writing
to beg that the Address and the Answer should be published
together ? You will be sorry to hear that Dr. Temple was very
far from well when the school met. As he is still in a very weak
and nervous state we are very anxious about him.
" He has determined, for the sake of the boys, to disconnect
himself in some way or other from the other essayists. Indeed,
the parents are in such an uneasy state that something must be
done to reassure them."

294 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xii.
Bishop Tait immediately replied (Feb. 23) —
"You will see in the last Guardian an Address from Dorches
ter, to which the Archbishops' letter, signed by the Bishops, was
sent by His Grace as an answer. You will observe that in that
address there is no allusion to Dr. Temple, nor to any opinion
which his essay, as I understand it, maintains."
His correspondent next day wrote —
" I must thank you for your prompt reply to my letter. It
has removed a very general misunderstanding at Rugby, and has
been a great relief to Dr. Temple's own mind. To-day he is ill
in bed. . . ."
The writer goes on to describe a meeting of the Rugby
masters, which had been held on the previous day, when
Dr. Temple spoke to them about his connection with the
Essays, and showed, in the opinion of the writer, how
deeply he was distressed by much that the volume con
tained, and how conscious he was of the pain which it had
caused to parents of the Rugby boys. The letter was
confidential, and, as will be seen below, Dr. Temple did
not accept the detailed account it contained as an accurate
record of what had passed. It is evident, however, that
the letter made a deep impression upon Bishop Tait, who
wrote again as follows : —
The Bishop of London to the Rev. Dr. Temple.
"Private and Confidential!] "London House, Feb. 27, 1861.
" My dear Temple, — It was impossible for me yesterday to
answer yours of the 25 th owing to ceaseless engagements.
" Of course, if you wish it, the idea that I had entertained,
that your circular to me and the other Bishops afforded an
opportunity for your explaining to the public your real position
towards the volume of Essays and Reviews must drop. I was

1860-64] CORRESPONDENCE WITH DR. TEMPLE 295
in hopes that you would have felt with me that the Archbishops'
and Bishops' letter had so changed the state of the case that
you, and not you only, but the other essayists also, might have
publicly reiterated their demand to be judged each by his own
essay alone, and explained how far you approved or disapproved
of each other's essays. In the judgment of most thinking men,
though they might disapprove of what you had written, you
would, I believe, have been judged to have yourself kept within
the fair limits of the Church's liberty, while, perhaps, all the
writers, certainly three, including yourself, having vindicated
themselves from having their writings explained by a reference to
a gloss derived from the writings of others, would have stood
somewhat better in the estimate of those whose opinions are
worth considering. I can see nothing in such a declaration that
could have been fairly considered as ungenerous ; and indeed I
believe it is called for by the present aspect of things. Seven
persons write without concert in one volume. For a long time
the volume is silently disliked ; at last the feeling against it be
comes very strong. The public insists upon judging it as one
whole, interpreting the words of each writer by reference to each
of the other six. Addresses pour in upon the Archbishops and
Bishops, stating the strong feeling against the general teaching of
the book considered as a whole. You will not, I trust, on
reflection justify yourself in calling those who thus memorialised
the Bishops a 'mob.' Many of them were thoughtful and pious
men, whose best feelings were deeply wounded, and who were
filled with not unnatural anxiety.
" Certain opinions, quite inadmissible within the Church of
England, are asserted in some of these addresses to be distinctly
advocated by the book, while other addresses assert that the
teaching, taken as a whole, though it may not distinctly advocate,
implies these dangerous opinions. The Bishops feel themselves
bound to declare their condemnation of these opinions. What
more natural then for any of the writers who can, now to state
that the opinions in question are not advocated by them ? that
they have been misunderstood; and to demand to be judged
each by his own statements, and not by the general teaching of
a book, the tone and aggregate effect of which you, at least in
your conscience, disapprove, and which you are anxious shall
not, as a whole, be regarded as an exposition of your opinions.
" It is in vain to say that the disclaimer in the preface was

296 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xii.
sufficient. Experience has shown that it was not. Something
more distinct is required. And if from the way in which the
Archbishops' letter was published (I presume before his authority
had been obtained for its publication) there was an ambiguity as
to what was condemned, it would have been very natural for
each writer to request His Grace, or any other Bishop, to specify
the teaching gathered from the book of which the Bishops had
expressed their strong disapproval.
" I am not without hope that you may still think the proper
course for yourself and others to be such as I have pointed out.
And now as to your complaint of what the Bishops have done.
They have spoken of certain opinions which the public suppose
to be derivable from the teaching of the book as a whole, and
which, it is scarcely possible to deny, are implied if not taught
by it. They have announced their belief that these opinions go
beyond the fair latitude allowed in the Church. Appealed to, I
cannot see how they could do otherwise. As to calling upon
individuals to defend themselves, this would have given the letter
the character of a judgment of individuals, which I, for one, was
most anxious to avoid. What was issued was a condemnation
of the book as one whole, leaving individuals each to speak for
himself in exculpation.
" I was convinced at the time, and I am convinced now, that
this was a wiser, better, and kinder course than any other which
was proposed. Other courses were urged — I thought this most
free from any appearance of persecuting or endeavouring to put
down individuals by authority.
" We said, in effect, of the book, to those who addressed us —
We disapprove of it — of the opinions laid before us by you, we
think they go beyond any fair latitude, and we cannot deny that
they are, or appear to be, in the book; but as to molesting
individuals, or saying how far any one of the authors whom you
consider as united to teach these opinions — we can at present
say nothing of them ; how far they are responsible is a matter
for grave consideration, as is also how far any of them who are
responsible have distinctly committed themselves to anything
which the law could visit. ' It is in vain to say, as you do, that
such a declaration makes the exhortation to encourage Biblical
studies a mockery. You grant that there must be limits to the
freedom of the conclusions at which clergymen arrive, and
which they teach. Suppose a man unfortunately to arrive at the

1860-64] CORRESPONDENCE WITH DR. TEMPLE 297
opinion, as the result of his Biblical studies, that there is no God,
and that the Bible is from the beginning to the end a lie. Am
I to allow him to teach this as a clergyman of the Church of
England ? Or if I condemn the result of his studies, am I to be
said to discourage all study ? Is not this a reductio ad absurdum ?
You say that he might be dealt with in a court of law ; I think it
may be better to announce strong disapproval without seeking for
pains and penalties. Up to the present point this is what has
been done.
" And now, my dear Temple, as to your feeling with regard to
me personally — it is not just. I solemnly assure you that in all I
have done I have endeavoured to act with a full remembrance of
all that has passed between us, and especially of your visit to me
a fortnight before the Bishops met to consider the subject. It is
the misery of an official position that if a man is determined
that his private friendships and his public acts shall never appear
to come into collision, he must give up his private friendships.
Most men, I believe, adopt this course. They confine them
selves to the society and friendship of those with whom they
are sure to agree. They escape thereby much danger of being
misunderstood, but they rob life of what makes it of value.
Remember'that in Balliol in old times there was many a painful
difficulty of the same kind with Oakeley and Ward. It was
understood between us that private friendship should not be
interfered with by the necessity for public acts. I do not speak
of your connection with the Church of England as at all resem
bling theirs. What I said to you at Fulham I say now — and I
believe what in my public capacity I have done now is not
inconsistent with what I then and now say of yourself and of
Jowett's essay. I think you judge amiss. If you had been in
my place, I believe you would have done as I have. — Believe
me to be, my dear Temple, yours very sincerely,
"A. C. London."

The Rev. Dr. Temple to the Bishop of London.
" Private and Confidential!] "Rugby, i March 1861.
"My Lord, — I am much obliged to you for taking the trouble
to write me so long a letter.

298 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xii.
" I do not think anything will be gained by my attempting
to discuss these matters in detail any longer.
" Indeed, I have little to say, if you can really think that in
reply to a demand on behalf of Biblical students for trial by fixed
law after full argument in open court, it is enough to say that
you have given something wiser, kinder, and better. Such is the
doctrine of the Bishop of London. Such was not the doctrine
of that Tutor of Balliol whose lecture I still remember — on the
difference between government by vopos and government by
xj/rjcpio-paTa. " With regard to my own conduct, I can only say that nothing
on earth will induce me to do what you propose. I do not
judge for others, but in me it would be base and untrue.
"For the personal question between us, I cannot do more
than say what I said before, that such conduct has the effect (I
expressly said — not the intention) of treachery. You did not
like my essay. Why did you not say so ? You were ready to
join in this denunciation. Why did you not imply it? You
ought not to make it impossible for a friend to calculate on what
you will do. I do not care for your severity. I do care for
being cheated.
" The greatest kindness you can now do me is to forget till all
this is over that any friendship ever existed between us. That
will at any rate save me from such mischief as your speech in
Convocation1 yesterday is certain to do me. — Yours faithfully,
" F. Temple."

The Bishop of London to the Rev. Dr. Temple.
"London House, March 2, '61.
" My dear Temple, — I am quite ready to acquiesce in your
wish that after this note the subject of your essay should drop
between us. But I must just take the liberty of saying to you that
I am totally at a loss to understand the consistency, and propriety
— I will not use any other word — of making such a statement as I
know, not only from confidential communications, but openly
from a quarter where no confidence or secrecy is implied — you
have made to your assembled masters, and what you now write
1 See page 302.

1860-64] CORRESPONDENCE WITH DR. TEMPLE 299
to me. Indeed, when you were at Fulham, you told me dis
tinctly that you meant to publish, as I believe and say you ought.
" Personally, also, I must say that you quite misrepresent what
passed between us at Fulham. I said then what I say now and
said always respecting your essay, and it is my full belief that I
said the same in distinct words to yourself.
" I am happy to think that others who have a deep regard for
you and Jowett take a very different view from that which you
have taken, you must allow me to say, from a somewhat
arrogant over-estimate of the infallibility of your own opinion. —
Believe me to be, my dear Temple, yours very sincerely,
" A. C. London."

The Rev. Dr. Temple to the Bishop of London.
"Rugby, ^d March 1861.
" My Lord, — I should not have answered your letter if it did
not seem to be necessary to mention two matters of fact.
" I was quite aware that in speaking to the masters I ran a con
siderable risk of being misrepresented by half-statements of what
I said. But I thought their relation to me made openness their
due in spite of the risk. Such a half statement, however, as I
feared, seems to have reached you. For I do not think that
whoever told you of what I said can have told you that my last
words to the masters were : ' You will see that if any public
statement of my disapproval of the other writers in the volume is
made, I shall probably find it my duty to contradict it.' I think
you could neither have been told this, nor what, you can see
from its tenor, preceded it.
" I wish I could feel that I had misrepresented what passed
between us at Fulham. But I have a very distinct recollection
of what was said. You expressed disapproval of what I had
done in joining the other writers in the volume. You quoted
Dean Milman's remark about solidarity. You advised me to
publish. But not one word did you say in my hearing of dis
approval of my essay. Even your disapproval of the whole book
was not in such a tone as would have conveyed to any ordinary
listener that you were prepared to do what you have since done
Jowett came immediately after I left. Naturally enough, when we
met, I asked him what sort of conversation you had had with him.

300 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xii.
His seply was (I give his words), ' Tait was very kind, and on
the whole even gave me the impression that he agreed with me.'
" I do not think you can be quite aware of the pain that you
give in this way. You evidently fancy that you convey one im
pression when you mean to convey another. The result is that
your friends complain that they cannot count on you : your
enemies say that they can, and that you will always do what
is popular with the Low Church party.
" I am very sorry if I have been arrogant. I was not conscious
of it. I cannot honestly say that I am conscious of it now. But
a man smarting under a sense of having been unfairly treated by
a friend is not a fair judge of his own temper. At any rate, I
am honestly grateful to you for telling me. That at least is
straightforward and friendly. I will try to be on my guard
against the fault.
" I owe you very much : more than I can ever repay. My
heart swells sometimes when I think of lessons learned from
your lips twenty years ago, and of kindnesses which perhaps
were hardly thought of by you who did them, but were more
than I can tell to me who received them. And you can hardly
imagine the wound it gave me to see your name under the
Archbishops' letter, not so much because I thought it wrong in
you to sign if you really wish to condemn so severely, but
because my visit to Fulham had made me feel sure that you
would join in no such act. Forgive me if I have written hotly,
and believe at any rate as much as this, that I am acting to the
best of the light that God has given me in a very difficult time. —
Yours faithfully. F. Temple."

The Bishop of London to the Rev. Dr. Temple.
"London House, 4th March 1861.
" My dear Temple, — I am very unwilling to add to your
trouble by writing again, but I cannot refrain from saying how
thankful I am for the more kindly tone of your yesterday's letter,
so much more like yourself. You will not, I trust, be sorry for
the trouble of reading another letter if it tends to clear up mis
understandings with one who has known and esteemed you so
long as I have.
" As you say it, I must concede that I appear, when you were

1860-64] CORRESPONDENCE WITH DR. TEMPLE 301
at Fulham, to have left on your mind and on Jowett's an im
pression different from what I intended, though perhaps this
difference between us may arise from your judging differently of
the Bishops' protest to what I do. Remember that the protest
was directed against the general teaching of the book, viewed
as a whole, and against certain doctrines stated in the addresses
to be extracted from it, and I do not for my life see how, when
appealed to, the Bishops could have failed to speak as they did.
Remember also that no one without can judge of the responsi
bilities under which Bishops are placed. Let me say further that
in my note-book of the 20th January I find this entry, which
expresses my feelings at the time of your and Jowett's visits : —
'Jowett has been with me for two days. The unsatisfactory
part of his system seems to be that there is an obscurity over
what he believes of the centre of Christianity. As to the out
works, the conflict there is of comparatively little importance.
But the central figure of the Lord Jesus, the central doctrine of
the efficacy of His sacrifice, — in fact St. Paul's Christianity —
is this distinctly recognised by the writers of his school ? I have
urged both on him and Temple, who has also been with me,
that they are bound to state for their own sakes, and for the sake
of those whom they are likely to influence, what is the positive
Christianity which they hold. It is a poor thing to be pulling
down ; let them build up.'
" If I failed to give you the impression that such were my
thoughts, I am sorry for it. The position in which a man in so
responsible an office as mine is placed is, you will allow, a very
difficult one, if he wishes on the one hand to retain the intimacy
of his old friendships; and on the other, in his public capacity,
to act exactly as he thinks right. I am convinced you will not,
on reflection, judge harshly of the difficulties of such a position.
One word more. I had no information of the closing words of
your address to the masters. I should add that I do not now
see that they are wise or right. And now I leave the subject,
humbly trusting and praying that you may have wisdom to do
what is right in your very trying circumstances. — Ever yours,
"A.C.London."

While this private correspondence was going on, the
whole subject had been formally debated in the Convoca-

302 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xii.
tion of Canterbury. In the Lower House some of the
speakers gave expression to their wrath or their alarm in
language of the wildest kind. Archdeacon Denison called
upon the House to act with rigour " for the sake of the
young, who are tainted and corrupted and thrust almost
to Hell by the action of this book " ;* adding, on another
occasion, " In my judgment, of all books in any language,
which I ever laid my hands on, it is incomparably the
worst. It contains all the poison which is to be found in
Tom Paine's Age of Reason, while it has the additional
disadvantage of having been written by clergymen." 2
In the Upper House, on February 28th, Bishop Tait
spoke as follows : —
" I am not in the position of the Bishop of Salisbury, for none
of the writers of this book are within my diocese. But I am
in this position — that I have been, and am at this moment, the
intimate personal friend of two of the clergymen whose names
appear in Essays and Reviews, and I wish to say with regard to
both of them that from my present friendship and intercourse with
them for more than twenty years, I entertain for them the very
liveliest affection and regard ; and in proportion as that affection
and regard is strong, the more do I desire that an opportunity
should be given to them of doing what I trust they will do, namely
make a declaration satisfactory to the country that they are not
responsible for every word that appears in this unfortunate
volume. ... I must say that I am greatly pained, that I am
ashamed of those who have characterised the writers of this book,
by a miserable joke, as Sep tern contra Christum. It seems to me
to be a joke as ill-suited to the solemnity of the occasion as it is
unworthy of any serious person who is dealing with the characters
of his brother clergymen. ... I have known Dr. Temple, as I
have said, for many years in the intimacy of private friendship.
The particular essay which he has written certainly does not
express my views. I believe it was first preached as a University
Sermon in St. Mary's Church, Oxford. I dislike it, but, in my
1 Chronicle of Convocation, Feb. 26, 1861, p. 394.
2 Ibid. p. 809.

1860-64] DEBATE IN CONVOCATION 303
estimation, it is totally different in character from other passages
which occur in this volume; and I cannot conceive by what
motive the author could be restrained — if it should prove that he
is restrained — from publicly declaring that he does not approve
of various things which are to be found in this unfortunate book.
... I think myself bound to say that if my right rev. brother
would enter into a full examination of the passages he has
quoted, he will find that the extracts which he has read do not really
imply what to his mind they appear to imply. This is only an
exemplification of what the history of the Church in every age
confirms, that if you give isolated extracts from the book of any
writer you are almost certain to give a false impression of what
his opinion is. I am unwilling to rake up old stories or go back
to the history of the University of Oxford at the time when I
resided in it, but there were books of extracts then published
which were regarded as very unfair indeed.1 With the utmost
fairness of intention it is almost impossible to give by extracts a real
statement of what a man's opinion is when he has the misfortune
to be writing on the dangerous confines between what is truth
and what is error. . . . With regard to the two essays to which I
allude, if any man would make up his mind upon them, he must
read them from beginning to end. ... I must say that I regret
very much the tone of what the Bishop of Oxford has said ; I
regret it deeply and I also regret what the Bishop of St. David's
has said, because it seems to me that those two speeches will
make it very difficult for these writers to do what I believe it is
their bounden duty to do. . . . Let it be distinctly understood
that we, the Bishops of the Church of England, looking at the
book as a whole, believe that it is likely to do great and grievous
harm ; but separating, as I trust I shall ever be able to do
throughout my whole life, the individuals from their opinions,
hoping even against hope that these individuals may return, how
ever far they may have gone astray, I shall be indeed rejoiced if
an opportunity is afforded to all these writers to make a public
declaration of their belief in the great truths of Christianity.
I shall be truly pleased if they can make such a declaration.
I for one shall not permit myself to doubt of their honesty, and
I shall not trouble myself about their consistency."2
1 The reference is, of course, to the series of isolated extracts from Dr.
Newman's writings which were constantly quoted against him by some of his
opponents. ' Chronicle of Conv. Feb. 28, 1861, pp. 461, 467.

304 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xii.
The animadversions which this speech drew upon
Bishop Tait are significant of the tone and temper in which
the controversy was carried on. He was accused of having
" compromised and even vilified the faith he was appointed
to maintain," of having allowed his private friendship to
take the place of fidelity to truth, and of having " linked
himself without shame to the heresiarchs of the Church."
His " uncertain and dangerous tone " was contrasted with
the noble outspokenness of Bishop Wilberforce, who
" without conferring with flesh and blood, or any personal
interest, real or supposed, has not hesitated to declare the
truth of God to be dearer than all personal affection."
The religious papers, both High-Church and Low-Church,
were full of such comments. On the other hand he
received such letters as the following, which came from
one now prominent in the Church : —
" Will you forgive me for writing a letter, which needs no
acknowledgment, to thank you very earnestly, and I think many
must be wishing to thank you, for what you said in Convocation
yesterday. I have been reading it in the Times, and it has been
a real relief to me. ... To say even what you said yesterday
when public opinion is setting so very strongly in one direction,
and when, to a very great extent, one goes along with it, requires
a courage and an effort that few of us would be equal to. I
cannot help writing to thank you, not for saying what you felt it
to be your duty to say — that would be impertinent in me — but
for the relief that I personally have felt ever since I read the
report this morning."
All that had, so far, been done by Convocation was an
expression of the concurrence of the Lower House in what
the Bishops' letter had declared. But a few weeks later,
when Convocation met again, the whole subject was re
opened, and after warm debate the Bishops resolved, by
eight votes to four, that a Committee of the Lower House
should examine the book and report whether there were

1860-64] THE ESSAYS CONDEMNED 305
sufficient grounds for a " synodical judgment " upon it.
Bishop Tait opposed this step with all his might. After
the joint Episcopal Letter already published, any further
attempt at solemn condemnation would, he believed, defeat
its own end by giving the book an undue importance.
" A grave and weighty document," he said, " has already gone
forth to the whole country, and in my judgment it has as much
authority as any document bearing upon this subject is ever likely
to have. An unusual concurrence of opinion among the whole of
the Bishops of both Provinces has declared the danger which is
apprehended to the Church of Christ from the rash and irreverent
promulgation of doctrines likely to do harm to young and thought
less minds. What more would you do ? ... If it is the clergy
you are considering, — well, I do not think they are likely to be
much misled by the book, and they have naturally and properly
a very high estimate of Convocation; but in my intercourse
with the laity I do not find that there is such high and reverent
regard for Convocation as is, no doubt, to be desired. I own I
should be surprised, for example, if the many barristers in
London among whom this book has circulated, were to consider
that the book was one whit worse than they thought it before,
because it had been solemnly condemned by Convocation. . . .
Even the protest we Bishops have already made has had the
effect of causing this book to be much more generally read than
if we had let it alone. When one of the Popes was asked to
recommend a certain book, ' No,' said he, ' I will not recom
mend it, but I will do for it what will have a greater effect, — I
will condemn it.' ... I believe we are of the same mind still as
we were when we signed your Grace's letter, namely that the
book as a whole is full of error. But I do not wish by appointing
this Committee to prolong needless discussion or to induce the
Lower House to engage in a profitless and mischievous alter
cation."1 The Bishop was, however, in a minority. The Com
mittee was appointed, and in due time the Bishops received
from the Lower House a formal Resolution, " that there are
sufficient grounds for proceeding to a synodical judgment
1 Chronicle of Convocation, March 14, 1861, pp. 555-559.
VOL. I. U

306 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xii.
upon the Book entitled Essays and Reviews."1 But a
prosecution had in the meantime been set on foot in the
Court of Arches against two of the essayists, Dr. Williams
and Mr. Wilson. The Archbishop of Canterbury and the
Bishop of London would have to be judges in the case
if an appeal should be made to the Privy Council, and
any further discussion by the Bishops was therefore out
of the question until the Courts of Law should have
pronounced their decision.
The following scattered extracts from the Bishop's
Diary, which at that time dealt mainly with other matters,
give occasional glimpses of what he felt upon the subjects
in dispute. Diary.
" Brighton, 182$ Nov. i860. — I have been reading the Bishop
of St. David's' pamphlet on Rowland Williams.2 Very clever,
but not, I think, what a Bishop ought to write. It is a captious
answer to the eccentric professor, when what the Church desires
is a bold and clear positive statement. But the invaluable part
of it is the virtual declaration — ' I have for many years studied
these difficulties attentively, I have felt their full force. I know
all that has been written about them in Germany. I believe
they are vanity and folly.' "
"London House, 6th fan. 1861. — I have taken in handjto
publish a new and revised edition of my 'Suggestions,' with
reference to the Essays and Reviews. This takes a good deal
of time. " O Lord, grant me for this new year — a more earnest faith,
a greater spirit of prayer, a heart and imagination more pure,
through Jesus Christ. Amen."
1 The Resolution was carried by thirty-one votes against eight. — Chronicle
of Convocation, June 20, 1861, pp. 743-814.
2 A volume of sermons published by Dr. Rowland Williams had been
criticised and censured by Bishop Thirlwall in his Charge of 1857. Dr.
Williams had replied in a vehement pamphlet, and the Bishop thereupon in
a further pamphlet reviewed the whole case and dealt with Dr. Williams'
theories in detail. It is this last pamphlet which is here alluded to.

1860-64] EXTRACTS FROM DIARY 307
" 24th February 1861. — Anxiety as to the judgment of the
Bishops on Essays and Reviews. Fear of misunderstandings
with old friends."
"id March 1861. — This week has been one of great trial.
Temple's letters respecting the declaration of the Bishops have
greatly pained me."
"1th March 1861. — How difficult is my position.  's
letter speaks the truth. ' For once,' he says, ' I have no desire
to be a Bishop.' We have had a great duty, — to express our dis
approval : a great duty also, I think, to guard the accused from ill-
usage : a great duty to the Church to guard its doctrine : and
also to watch for its children likely to be led astray by any
appearance of persecution. O Lord, grant me wisdom to help,
even in spite of themselves, those whom I so greatly regard."
"24th March, Christ Church, Oxford. — Came here on
Friday to preach at St. Mary's the last of the Mission Lent
Sermons. Attentive congregation. Many undergraduates,
though term is over. Yesterday, sad memory of old friends. I
am staying with Stanley, who had a great gathering yesterday
to meet us at dinner, wishing to unite all parties. Jowett and
Dr. Jelf, accused and accuser, very nearly sat side by side.
"To-day, St. Peter's Church, morning. Good practical ser
mon from an old pupil, Capel Cure. In St. Mary's heard another
pupil  ¦ (dull). The Vice-Chancellor classifies four character
istics of University Sermons : Altitude, Latitude, Platitude,
Longitude. All tolerated but the last."
"London House, Sunday, 21st April 1861 — 11.30 p.m. —
Read to-day four of Temple's sermons. They convince me
more than ever how great a mistake he made in stepping entirely
out of his own line to join such people as Williams, etc. etc., in
the Essays and Reviews. Read over again the article in the
Edinburgh on Essays and Reviews.1 Its logic is very poor — .
the writing forcible. It would be a good defence of Temple and
perhaps of Jowett, if they stood alone or only with Pattison. As
a defence of the book generally, it is quite powerless.
" And now I lie down commending myself and Thy Church,
O Lord, to Thee." 1 The article was by Dean Stanley, see p. 31a

308 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xii.

'Canon A. P- Stanley to the Bishop of London.
" 6 Grosvenor Crescent, fuly 6, 1861.
" My dear Bishop, — I do not like to leave London without
a few words on our late controversy.
" You told me in February that in three months I should recog
nise the wisdom and propriety of the Episcopal signatures to the
condemnation of the opinions of the Essayists. I need hardly
say that anything which has happened since has only confirmed
my original impression. The Episcopal censure instead of allay
ing has -immensely aggravated it. Convocation has not only not
been prevented from debating, but has disgraced the Church by
the most extravagant folly in the course which it has pursued ;
legal proceedings have not only not been prevented, but have
been promoted on the express ground of the Episcopal letter.
The only gainers have been the publishers and the extreme sec
tion of the Essayists, who have reaped the greatest advantage
from the indiscriminate character of the censure, and from the
moral impossibility which it has created of a dissolution of com
panionship between the different authors.
" I only refer to these consequences of what has been done as
a reason for hoping better things in what remains to be done.
" I am quite unable to see why those Bishops who see nc
grave cause of complaint against the doctrines of the book (what
ever they may think of its prudence) should not say so. Those
with whom you have talked freely on these matters know per
fectly well what your opinions were at the beginning of this year.
Temple, Jowett, and Pattison you have, in private communica
tion with me, entirely acquitted (so far as their essays are
concerned) of any grave error ; of the others (with the exception
of Powell, if interpreted according to the unfavourable construc
tion) there is none whose opinions (I am not now speaking of
their style and temper, which are irrelevant) you can think more
untenable within the Church than what you know of Arnold,
Julius Hare, or the Bishop of St. David's.
" And yet up to this time no Bishop, except the Bishop of
Lincoln, has ventured to say publicly that the opinions of any
one of the essayists are compatible with the position of an
English clergyman.
" I will not add anything more. You know that I, and those

1860-64] CORRESPONDENCE WITH STANLEY 309
who feel with me, will be driven, however reluctantly, by the con
tinued reticence of the Bishops who agree with us, and the
calumnies of those who do not, to express on every possible
occasion our points of agreement with men whom we regard as
treated so unjustly. . . . Ever yours truly, A.P.Stanley."

The Bishop of London to Canon A. P. Stanley.
"Fulham Palace, S.W., 8th fuly 1861.
" My dear Stanley, — I am obliged to regard your letter of
the 6th as a proof that you are ignorant of the opinions of any
but a very narrow clique on the subject on which you write.
" Of course I am disappointed that three months have not, as I
expected, brought you to see the Episcopal protest as I do ; but
I believe the great body of intelligent men throughout the king
dom differs from you entirely in the matter. My own impres
sion as to the Protest is only strengthened by time. I believe
—first, that it was inevitable and due to the Church under the
peculiar circumstances ; second, that it has done a great deal of
good. " As to my opinion of the Essays, it is exactly now what it was
at first, and is, as clearly as the circumstances allowed, stated in
what I have written, signed, and said in public, which I believe
to be in strict accordance with all I have said in private.
Temple has found no impossibility in separating himself from
the extreme section of the Essayists by his semi-public declara
tions to the masters, boys, and trustees. It is much to be
regretted that he should have imagined for himself any impossi
bility in saying publicly what he has thus said semi-publicly.
" It seems to me little short of infatuation to fancy any identity
between the deeply religious tone of the writings of Arnold and
Hare and the flippant and reckless assault on things universally
venerated, which has roused public indignation against the ill-
starred volume in question. It was against the characteristics of
some of the Essayists, imparting a colour to the volume, that the
Bishops felt they were called upon to protest as presenting a
whole apparently hostile to any generally received and intelligent
view of Christianity. The particular opinions of individual
writers in the book were not touched in the Protest. To ex
amine the opinions in detail, disentangle what belongs to one

310 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xii.
and not to another, and settle in the several essays how much is
insinuation or repeated guess, and how much the author's own
opinion, and afterwards to pronounce as to each opinion how
much in it is true, and how much false, and then go through the
teaching of each, would be a very difficult and very long business.
You seem to expect individual Bishops to do this.
" As far as I am capable of doing anything of the kind amidst
my many avocations, I have done something towards it in my
published volume. Meanwhile I do not think you need alarm
or irritate yourself about Convocation. About the courts of law,
I must be silent, — being a Privy Councillor.
" To turn the tables on yourself, I think I might say a good
deal as to the mode in which a great opportunity was thrown
away by the writer of the article in the Edinburgh. Will you for
give me if I strongly advise you in all such difficult matters to
take counsel with friends who can view the case impartially?
" But we must not quarrel about this matter. I have been told
you are going to Mount Athos. Is this so ? I trust you will come
back safe and sound. Very many thanks for the kind expressions
at the end of your letter. . . . Ever yours, A. C. London."

Canon A. P. Stanley to the Bishop of London.
"6 Grosvenor Crescent, July 10th, '61.
"My dear Bishop, — Many thanks for your kind letter,
which I have found here on my return. I shall hope to be off
by the beginning of August.
" I will not re-open the controversy which I shall hope to find
closed on my return. I will only say that, had the Episcopal
letter contained anything like what you express in your present
letter (which is exactly what I have expressed in my article in
the Edinburgh Review), neither I nor the intelligent public would
have had any just cause of complaint. — Believe me to be, ever
yours, A. P. Stanley."
A note from Stanley to the Bishop, on the last day of
the year (1861), enclosed the following Memorandum : —
"In the earlier part of this year I left a memorandum to be
read in case anything befell me. Now that the end of the year is

1860-64] STANLEY'S MEMORANDUM 311
come I may as well report to the person whom it chiefly concerns.
It was to the effect that if, in an article in the Edinburgh Review,
or elsewhere, I had said anything which caused needless pain to
the Bishop of London, I deeply regret it and hope for his for
giveness. His conduct with regard to the Episcopal letter
caused me at the time deep grief. But he acted, I have no
doubt, for what he thought the best, and for his kindness to me
since I shall always feel grateful."

The Bishop of London to Canon A. P. Stanley.
"Fulham Palace, S.W., 6thfanuary 1862.
" My dearest Stanley, — I dare say you will excuse me for
having allowed some days to pass without writing to answer
your most kind note. You know how routine letters crowd upon
me, and prevent my having time to sit down quietly to write to
a friend. " So much has passed to agitate and distress you during the
last two years that I think it very kind in you to have made the
Memorandum of which you enclose a copy, and thus given me
the assurance that amidst all trials your friendship for me
remains unaltered. But indeed I did not need the assurance,
feeling certain that it was so. I know that as life passes and on e
loved friend after another passes before us into the world unseen,
we both of us feel more and more that the remaining friendship
of those who have been long intimately associated with us
becomes more precious. I am sure I feel this as to old friends,
and T know that you feel it also. It has been certainly one of
the greatest enjoyments of my life to have been so intimately
associated with you.
" And now as to the particular matter to which your Memo
randum alludes, feeling perfectly confident, as I have done, of my
own desire to do right in reference to the painful state of things
which has arisen since the publication of the Essays and Reviews,
you may be sure I have been ready in my turn to feel and allow
that you have acted in all you have done from nothing but a
constraining sense of duty. Since however you give me the
opportunity, I will tell you that you scarcely estimate aright how
much you have irritated many, who have the most friendly
feelings, by something in your way of treating these subjects.

312 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xii.
Men feel that there are great principles at stake and that there
is a very important difference between their way of thinking and
feeling about many of the highest Christian truths, and the
method, say, of Jowett's theology, and they are greatly irritated
by being continually told by you that they all mean the same
thing. They feel sure that Jowett would disclaim an identity of
sentiment in such matters, say with Bishop Pearson, and they are
irritated by what they suppose to be your attempts to show that
they are fools for supposing they differ from the so-called negative
theology, when they, according to your showing, in truth agree
with it.
" My belief is that a great deal of bitterness was infused into
the controversy in this way (quite unintentionally on your part)
by the article in the Edinburgh, and, if I may venture to say so,
I think the same' sort of irritation is kept alive by your quietly
quoting, in the preface of your sermons, Jowett and Temple
(without any sort of expression of the possibility of other people
disagreeing from your estimate) as two of our best divines.
" People are always made angry when their feelings on im
portant matters are ignored or passed over as childish and not
worth considering. I wish you would take this matter into your
thoughts. Nothing can be more desirable than the attempt to
show, by a straightforward sound, argument, how much more of
real agreement there is than people suppose in those who materi
ally differ : but the proof of this is not helped by ignoring the
real points of difference. I know you wish to know my real
feelings on these matters, and so I write freely. Again let me
say how thankful I am for all your friendship, and how earnestly I_
trust that all the bitterness which late events have engendered
may pass away. — Yours ever affectionately, A. C. London."
It is not necessary, for the purposes of this book, to
give the history of the prosecution and trial of the two
/Essayists, Dr. Williams and Mr. Wilson. The former was
prosecuted by his Diocesan, the Bishop of Salisbury, the
latter by a private clergyman, the Rev. James Fendall.
After prolonged and elaborate consideration, and many
wearisome adjournments, the Dean of Arches (Dr. Lushing-
ton) pronounced judgment on December 15, 1862, holding

1860-64] TWO ESSAYISTS PROSECUTED 313
certain of the articles of charge to have been proved, and
sentencing each of the accused clergymen to a year's I
suspension. From the sentence thus given the two accused clergy
men appealed, as had been expected, to the Queen in
Council. The appeals were heard in June 1863 before a
Judicial Committee of seven members, including the Lord
Chancellor (Westbury), the two Archbishops, and the
Bishop of London.1 The appellants in person argued their
respective cases, the same counsel appearing for both
respondents. Stated in the briefest possible form, and omitting
subsidiary and rejected charges, both Essayists were
accused of denying, either directly or by implication, the
Inspiration of Holy Scripture, and Mr. Wilson was ac
cused, in addition, of denying the. eternity of future pun
ishment. These were the accusations which the Dean of
Arches held to have been proved, and the judgment of the
Court of Appeal was awaited with not a little interest.
Bishop Tait took the utmost pains during the whole
course of the trial, and a comparison of the judgment
as finally pronounced, with the printed memorandum of
opinion which he, like the other judges, had circulated be
forehand among his colleagues, shows how large a share
he had in giving shape to the decision.
Although the case was heard in June, the judgment
was not delivered until nearly eight months had elapsed.2
They were anxious months. The sounds of the ' Colenso '
strife were waxing louder every day, as the Bishop of
Natal put forth one by one the successive instalments of
his work, and frightened Churchmen began sadly to com-
1 The other members of the Judicial Committee present were Lords Cran
worth, Chelmsford, and Kingsdown.
2 Feb. 8, 1864.

3i4 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xii.
plain that they were being robbed of their faith by those
who should have been its champions, and that the Bishops
at home were apathetic and indifferent at the least.
As the time for delivering judgment drew near, the
Bishop of London received a series of long and earnest
letters from Dr. Pusey, pointing out the evil consequences
that must follow should the essayists be acquitted : —
" I am afraid of lawyers," he said, "and so I have ventured to
write to your Lordship in what is a great crisis of the Church.
. . . Day by day, since I heard the rumour of the impending
judgment, the thought of it has haunted me. It is the greatest
crisis the Church of England has ever gone through. For I, at
least, see no way out of it, except that the Court must either
affirm what has been a part of the faith from the first, or, if it
makes the doctrines an open question, must tamper with words
in a way which will throw uncertainty on every man's meaning,
and sanction unbounded hypocrisy. Your Lordship remembers
well the general indignation vhen Mr. Ward proclaimed that he
held the Articles in ' non-natural ' senses — and justly. For there is
an end of all faith in each other, of all trust in man, if our hearts
do not believe what in their plain meaning our tongues profess.
... If the highest Court of Appeal allows our clergy to take the
word 'everlasting' in a sense contrary to its known English
meaning, . . . how can our people believe that we mean anything
which we say ? ... I do not see what would be left us. And
it would be the highest Court of Jurisdiction which would be
teaching the clergy and people to be thus dishonest with words.
. . . Your Lordship will, I know, forgive my troubling you with
this. I know how many are praying in regard to the issue, and I
yet hope that God will hear us, and that He will incline the hearts
of the judges not to allow His truth to be denied, or our people
to be taught to mistrust all which we teach in His name for their
salvation." As one of those before whom the case was heard, the
Bishop could say no more in reply than that a most care
ful and deliberate decision would be given by the Court
upon the facts before it.
" At last," to quote the words of Dean Stanley, " the

1860-64] PRIVY COUNCIL JUDGMENT 315
judgment, to which the Church, not of England only, but
of foreign nations also, had been looking forward with
intense expectation, was pronounced. No one who was
present can forget the interest with which the audience in
that crowded Council Chamber listened to sentence after
sentence as they rolled along from the smooth and silvery
tongue of the Lord Chancellor, enunciating, with a lucidity
which made it seem impossible that any other statement
of the case was conceivable, and with a studied modera
tion of language which, at times, seemed to border on
irony — first the principles on which the judgment was to
proceed, and then the examination, part by part, and
word by word, of each of the three charges that remained,
till, at the close, not one was left, and the appellants re
mained in possession of the field."
In judging the case, the Court declared its own powers
to be strictly limited : —
" It is no part of the duty of this Tribunal," said the Lord
Chancellor, "to pronounce any opinion on the character, effect,
or tendency of the publications known by the name of Essays
and Reviews. Nor are we at liberty to take into consideration
for the purposes of the prosecution the whole of the essay of Dr.
Williams or of the essay of Mr. Wilson. A few short extracts
only are before us, and our judgment must be by law confined
to the matter which is therein contained. If, therefore, the
book, or these two essays, or either of them as a whole, be of a
mischievous and baneful tendency, as weakening the foundations
of Christian belief, and likely to cause many to offend, they will
retain that character and be liable to that condemnation notwith
standing this our judgment." . . . "On matters on which the
Church has prescribed no rule, there is so far freedom of opinion
that they may be discussed without penal consequences."
Proceeding to the charges in detail, and arguing each
separately with the utmost care, the Court declared itself
" unable to say that the passages extracted from the
essays" on the subject of the Inspiration of the Bible

316 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xii.
"... are contradicted by, or plainly inconsistent with,
the Articles or Formularies to which the charges refer."
With respect to the further charge against Mr. Wilson,
that he denied the doctrine of eternal punishment, the
judgment ran as follows : —
"We are not required, or at liberty, to express any opinion
upon the mysterious question of the eternity of future punish
ment, further than to say that we do not find in the Formularies
to which this article refers any such distinct declaration of our
Church upon the subject as to require us to condemn as penal
the expression of a hope by a clergyman that even the ultimate
pardon of the wicked who are condemned in the day of judgment
may be consistent with the will of Almighty God." . . . "On
the short extracts before us, our judgment is that the charges
are not proved."
From this judgment, so far as the doctrine of inspira
tion was concerned, the two Archbishops dissented; but
Bishop Tait and the lay judges were unanimous, and Dr.
Williams and Mr. Wilson were accordingly acquitted.
The immediate result of this decision was a widespread
and not unnatural panic. Hundreds of the clergy, who
felt that the book was mischievous and was likely to
corrupt the faith of their people, failed to see, or declined
to see, that the court had emphatically refused to adjudi
cate upon the general character of the book, and had
insisted upon dealing merely with specific extracts in
their strict grammatical construction. For them it was
enough that the essayists were unpunished, and thus, as
they believed, a grievous wrong committed, and, worse
than all, with the apparent approval of one of the Bishops
of the Church. A defensive alliance was immediately
cemented between the High Church and the Low Church
leaders, and within a fortnight from the publication of the
judgment, the following declaration was sent by post to
every clergyman in England and Ireland, with a letter

1860-64] PANIC AMONG THE CLERGY 317
entreating him, " for the love of God," to append his name
without delay : —
"We, the undersigned presbyters and deacons in holy orders
of the Church of England and Ireland, hold it to be our bounden
duty to the Church of England and Ireland and to the souls of
men to declare our firm belief that the Church of England and
Ireland, in common with the whole Catholic Church, maintains
without reserve or qualification the inspiration and Divine
authority of the whole canonical Scriptures, as not only contain
ing, but being, the Word of God, and further teaches, in the
words of our blessed Lord, that the 'punishment' of the 'cursed'
equally with the ' life ' of the ' righteous ' is ' everlasting.'
"Signatures to be sent to the Secretary, Committee-room,
3 St. Aldate's, Oxford.
"Names of Committee: — C. C. Clarke, D.D., Archdeacon
of Oxford; R. L.Cotton, D.D., Provost of Worcester College ;
G. A. Denison, M.A, Archdeacon of Taunton ; W. E. Fremantle,
M.A, Rector of Claydon; F. K. Leighton, D.D., Warden of All
Souls' College; J. C. Miller, D.D., St. Martin's, Birmingham;
E. B. Pusey, D.D., Regius Professor of Hebrew."
The signatures of 11,000 clergymen were obtained to
this document in the course of a few weeks. The Arch
bishops, who had formally dissented from the judgment,
published each of th'em a Pastoral Letter explaining his
position in the matter, and the wrath both of clergy and
laity was expended chiefly upon Bishop Tait.
" Had the judgment," it was said, " proceeded from the lay
lords alone it' would have been more easy to prove that they had
been misled by their inexperience in theology. . . . But they are
able to shield themselves behind the authority of an Ecclesiastical
judge, a Ruler in the Church, one of those whose ' lips should
keep knowledge.'"
And again :
" The course taken by the Bishop of London is disastrous to
his own reputation. It has awakened mingled shame and indig
nation, not only among the dignitaries and clergy of the Church,
but, we may add, the laity, always excepting the minority of the

318 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xii.
clergy who may be called latitudinarians, and that section of the
laity who may be termed freethinkers."1
On March 16th a deputation waited on the two Arch
bishops at Lambeth Palace to present an address signed,
it was said, by 137,000 lay members of the Church of
England, who desired to thank the primates for the course
they had pursued.
No small number of the promoters of this " thank-
offering," as it was called, wrote at the same time to
Bishop Tait ; some in wrathful remonstrance, some in
"sadness of heart," and some in earnest entreaty that he
would "even now" express his repudiation of what Dr.
Pusey called the " soul-destroying judgment " in which he
had concurred.
In the course of a correspondence with Mr. Gladstone,
arising- out of the Bishop's published sermons, he ex
plained his position with some care : —

The Bishop of London to the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone.
"London House, April 28th, 1864.
" My dear Mr. Gladstone, ... I feel greatly obliged to
you for writing to me so fully and candidly your opinion on the
judgment of the Privy Council. Notwithstanding what you
say, however, I almost feel that had you been on the Court,
considering the nature of the issue ultimately referred to us,
you could scarcely have come yourself to any other decision.
. . . The fact is, that when such works as Essays and Reviews
come before a Court of Law they must be judged not according
to their ' general tenor,' but by the force of particular extracts,
and when these extracts are exhibited in their naked legal aspect
they assume a very different character from that which they
perhaps presented when, viewing them in a popular and general
1 This sentence from the Record \% adopted with approval by the Quarterly
Review, April 1864, p. 561.

1860-64] ATTACKS ON BISHOP TAIT 319
way, we thought of their tendency rather than their strict logical
force. "Hence the folly of such prosecutions. Nobody agreed
with Mr. Gorham, but when his opinions were exhibited nakedly
before a Court of Law it was found that to declare them
inadmissible within the pale of the Church of England would
be to condemn by implication, if not directly, the acknowledged
and publicly recognised sentiments of very many who were most
sincerely attached to the Church and had shaped all their teach
ing by its articles. It is ever so. Extreme men insinuate or
enunciate vaguely dangerous opinions ; when these are subjected
to the sieve of a legal prosecution, the least objectionable part
remains for the Court to judge of.
" Meanwhile, if we may look to results, it is satisfactory to
feel that the Church of England, as it is more comprehensive,
is stronger for the Gorham decision, the escape of Archdeacon
Denison, and the recent judgment ; and as I believe that in all
these cases the Court decided justly, I do not think that,
notwithstanding all alarms of 1850, 1857, and 1864, truth has at
all suffered by the maintenance of justice. ... I remain, my
dear Mr. Gladstone, yours very truly, A. C. London."
In the months of somewhat wearisome debate which
followed upon the judgment the critics of Bishop Tait
grew louder and louder in their denunciations : —
"To the defection of the Bishop of London," it was said,
"may be justly ascribed all the mischiefs which are likely to
follow from the disastrous conclusion of [the trial]. ... It
is very melancholy that the Bishop of London should thus give
occasion to the enemies to blaspheme. We earnestly pray that
he may be led to pause . . . [for] it is hardly possible to
exaggerate the evils which may arise from the fact that an infidel
party, both in the Church and out of it, supposes that its
members may now shelter themselves under the Episcopal
mantle of the Bishop of this vast Metropolis." 1
Bishop Wilberforce undertook to bring the matter again
before Convocation, and formally moved, on April 20th,
1 Record, April 25th, 1864.

320 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xii.
that inasmuch as the suit before the Privy Council was
now concluded, the consideration of the subject, which had
for three years been discontinued, pending the judicial
decision, should be resumed, and a committee appointed
to report upon the volume as a whole. This motion
gave rise to a memorable debate, and in particular to a
weighty and learned speech from Bishop Thirlwall of
St. David's, who opposed with all his might, as did the
Bishop of London, the reopening of the discussions in
Convocation. Referring to the above-quoted 'declara
tion,' which was then in process of signature among the
clergy, Bishop Thirlwall pointed out that the document
was so worded as to declare, not merely what those who
appended their names to it believed, but what was, and
always had been, the doctrine of the Church of England
on the subject.
"Am I to suppose," he said, " that the framers of this declara
tion believe that the youngest ' literate ' — or illiterate, they
often mean nearly the same thing — who has been last admitted
into Deacon's Orders is competent to express an opinion upon
the subject which has occupied some of the ablest and most
intellectual minds for the last two years? And the young
deacon is adjured ' by the love of God,' and as a part of his
bounden duty to souls, to do what ? ... If Dr. Pusey is not
able to satisfy us with his authority on such a question, will the
name of this young deacon do anything towards it ? Will any
number of men signing it ? If they are the names of persons of
equal learning, equally competent to judge on such a very
difficult question, I admit they will, but otherwise I cannot con
sider these names, whatever be their numbers, — they are said
to have exceeded 12,000 — I cannot consider them in the light
of so many ciphers, which add to the value of the figures which
they follow; but I consider them in the light of a row of figures
preceded by a decimal point, so that however far the series
may be prolonged, it never can rise to the value of a single
unit." 1 1 Chronicle of Convocation, April 21, 1864, p. 1532.

1860-64] THE ESSAYS CONDEMNED 321
Not a little indignation was aroused by this somewhat
contemptuous estimate of -the solemn declaration of the
clergy, and by the Bishop of London's angry denuncia
tion — no milder word is possible — of the form of the con
demnatory ' schedule ' drawn up by Archdeacon Denison's
committee three years before, and now resuscitated by
Bishop Wilberforce.
"I deeply regret," said Bishop Tait, "that such a paper
should ever have seen the light of day. If the book entitled
Essays and Reviews is likely to do harm to the Christian faith
. . . [this particular answer] is a document which, I undertake
to say, would be received with contempt and ridicule by every
impartial person who understands what the subject is which has
been brought before us. Of all the foolish publications which it
has been the misfortune of these controversies to call out, if
there be one which, more than another, is likely to injure the
Christian faith, it is this. ... I will put it to any intelligent
layman or clergyman who is not already committed on the
subject, to read this paper, and I would ask him whether, in the
name of the Church of Christ, he would not request that it
should, as soon as possible, be committed to the flames."1
The Bishop of Oxford spoke with equal warmth upon
the other side, and in the end his motion for the appoint
ment of a committee to re-open the consideration of the
subject was carried by the casting vote of the President, r
and two months later the Committee reported in favour
of the synodical condemnation of the book. Bishop Tait,
undaunted by the immense preponderance of clerical
opinion against him, adhered to his opposition to such a
course. In the final debates upon the subject he again
referred to the famous declaration of the 1 2,000 : —
" No one will, I hope, suppose," he said, " that I think there
is no cause for alarm. It has been my belief for many years
1 Chronicle of Convocation, April 21, 1864, p. 1549. The 'schedule 'to
which reference is made will be found in the Chronicle of Convocation for
June 18, 1861, pp. 673-687.
VOL. I. X

322 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xii.
that there is ; but the greater the cause for alarm from the spread
of dangerous opinions, the greater the calmness and wisdom
required in selecting the proper mode of meeting tirem. One
great danger of the rise of erroneous opinions in all ages has
been that they have produced statements equally/and some
times more erroneous than the statements which originally caused
the alarm. . . . Reference has been made to the Declaration
of the clergy, addressed to your Grace and to the Bishops
generally. Having looked at the document very carefully, and
considered the great number of signatures attached to it, I can
not help coming to the conclusion that a very undesirable
amount of excitement has been raised. ... I think it most
undesirable that persons should append their names to any
document unless they fully and entirely agree with it — at all
events to such a document as this. Now I understand that
document to state nothing less than this — that it has been the
Doctrine of the Universal Church in all ages that Holy Scrip
ture is not only our guide of life, and the lamp that is to
enlighten our path — not only our infallible guide as to faith and
doctrine, but that in matters which have no connection with
either faith or doctrine — as, for example, matters of physical
science, every single syllable of Holy Scripture is to be con
sidered as infallible. If that is not the meaning, and if the
words of the Declaration have any meaning at all other than
to express the agitation and unwise alarm into which those
who signed the Declaration were thrown, I should be glad to
hear what that meaning is." 1
In the end, after prolonged and vehement debate, a
resolution was formally carried by a large majority in both
Houses,2 synodically condemning the volume "as con
taining teaching contrary to the doctrine received by the
United Church of England and Ireland in common with
the whole Catholic Church of Christ."
A remarkable scene followed in the House of Lords a
1 Chronicle of Convocation, June 21, 1864, pp. 1660-64.
¦^ LfeHouse itwas carried by» votes to 2. The minoritv
consisted of the Bishops of London and Lincoln, the Bishop of St. Dav d's
Jp fetand is"c ?£ L°Wer H°USeit wascar"edW39to ig.-y^-./cI^

1860-64] A MEMORABLE PASSAGE-AT-ARMS 323
few days later. Lord Houghton in a carefully prepared
speech, bristling with precedents, asked the Lord Chan
cellor (Westbury) whether Convocation had not exceeded
its rights and exposed itself to penalties by this Act of
Condemnation. The Lord Chancellor in his reply referred
contemptuously to the condemnation as illegal, but not
worth noticing, and took the opportunity to make a per
sonal attack upon Bishop Wilberforce as its principal
author : —
"The judgment," he said, "is simply a series of well-lubri
cated terms, a sentence so oily and saponaceous that no one
could grasp it — like an eel it slips through your fingers, and
is simply nothing."
Bishop Wilberforce retorted in a scathing speech, de
livered at white heat, and while opinions differed as to its
Episcopal character, he was universally felt to have come
off victor in the combat. Bishop Tait, strongly as he had
in Convocation opposed the action of his colleagues, now
firmly supported the privileges of the sacred synod, and
his frank and helpful speech in defence of the rights of the
majority which had outvoted him drew the warmest
thanks from the gentle Archbishop Longley, whose pro
verbial courtesy and kindliness were never more severely
tested than during the progress of this tempestuous con
troversy. Very little additional light is thrown by the Bishop's
diaries upon the closing episodes of these long discussions.
The following are among the occasional allusions to the
subject : — Diary.
" ith February, 1864. — To-morrow comes the final judgment
on the Essays and Reviews. The two Archbishops will dissent
from the judgment as to the first charge against Williams and

324 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xn.
the first against Wilson. All the four law lords and my
self agree. It is no doubt a most important matter for the
Church. O Lord, grant that all may be overruled for good,
that no stumbling-block may be thrown in the way of earnest
Christians, and that Thy blessing may watch over and guard
Thy Church."
"Sunday, -iph April. — Next Tuesday comes Convocation.
O Lord, watch over Thy Church. Guide, calm, and settle all our
minds. Lead us to speak the truth in love."
" Sunday, 24th April. — In the midst of the turmoils, and the
attempts by the Record to separate me from my clergy, this is
satisfactory. Yesterday I was waited on Joy Champneys, Bayley,
and Thorold, three of the best men in my diocese, all of whom
have signed the declaration which I so strongly denounced in
Convocation and in my Preface.1 They came to express their
anxious desire that no unfriendly feeling should spring up, and
to explain, more or less, their views in signing the declaration.
I do not think that any evil, but rather good, will spring from
my so plainly stating my opinion. Lord, watch over Thy
Church. Calm and support us all under present difficulties.
Lead our souls to Thee, through Jesus Christ."
" School House, Rugby, May 15, 1864. — I am sitting in our
old bedroom. The room in which Catty, May, Craufurd, were
all born. The room in which I lay for so many weeks in help
less sickness. All the old familiar sights are round me, as
fourteen years ago. But what changes in the living souls. . . .
I am going to preach for the first time in that chapel for
fourteen years and more. This morning I administered the
Holy Communion to above 230 boys. A noble, cheering sight.
O Lord, bless the work here. Bless Temple in his vigorous
honest course. Deepen every religious impression of his teach
ing. Last night he addressed the communicants in chapel
with great earnestness and plainness."
In the following sentences from a private memorandum,
written during the height of the storm, Bishop Tait gives
expression to his own views of what was needed, whether
1 The Preface to Part 11. of The Word of God the Ground of Faith.

1860-64] MEMORANDUM ON THE CONTROVERSY 325
for safety or honest advance, during these heated disputa
tions : —
" The folly of the publication of Essays and Reviews, and,
still more, of Stanley's ill-judged defence of them in the Edin
burgh Review, and then the madness of Bishop Colenso ; these
things have so effectually frightened the clergy that I think
there is scarcely a Bishop on the Bench, unless it be the .Bishop
of ,St. David's, that is not useless for the purpose of prevent
ing the widespread alienation of intelligent men. . . . Mean
while I feel my own vocation clear, greatly as I sympathise
with the Evangelicals, not to allow them to tyrannise over the
Broad Churchmen ; and to resist that tendency which is at present
strong in them to coalesce with the High Church party for the '
mere purpose of exterminating those against whom the cry is
now loudest. 1 deeply deplore, and indeed execrate, the spirit
of much of the Essays and Reviews. I have lately read over
again with the utmost care Wilson's and Williams' essays before
writing my memorandum for the judgment of their cases before the
Privy Council. Williams' spirit seems to me even worse than I
thought it on the former perusal. I do not wonder at the out
cry and alarm, but what are bishops appointed for except to
direct the clergy in times of alarm ? I pray that I may never fall
into the snare of following rather than leading the clergy of
my diocese. . . . What is wanted is a deeply religious liberal
party, and almost all who might have formed it have, in the
alarm, deserted. . . . The great evil is that the liberals are
deficient in religion, and the religious are deficient in liberality.
Let us pray for an outpouring of the very Spirit of Truth."

CHAPTER XIII.
THE COLONIAL CHURCH— BISHOP COLENSO.
1 861-66.
Bishop Tait had from early years been prominent in
the cause of Foreign Missions. It will be remembered
that as fellow and tutor of Balliol, he joined with three
others in founding a private society in Oxford for the
discussion of missionary questions, and, both at Rugby
and Carlisle, he did all in his power to awaken and
stimulate an interest in the subject. His one and only
appearance as a speaker upon a London platform, before
he became Bishop, was at the Church Missionary Society's
Annual Meeting in Exeter Hall in 1855. The following
letter to his sister belongs to the same year : —
"Carlisle, 6th Aug. 1855.
"... Have you read Sydney Smith's Life? There is a
strange mixture in his character of earnest common-sense and
fun. On the whole I think he will be thought more highly of in
consequence of the publication of the Life, though it may be
doubted whether his religion was-'not injured by his strong sense
of the ludicrous. I cannot forgive him for his anti-missionary
articles in the Edinburgh Review. By the way, have you read a
charming little book of Miss Tucker's, The Southern Cross and
Crown, giving an account of the wonderful progress of Christi
anity in New Zealand ? I think it does one good to see the way
in which Christianity presents itself in its simplicity to those who
have never heard of it before. Its great features stand out in
bold relief. And this is the way in which it best secures the
mind from being worried by little matters — to dwell on its grand
doctrines, which are so full of comfort for those who are sincere."

1861-66] FOREIGN MISSIONS 327
In the early years of his London Episcopate he lost
no opportunity of expressing his interest in the subject,
speaking three times in Exeter Hall in the course of a
single year, besides preaching the great C.M.S. sermon at
St. Bride's, and concerning himself actively in the ordinary
business of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.
It was in those years that the complicated and difficult
question of Missionary Bishoprics came to the front, and
Bishop Tait took an active, and for the time an unpopular,
part in the discussions in Convocation and elsewhere.
The controversies which raged over the person and
office of Bishop Colenso were soon to force into promin
ence the whole question of the Colonial Episcopate : who
ought to appoint the Bishops — how and through whom
were they to derive jurisdiction — and to what disciplinary
authority were they subject. Already the importance
and the difficulty of these problems had become almost
painfully apparent. Up to that time (with the unique
exception of the so-called Bishopric of Jerusalem, which
was provided for by a special Act of Parliament) no
Bishop had anywhere been consecrated in connection with
the Church of England to exercise his functions altogether
outside the Queen's dominions.1 The Bishops for India
and the Colonies were, one and all, appointed by the
Crown, and furnished with Letters Patent defining their
jurisdiction. As missionary work extended — especially
in countries like South Africa — where the heathen mission-
field bordered upon the Colonial Dioceses, it became
necessary to provide for the Episcopal oversight of such
regions, and the question arose, By what legal process
could such Bishops be consecrated ? Clearly the English
1 Even Bishop M'Dougall, consecrated at Calcutta, under Royal Letters
Patent in 1855, f°r missionary work in the island of Borneo, preserved the
semblance of a Colonial Bishop by taking his title from the little island of
Labuan, a dependency of the English Crown.

328 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiii.
sovereign could not give Letters Patent, or confer a juris
diction ; but, on the other hand, it was absolutely without
precedent in the Church of England that Bishops should
be appointed without any control or intervention on the
part of the State, and it was clear that the question, in
whatever way it might be settled, must seriously affect
the relation of the whole Colonial Church to the Church
at home. So keenly was this difficulty felt that it was
even suggested in debate that the Missionary Bishops
might be consecrated as Suffragans under the Act of
Henry VIII., and enter upon their missionary work as
Bishops of "Bedford," "Dover," "Colchester," and so
forth.1 In 1859 and i860 the subject was debated very
fully in Convocation, and each House drew up a careful
Report. The opinion of the law-officers of the Crown
was obtained to the effect that, much as such a " novel
proceeding" was to be "deprecated and discouraged,"
they were " unaware of any statute or rule of common
law by virtue of which the Archbishops or their Suffragans
would incur any penalty from consecrating in this country
a Bishop among the heathen." The debates which fol
lowed were long and sometimes heated, and in order to\
understand their drift it is necessary to bear constantly
in mind that, in varying degree, there was in those years
a quasi 'Establishment' of the Church of England
throughout the Colonial Empire, and that in Australia,
for example, the bishops and clergy were above all things
anxious that no step should inadvertently be taken at
home which might have the effect of loosening that
tie.2 Bishop Tait, eager as he had always been in the
missionary cause, was so impressed with the importance
1 See Chronicle of Convocation, June 7, i860, p. 285.
2 See, e.g. the petitions from the Australian Church, printed in the
Chronicle of Convocation for 1867, pp. 914-16.

i86i-66] THE COLONIAL CHURCHES 329
of maintaining the Royal Supremacy as a bond of union,
and even in some sense a guarantee of orthodoxy, among
the scattered Colonial Churches, that he repeatedly urged
the need of caution in accepting the bold proposals which
were made by Bishop Gray of Capetown and others. He
was, in consequence, held up to frequent obloquy as an
opponent of missionary progress, and it may be well
therefore to quote his own words in explanation of his
attitude. Speaking in Convocation on June 22, 1859 —
"I have expressed my opinion," he said, "as to the many
difficulties which lie in the way of the scheme, as I understood it
was to be launched without any very competent authority, but
this by no means would prevent me from giving my cordial
assent if it should, after careful consideration, prove to be a
desirable thing. . . . The plan, as I understand it, is this — that
under the Metropolitan of the African division of our Colonial
Church a Bishop should be consecrated for missionary work by
himself and his two Suffragans, the person so to be consecrated
being nominated by the Metropolitan, a very serious change in
what has hitherto been the universal practice of the Church of
England, whether colonial or at home. It is further proposed,
as I understand, that these Bishops should be consecrated
without the Royal Mandate, the reading of the Royal Mandate,
according to the order of the Book of Common Prayer, being at
present a part of the Consecration Service. . . . These difficulties
occur to me as very serious. I have thought also that there has
not been a sufficient consideration of this very important point —
whether, after all, this plan of appointing Bishops at the head of
merely inchoate churches is authorised by any ancient ecclesi
astical usage, whether the system of the universal Church has not
from the earliest times been this — that the Church shall be
formed first and the Bishop shall come afterwards. . . . The
great missionaries who spread Christianity in this country — St.
Augustine, for example — did not come as Bishops, but as presby
ters. There are difficult questions connected with the history
and the laws of the Church, respecting which it would be most
important to have a full inquiry." x
1 Chronicle of Convocation, fune 22, 1859, p. 15.

330 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiii.

And again, on June 21st, 1861 : —
"What we desire to do," he said, "is to strengthen, by the
bonds of love and of mutual kindness, the connection subsisting
between the several branches of the Church. . . . When this
matter concerning missionary Bishops first came before us, I felt
in their full force all the difficulties which now present themselves
to my mind, and one of those difficulties which I always felt was
that a missionary Bishop stood so much by himself, that if in the
course of time he happened to be a man of eccentric modes of
proceeding, he might, upon his own responsibility, compromise
both the Church at home and the Church in the Colonies, and
yet have no authority to represent the one or the other. At the
same time, neither the Church of England nor the Colonial
Church near which he was labouring would have the power of
applying to him any sort of restraint ; and, in point of fact, you
might in the course of time have Bishops of the most unsound
opinions representing the Church of England, and carrying on in
apostolic succession, it might even be, an altogether heretical
Church. Such a thing exists at the present moment in the cor
rupt Churches of Asia, and might come to exist in other parts of
the world — namely, an heretical sect, headed by the Bishop or
Bishops who derived their consecration from the Church of
England. That is an evil which I felt to be so great that I was
very anxious that we should pause before we took any steps in
the matter. ... I look with a little alarm to the time when these
Australian and African Churches may on important matters get
into a different position from that which they now occupy, and
when that unity of the Church, which we all desire to see main
tained in every branch of the Church of England, may be im
paired. ... I can conceive a provincial Synod throwing itself
so completely into a mediaeval view of the Church as to make it
very different from that wide and tolerant and wise system which
we have inherited from our forefathers. I can conceive that diffi
culty increased by the circumstances in which these Churches find
themselves. ... I therefore am very desirous that no rules
should be adopted by these Churches in the Colonies which
should alter them so as to make them different from our Church
at home, either on the side of greater exclusiveness or greater
reliance on mediaeval traditions, and so on. Nor, on the other
hand, do I wish that any change should be made on the other

1861-66] HIS ACTION MISUNDERSTOOD 331
side. I think that the moie they remain like ourselves the better
— that a Bishop of the Church of England going into one of
these Colonies ought to endeavour to make himself the represen
tative of English Christianity, and that anything that confines his
sympathies to a small section of those among whom he finds him
self will do infinite harm both to the Church of which he is the
head, and, what is of more importance, to Christianity." 1
Such was Bishop Tait's view, and to it he adhered
through evil report and good report for several years.
"By all means let us have Missionary Bishops," he wrote,
"but all in good time. Festina lente. The autonomy of the
Colonial Churches is growing fast — too fast ; and this demand,
like others, will be easily met before many years have passed.
Hurry the matter rashly forward now — in defiance or scorn of
State rules and aid — and you will cut these Churches adrift before
they are old enough or strong enough to be trusted."
But events moved quickly, and the growth of synodal
action in the Colonial Church, and the withdrawal, step
by step, of Crown authority in the selection and consecra
tion of Bishops, completely changed the conditions of the
problem.2 It will be necessary to return to the subject in
a later chapter : enough has been said to explain one
part of the Bishop's action in the controversy which has
now to be narrated.
For a long succession of years the name of Bishop
1 Chronicle of Convocation, June 21, 1861, pp. 775-8.
2 Many years afterwards (in 1876) the Church Times, in reviewing
Bishop Gray's biography, wrote: — "Dr. Gray was in England again in
1858, and found bitter opposition to his plans from the Shaftesbury Bishops,
and the first appearance of that enemy of God's truth, Dr. Tait, was as the
opponent of any scheme for sending out Missionary Bishops, which he was
pleased to denounce as unscriptural. "
A correspondent wrote to ask Archbishop Tait to authorise him to con
tradict this statement. The Archbishop replied: — " I think you will see that it
would be quite inconsistent with self-respect for me to authorise any contra
diction of such a paragraph. My views respecting Missionary Bishops were
always very different from those of the late Bishop Gray, and they remain
now pretty nearly what they were in 1858. I should be glad on any suitable
occasion to state again what these views are, and I believe you will find them
best illustrated by the part which I am now taking in actively promoting the
appointment of Missionary Bishops in India."

332 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiii.
Colenso was on everybody's lips, and the interest, in
dignation, and alarm which it excited were shared by
thousands who had no real knowledge whatever of what
the supposed arch-heretic had said. Ample material has
been given to the world for learning from opposite points
of view every detail of the long and painful strife,1 and
only such parts need be recounted here as will explain
Bishop Tait's relation to the controversy. As the issues,
however, were somewhat intricate, it is necessary to record
these facts with care.
In 1853 the Rev. John William Colenso was appointed
first Bishop of the newly established diocese of Natal.
He was selected for the See by Bishop Gray of Capetown,
from whose unwieldy diocese it was severed. The
technical steps necessary to effect this severance involved
consequences unsuspected at the time. Bishop Gray had
been appointed to his larger diocesan jurisdiction under
Royal Letters Patent in the year 1 847. As these Letters
Patent, describing the original geographical boundaries,
could not, it was said, be altered, Bishop Gray now
pro formA resigned his See, and was immediately re
appointed under new Letters Patent, dated December
8th, 1853. This new document declared him to be
Bishop of the now reduced diocese, and to possess,
in addition, metropolitan jurisdiction over the subor
dinate bishoprics of Grahamstown and Natal. Bishop
Colenso also received Letters Patent declaring him
Bishop of the Diocese of Natal, " subject and subordinate"
to the Bishop of Capetown, to whom he was to take an
oath of due obedience. Under these Letters Patent
Dr. Colenso was duly consecrated, and took the required
1 The published Biography of Bishop Gray extends to 1 198 pages; that
of Bishop Colenso to 1431 pages; and no small part of the four volumes is
devoted to this particular controversy.

1861-66] COMMENTARY ON ROMANS 333
oath, and no one at the time suspected that anything
informal had been done. As it afterwards turned out,
however, these whole proceedings, so far as the jurisdic
tion conferred by the new Letters Patent was concerned,
were in point of law null and void, for the following
reason : — In the year 1850 a Constitutional Government
was established in the Cape of Good Hope, including a
Parliament, " with authority to make laws for the peace,
welfare, and good government of the settlement." And
from that moment the Crown ceased to have the power of
conferring by Letters Patent any such coercive jurisdiction,
ecclesiastical or civil, within the Colony, as the new
Letters Patent professed to give to Bishop Gray. Strange
to say, this point seems to have been simply overlooked
by the lawyers who drew the documents of 1853 ; nor was
it discovered till nearly ten years afterwards.
For several years after Bishop Colenso's consecration he
was on terms of intimate personal friendship with his
Metropolitan, who fully recognised the remarkable effi
ciency of his missionary work in the difficult diocese of
Natal. But his opinions, after a time, began to cause
anxiety to his ecclesiastical friends, and matters reached
a crisis in the autumn of 1861 by the publication
of his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans,
which was immediately denounced by Bishop Gray as
" full of the most objectionable views, and entirely sub
stituting a new scheme for the received system of
Christianity."1 It was admitted by Bishop Colenso's
friends at the time, and to some extent by his ' biographer
twenty years later, that in discussing subjects so momen
tous as the nature of our Lord's Atonement and the
Eternity of Future Punishment, the Commentary set the
popular theology altogether at defiance ; and it is in no
1 Bishop Gray's Life, vol, ii. p. 22.

334 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiii.
way wonderful that, proceeding from a Bishop of the
Church, such a book should have awakened a loud outcry.
Bishop Tait, in common with others in responsible
positions, was gravely anxious, and thought it wise
to write an immediate letter of inquiry to Bishop
M'Dougall of Labuan, Bishop Colenso's brother-in-law,
who replied as follows : —

Bishop M'Dougall of Labuan to the Bishop of London.
"Sarawak, fune 2,0th, 1862.
" My dear Bishop, — Thank you very much for your kind
note about the Bishop of Natal. I almost fear, from a note I
lately had from him, that he is not only disposed to stick by what
he has written, but even to go further in the ' free handling of
Holy Scripture.' He has in hand a work of which he sent me
the first part for my opinion, and which I could do nothing but
utterly disagree from, and entreat him not to publish ; — it is an
attack upon the Pentateuch, denying its inspiration, or that it was
written by Moses. I have only seen the Introduction and the
first chapter or two. His mathematical notions and Western mode
of viewing things have plainly led him astray. He says, in short,
that he can believe a miracle, but cannot believe in a bad sum
and false arithmetical statements, and so he falls foul of the Book
of Numbers especially, and points out what he conceives to be
no end of numerical mis-statements as regards the numbers of
the people at the Exodus, the number of priests, the im
possibility of their making the journey to the Red Sea in the
time stated, etc. etc. In fact, it is an utter denial of any truth or
authority in that part of the Bible, all owing, as it seems to me, to
his arithmetical and matter-of-fact way of looking at the Eastern
language and Oriental statements and descriptions in which these
facts have been conveyed to us. He tells me he has been lately
working up his Hebrew, and thus the thing has grown upon him.
I used, I know, to be the better Hebraist of the two, and
since then I have had a great deal to do with Arabic and the
languages of these parts, and I find that the more I know of
Eastern minds and thought, its luxuriance and inexactness in
the commonest statements, the less disposed I am to find

1861-66] BISHOP COLENSO'S PENTATEUCH 335
difficulties and food for doubt in the things that seem to have
thrown poor dear Colenso into a sea of mental trouble and
difficulty. May God grant him to see his way out of it ! I love
him much as a brother and a friend. I know him to be a noble,
brave-hearted, loving man, but I can in no way agree with him in
theology. If he has published this new work you will know more
of it than I do ; but as he said he wanted my opinion and that
of his friends in England before he published, I hope and trust
these opinions may have prevented his doing so. In that case,
please let what I have said on the subject be entre nous, but I
felt bound to let you know, after your kindness about the former
book on the Romans. Poor J. W. N., he is much in my thoughts.
I hope his coming to England will dispel the fogs Natal seems to
have generated in his mind. If he had been here in my place,
instead of in Natal, he would not have had time for encouraging
these doubts and mists, and perhaps intercourse with Eastern
people would have been a good corrective. . . . — Very sincerely
yours, F. T. Labuan."
When the first part of Bishop Colenso's book on the
Pentateuch appeared, it was immediately seen that there
was good ground for the alarm expressed in the above
letter. The volume contained a series of elaborate argu
ments to show the difficulties surrounding the numerical
and other details in the Scriptural account of the Exodus.
These arguments, as Bishop M'Dougall had said, were
largely arithmetical,1 and to most readers it would appear
that they did not greatly affect the sacred or historical
character of the Pentateuch as a whole. But the import
ance of the volume lay in its Preface, in which the Bishop
proclaimed the general result to which his investigations
had led him ; namely, a conviction that the early books of
the Bible were so ' unhistorical ' that he could no longer
1 e.g. a calculation as to the number of men who could stand before
the end of the Tabernacle — supposing each man to occupy a space 2 feet
wide, and the width of the Tabernacle to be 8 cubits of 1 '824 feet each —
was solemnly elaborated to prove the ' unhistorical ' character of Lev. viii. 3,
" Gather thou all the congregation unto the door of the tabernacle."— (Part 1.
PP- 3I-34-'

336 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiii.
'use the Ordination Service of the Church of England, in
which the truth of the Bible is assumed. He admitted in
a footnote that the decision just delivered in the Court of
Arches upon Essays and Reviews had led him to modify
his original resolve that he must resign his Episcopal
office, but the general tenor of his Preface remained the
same.1 "I appeal," he said, "to the strong, practical
love of truth in my fellow-countrymen, whether clergy or
laity," for the promotion of such measures of reform in
the system of the Church, that it may not become " neces
sary for me, or for those who think with me, to leave the
Church of England voluntarily, and abandon the work to
which we have devoted ourselves" for life." 2 The volume
containing this Preface was published in October 1862,
and was followed, three months afterwards, by a second
volume with a further Preface, in which the Bishop de
clared it to be impossible for him conscientiously to use
the Baptismal Service on account of its clear allusion to
, the Deluge.3
Already the alarm was beginning to spread. At one of
the private meetings of the Bishops in May 1862, when
only the Commentary on the Romans had been pub
lished, it had been proposed, on the strength of a letter
from Bishop Gray, then on his way to England, that the
Bishops should discuss the question of a synodical con
demnation of the book. According to the account given
1 The passage in question is as follows : — " For myself, if I cannot find
the means of doing away with my present difficulties, I do not see How I
can retain my Episcopal office, in the discharge of which I must require
from others a solemn declaration that they ' unfeignedly believe all the
Canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testament,' which, with the evi
dence now before me, it is impossible wholly to believe." — (Part 1. p. xii.) In
a footnote he adds: — "This was written before the recent decision in the
Court of Arches, by which, of course, the above conclusion is materially
affected." But in subsequent pages of the Preface (pp. xxiv-xxxv) he
reiterates his first contention, " notwithstanding Dr. Lushington's recent
judgment." 2 lb. pp. xviii-xxxv, 3 Part II. p. xxi.

1861-66] THE GROWING ALARM 337
by Bishop Wilberforce,1 it was only by Bishop Tait's
refusal to join in any corporate condemnation of an^
absent brother Bishop, who had not even been heard in
defence or explanation, that Bishop Wilberforce was pre
vented from carrying a resolution which would have
prohibited Bishop Colenso from officiating in England.
Bishop Tait was clear that such a proceeding would be,
at the least, premature, and probably most unwise ; and
there the matter rested for the time. Bishop Gray and
Bishop Colenso were now both of them in England, and
the appearance of the two volumes on the Pentateuch,
during the winter of 1 862W, brought the whole question
once more to the front, f
Two letters to the Bishop may be quoted as showing
the different hopes and fears which were stirring the
various sections of the Church : — "

Rev. Dr. Pusey to the Bishop of London.
"Christ Church, Dec. 17, 1862.
" My dear Lord, — . . . Will your Lordship bear with me
while I write on a very painful subject ? I fear that your Lord
ship's Charge is construed as intending to shield such a case as
Bishop Colenso's, while yet he is using his office of Bishop to
propagate among our mechanics disbelief in the authority of our
Lord and of God's Word. Had he been Mr. Colenso still, his
book would have been still-born. Now it is read by tens of
thousands because he is a Bishop. It is his office of Bishop
which propagates infidelity. Unbounded toleration to the laity
is very different from allowing Bishops and Priests to teach
publicly grave errors, destructive of all faith. Up to a certain
point a latitude has always been allowed. But if such teaching
as now claims to be recognised as allowed teaching of the English
Church is admitted, I fear that the Church of England will lose
the devout while she retains the indevout. People wait patiently
to see what the result of this struggle is. Dr. Manning is using
it very successfully to detach people from the Church, and your
1 Life, vol. iii. p. 115.

338 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiii.
Lordship will be probably surprised, as I was, to learn that among
our intellectual but sceptical young men there are not a few who
will probably ultimately escape from scepticism by taking refuge
in the Church of Rome. But the class of whom I am thinking
is not this, but those who think that a Church, if she allow such
deadly denial of truth as is now claiming to become part of the
recognised teaching of the Church of England, forfeits all blessing
from God, and is disowned by Him. They would gladly give
their lives for her, but will not dare to stay in her if it should
become recognised by continual sufferance that all truth or false
hood alike may be taught by her ministers.
" I have trespassed upon your Lordship's time, but I thought
that I might mention to you facte of which I am more likely to
be cognisant than your Lordshij^-I beg to remain, your Lord
ship's humble servant, \ E. B. Pusey."

Rev. Dr. Lightfoot to the Bishop of London.
" Trin. Coll., Cambridge,
Nov. igth, 1862.
" My dear Lord, — . . . We were much rejoiced here to
learn that Mr. Maurice had recalled his resignation. I am sure
it would have been a very grave calamity for the Church at such
a time as the present if he had persisted.1
" I fear Bishop Colenso's book, poor as it is, will do a vast
deal of harm among unthinking, well-intentioned people. The
result, I am afraid, must be to discredit reasonable inquiry with
reverent spirits, and to divide men into two extreme parties, who
will wage fierce war against each other and trample the truth
under foot between them. I have tried in vain to extract a grain
of comfort from the publication of the book. I feel very strongly,
however, that it is a warning against overmuch caution in
handling such subjects, for a more frank and liberal treatment of
the difficulties of the Old Testament, if it had been general,
would have drawn the sting of Bishop Colenso's criticism, even if
it had not rendered the publication altogether impossible. . . .
— I am, my dear Lord, most sincerely and faithfully yours,
"J. B. Lightfoot."
The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel felt a
1 See p. 516.

1861-66] BISHOP GRAY'S ACTION 339
not unnatural hesitation about placing its block-grant for
the diocese of Natal in the hands of a Bishop whose
Metropolitan was already denouncing him as a heretic,
and whose successive books were exciting general con
sternation. Archbishop Longley, who had a few weeks
before succeeded to the Primacy, was disposed to support
the Society in handing its Natal grants to the Arch
deacons instead of to the Diocesan, but before doing
so he consulted Bishop Tait, who, consistently with his
previous line, replied as follows: —
The Bishop of London to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
"Dec. 22, 1862.
" My dear Lord Archbishop, — ... I take it for granted
that it is a principle of the Society to pay all respect to those
who are at the head of the several Colonial Sees, simply in virtue
of their office, and that it is only in obedience to this principle that
the Society has hitherto acted in any way through the Bishop of
Natal. I know not who the persons are who now call on the
Society in this distressing case to set aside its principle in refer
ence to Bishop Colenso, while in all other respects he is recog
nised in undisturbed possession of his office as Diocesan of Natal;
neither do I know how far such persons express the sentiments of
any large body of the friends of the Society. But I do not think
the Society will act rightly in following the advice indicated. I do
not think the Society can, as matters stand at present, properly
transfer to any other than the Bishop of the diocese of Natal
that official position, whatever it be, which, according to its rules,
a Colonial Bishop holds in reference to the Society's funds. —
I am, very truly and dutifully yours, A. C. London."
Bishop Gray and his friends in England were now
eager to take formal action against Bishop Colenso, and
in a characteristic letter to the Dean of Capetown Bishop
Gray described his plan as follows : — "fan. 2, 1863.
" I have been thinking a great deal about this trial, and I
have to-day had a talk with S. Oxon. He quite agrees with my

340 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiii.
view. I am satisfied on these points: — i. The Bishops, even
though only Grahamstown and I should be present, meet as the
Synod of the Province, and also as a Court to try the com
provincial. 2. As a Synod they may declare what the faith of
the Church is, and as a Court condemn. I will not be bound by
the narrow limits, as to the Church's faith, laid down by Dr.
Lushington or Privy Council. I will not recognise them as an
authority as to what are the doctrines which the Church of
England allows to be taught. . . ."1
At the usual Bishops' meeting held before the opening
of Parliament, on February 4th, 1863, the position of
Bishop Colenso was again under discussion. From the
accounts of the meeting made public in the Biographies of
Bishop Gray and Bishop Wilberforce,2 it appears that the
Bishops resolved by a large majority — (1) to advise the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel to "withhold
its confidence from the Bishop of Natal until he has been
cleared from the charges notoriously incurred by him " ;
(2) to inhibit the Bishop for the present from preaching
in their dioceses. The following letter shows what was
the Bishop of London's view as to the second of these
resolutions : —

The Bishop of London to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
"London House, Feb. 4, 1863.
" My dear Lord, — The decision arrived at this day by a large
body of the Bishops, to adopt the Bishop of Oxford's motion, and
publish a formal document binding the subscribers to inhibit the
Bishop of Natal from officiating in their several dioceses, makes
1 Bishop Gray's Life, vol. ii. p. 32. It will be observed that the Metro
politan is as little ready to be guided by the Archbishop's Court of Arches
as by the Privy Council.
2 See above, p. 283. It is. hardly necessary to caution those who may in
vestigate the details of this controversy against accepting the long account of
these meetings given in Bishop Gray's Biography, as other than the personal
recollections and impressions of one of the parties in a sharp dispute.

1861-66] LETTER TO ARCHBISHOP LONGLEY 341
it necessary for me to state publicly to your Grace the reasons
on which I have felt it incumbent on me to dissent from a large
majority of my brethren.
" Individual Bishops may, I conceive, properly enough prevent
the Bishop of Natal from officiating in their dioceses if they think
he is likely to do so, and that evil will arise ; but such an inhibi
tion publicly announced as proceeding from the united body of
so many Bishops, whatever distinctions may be attempted to be
drawn, cannot, in my view, be regarded otherwise than as a
sentence, and that of a very severe character. The Bishop of
Oxford's motion has therefore appeared to me unwise, and, to say
the least, nearly approaching injustice. Unwise, because by in
flicting a highly penal sentence on the Bishop of Natal' s person
as the very first step in dealing with his book, it must in all pro
bability enlist a large amount of sympathy on his side. Unwise
indeed, because it has so much the appearance of being unjust.
It must, I fear, degrade the sacred office of a judge, supposed to
be held in this case by your Grace and the Metropolitan of Cape
town, if not by others of our body. For it will appear as if the
judges either desire to close the case prematurely by inflicting a
very severe punishment without any bona fide intention of having
their decision revised through further legal proceedings, or are
preparing to enter on their further judicial functions pledged to
a sentence of condemnation, not only against the book, but the
person of its author.
" My opinion is that at present the wisest course would have
been for each Bishop to deal with the existing scandal according
to his own discretion, having regard to the circumstances of his
own diocese, though I should have been ready also, had it
appeared well to my brethren, to adopt and publish such a united
resolution as that proposed by the Bishop of Winchester, to the
purport that, having regard to the judicial character of several of
their body, the Bishops, while deeply deploring the Bishop of
Natal's conduct, felt precluded, under the peculiar circumstances
of the case, from pronouncing at this stage of the proceedings an
opinion which could be construed into a sentence.
" Looking then with as much disfavour as any of my brethren
on what I am fain to call the rash and arrogant speculations of
the Bishop of Natal, and being ready to take any legitimate
opportunity of refuting his arguments to the best of my ability,
and of warning the people committed to mv care against his

342 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiii.
errors, and what appears to me the very unbecoming spirit in
which they are urged, I greatly regret the decision at which a
majority of my brethren has arrived, as likely, in my estimation, to
extend the influence of the publication of which we all dis
approve, and place many of those who disapprove of it in an
altogether false position. — I remain, my dear Lord, yours faith
fully and dutifully, A. C. London."
In consequence of this letter two further meetings of
the Bishops were held, and after long and heated discus
sion the Bishop of London succeeded in securing the
adoption by the assembled Bishops of a joint address to*
Bishop Colenso, instead of the collective inhibition which
had been at first proposed. The address was drawn up
by Bishop Tait,1 and, after a few verbal changes, was made
public in the following form, and signed by forty-one
Bishops, English, Irish, and Colonial, the only dissentient
being the Bishop of St. David's : —

" To the Right Reverend f. W. Colenso, D.D.,
Lord ishop of Natal.
" We, the undersigned Archbishops and Bishops of the United
Church of England and Ireland, address you with deep brotherly
anxiety, as one who shares with us the grave responsibilities of
the Episcopal Office.
" It is impossible for us to enter here into argument with you
as to your method of handling that Bible which we believe to be
the Word of God, and on the truth of which rest all our hopes
for eternity. Nor do we here raise the question, whether you are
legally entitled to retain your present office and position in the
Church, complicated, moreover, as that question is by the fact
of your being a Bishop of the Church in South Africa, now at a
distance from your diocese and province.
" But we feel bound to put before you another view of the case.
We understand you to say (Part n. p. xxiii. of your Pentateuch
1 Bishop Wilberforce's biographer is in error in attributing its authorship
to that Bishop. The original Ms. exists as drafted by Bishop Tait.

i86i-66] LETTER OF THE ENGLISH BISHOPS 343
and Book of foshua critically Examined), that you do not now
believe that which you voluntarily professed to believe, as the
indispensable condition of your being intrusted with your present
office. We understand you also to say that you have entertained,
and have not abandoned, the conviction that you could not use
the Ordination Service, inasmuch as in it you ' must require from
others a solemn declaration that they " unfeignedly believe all
the Canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testament " ;
which, with the evidence now before ' you, ' it is impossible wholly
to believe in.'— (Part 1. p. xii.) And we understand you further
to intimate that those who think with you are precluded from
using the Baptismal Service, and consequently (as we must infer)
other offices of the Prayer-Book, unless they omit all such
passages as assume the truth of the Mosaic history. — (Part 11.
p. xxii.) " Now it cannot have escaped you that the inconsistency be
tween the office you hold and the opinions you avow is causing
great pain and grievous scandal to the Church. And we solemnly
ask you to consider once more, with the most serious attention,
whether you can, without harm to your own conscience, retain
your position, when you can no longer discharge its duties or
use the formularies to which you have subscribed. We will not
abandon the hope, that, through earnest prayer and deeper study
of God's Word, you may, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit,
be restored to a state of belief in which you may be able with a
clear conscience again to discharge the duties of our sacred
office ; a result which, from regard to your highest interests, we
should welcome with the most unfeigned satisfaction. — We are,
your faithful brethren in Christ,
[Here follow the signatures of forty-one Bishops.]
" February 9, 1863."
Bishop Colenso's answer was to the effect that he was
unable to comply with the suggestion made to him. " To
resign my office," he said, " would be to admit that my con
duct has been legally or morally wrong, which I am very far
from feeling." In the meantime a discussion was raised
upon the subject in both Houses of Canterbury Convoca
tion. The Lower House, on the motion once again of

344 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xm.
Archdeacon Denison, requested the Upper House to
direct the appointment of a committee to examine the
Obnoxious volumes. The suggestion was earnestly opposed
by Bishop Tait. In the course of a long speech, in which
he pointed out the legal and other complications which
surrounded the question,
"No one," he said, "can over-estimate the difficulty of the
position of those who are called upon at this moment, as Bishops
of the Church, more or less to guide public opinion in these
matters. . . . The clergy consider themselves properly bound to
drive away all erroneous and strange doctrine, and none, of
course, are more bound to do so than those who hold our office.
We ourselves, with the great responsibility which falls upon us,
holding a position which is looked up to as a very important
one, not only by the Church, but by the whole country, may be
supposed to be likely to treat of such matters with great calm
ness, and after mature consideration. But the clergy generally,
some of them at least, may be not unlikely — I say it with the
deepest respect — to allow their zeal to get the better of their
discretion in their desire to drive away all erroneous and strange
doctrines. ... It was only yesterday that I received a packet
containing a number of advertisements selected from the news
papers, of sermons against Bishop Colenso's book, which were
to be had for a moderate sum, to be preached in the various
pulpits throughout the kingdom. Of course this is a mere insult
to the clergy, and very probably the advertisements were in
serted in the newspapers by some person who had no such
sermons to dispose of, but who wished to represent the clergy in
an invidious light. But still it points to an obvious danger, that
persons not well qualified for the office may think it necessary
to step forth from the ranks, when their strength is not equal to
the office of champion which they choose for themselves. . . ."
I think we might find other means of expressing our calm feel
ings on the subject than by engaging in such discussions [as are
invited by the Lower House], and I feel confident, without
wishing in any degree to magnify the office which we hold, that
it is to us, in our capacity as Bishops of the Church, rather than
to any discussions which shall be carried on in this or the other
House of Convocation, that the country looks for quiet guidance

1861-66] BISHOP TAIT IN CONVOCATION 345
in these matters. Now I would wish to speak, of course, with
the deepest respect of this body, the Convocation at this moment
assembled. Yet it is a simple fact that it does not command (so
much, perhaps, as we might desire — at all events, as many of our
body desire) the unhesitating respect of the whole of the Church.
. ¦ . . I do not apprehend that its decisions on this question
would carry so much weight as the calm decision, whatever it
might be, of the united Bishops of the Church. Now, on the
former occasion — the publication of Essays and Reviews —
though we were unable to take part in the discussion,1 a com
mittee of the Lower House was nevertheless appointed ; and of
this I am perfectly certain, that the publication of the book or
report, or whatever it was which originated from that committee,
was more calculated to damage the Church than any publication
I have seen for a long time. It appeared to me to bring to
gether in one short compendium all the objectionable statements
of the book it condemned, and then, side by side with them, to
put a number of the most meagre answers that could possibly
be conceived. Of course, if that document has received the
approval of the Lower House, it must be treated with the great
est possible respect ; but it was not treated with respect by the
country, and the impression was that that document was any
thing but favourable to the cause it was intended to advance.
. . . Bearing in mind that the country does expect us — the
Bishops — to guide it in this difficult matter, ... I think it
may be right for the heads of the Church, as they did by
their answer to an address in the case of Essays and Reviews,
temperately and quietly to intimate that they are alive to
the great dangers which the book may cause. But on the
other hand, being anxious to discourage all unnecessary excite
ment, all rash treatment of the questions at issue, and above
all, any petty and vexatious annoyance of the author of the
book, which can only result in justly enlisting the sympathies
of the country on his side ; deprecating the slightest appearance
of persecution, and still more of injustice — I think in this case,
as I thought in the case of Essays and Reviews, that the ap
pointment of such a committee as is demanded would be unwise,
and' do more harm than good. I wish to express an anxious
hope and expectation that whatever is done may be so done as
to tend to allay the natural anxiety of the country — that we
1 See above, p. 319.

346 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiii.
shall consider tenderly the feelings of devout men who find
their old and most cherished opinions rudely assailed; while, on
the other hand, we by no means overlook or undervalue the
anxious longings of persons of unsettled minds. I do not see
my way to agreeing to the proposal of the Lower House." 1
Strange to say, only six Bishops were present at this
discussion, and as the President did not vote, the motion
for the appointment of a Committee was carried by three
votes against two, the Bishops of London and St. David's
forming the minority.
Bishop Tait's speech attracted much attention, and
was vehemently denounced by Bishop Gray .and his
friends. Arthur Stanley, on the other hand, wrote : —
Canon A. P Stanley to the Bishop of London.
" Ch. Ch., Oxford, Feb. 20, 1863.
" My dear Bishop, — I have read your speech with great
care and great pleasure. I think that it will have the best effect,
and (though I should have thought a more explicit statement as
to the liberty allowed in the Church on the matter in discussion
would have been not only right but prudent), I consider that it
takes away almost all my case against you in the matter of
Essays and Reviews. . . . Farewell. Many thanks. I can
hardly express to you the pleasure given to me by these better
relations between us. — Ever yours, A. P. Stanley."
Hearing that Bishop Colenso was pained at the per
sonal coldness with which he had been received in England,
Bishop Tait wrote to him as follows : — "March 3, 1863.
" I have heard this morning from Mr. T. D. Acland that
you had expressed a wish to see me. I shall gladly hold my
self in readiness at any time you might name. . . . Had it not
been for the circumstance of my never having met you" in
former times, I should have made a point of asking to see you
before now."
1 Chronicle of Convocation, February 13, 1863, pp. 1092-1101.

1861-66] INTERVIEW WITH COLENSO 347
The interview took place next day. Bishop Tait thus
records it in his Diary : —
" 5th March 1863. — Yesterday I had a long conference with
Bishop Colenso, from which I gained no hope. He seems
fanatically convinced that he has a great mission to save the
theology and religion of England from a great collision with
Science. He seemed to me very wild, and to be likely to go
very far in discarding the old faith."
Bishop Colenso, writing to Sir Charles Lyell of the
same interview, says : —
" I had half an hour's talk with the Bishop of London by
appointment on Wednesday last, about which I will talk to you
on Wednesday next, if I have not the pleasure of meeting you
before. He then spoke of your book as lying on the table, and
seemed to think that it was quite possible to hold both it and the
Bible story as true in some sense." 1
A few weeks later he again writes : —
" You will see that the Bishop of London does not act with
the other Bishops. They, headed by the Bishop of Oxford, have
cut me dead. But I met him in Pall Mall a few days ago, where
he was walking arm in arm with another Bishop, and I was going
to pass him with a salutation. But he made a point of shaking
me heartily by the hand, and stopping to ask me some friendly
question, the other standing mute all the while. I could not see
who it was : perhaps he did not know me." 2
Meantime the excitement grew, as the English Bishops,
one after another, responded to the addresses of their
Rural Deaneries by inhibiting Bishop Colenso from offi
ciating in their dioceses. The Bishop of London issued
no such inhibition, contenting himself with the reiterated
request to his clergy "to supply the antidote which is
most wanted, by upholding the positive proofs of the
genuineness and inspiration of the Sacred Volume, which
1 Bishop Colenso's Life, vol. i. p. 237. - Ibid. p. 239.

348 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiii.
may well be brought forward without much controversy,
and without the slightest mention of the book against
which the arguments are directed." 1
When the Convocation of Canterbury met in May,
Archdeacon Denison carried through the House, almost
without discussion, the Report of his Committee upon
Bishop Colenso's book. Warned, it may be, by the recep
tion accorded to his Report upon Essays and Reviews two
years before, and especially by the reference made to it
by Bishop Tait, the Archdeacon had couched this Report
in very different terms, merely analysing the contents of
Dr. Colenso's volumes, as in apparent contradiction to
statements both in the Bible and the Prayer-Book, and
involving, therefore, "errors of the gravest and most
dangerous character." At the same time the Committee
emphatically desired "not to be understood as express
ing any opinion opposed to the free exercise of patient
thought and reverent inquiry in the study of the Word
of God." 2
When the Report came before the Upper House, each
of the leading Bishops adhered to the line he had pre
viously taken. Bishop Wilberforce pleaded earnestly for
immediate action : —
" It seems to me," he said, " that one means by which we can
bear our witness against error is by setting solemnly the mark of
this body, meeting synodically, upon such erroneous teaching by
. one of ourselves, and declaring that it is, in our judgment, false
and dangerous." 8
The Bishop of London repeated his objections to any
such formal action while the whole matter was still sub
fudice. Bishop Gray had already returned to Capetown
1 Chronicle of Convocation, February 13, 1863, p. 1094
2 Ibid. May 19, 1863, pp. 1175-1184.
3 Ibid. May 19, 1863, p. 1164.

1861-66] CONVOCATION PROCEEDINGS 349
and was about to bring his Suffragan to trial. From the
decision to be arrived at in that trial, some appeal, urged
Bishop Tait, must surely lie, and the Archbishop, he
thought, was now being called upon to take part in pre
judging the very issue he might hereafter have to try.
" I will never believe," he continued, " that it was the intention *
of the letters patent, or whatever it is that clothes the Bishop of
Capetown with authority, to make him so irresponsible that there
should be no earthly appeal from his decision. . . . The Bishop
of Oxford has very properly said that Bishops cannot be silent
and express no opinion about the grievous errors that are brought
before them. Of course we must express our opinion, but there
is a very great difference between expressing opinions on matters
of doctrine, in fulfilling our common Episcopal functions by
preaching the Word of Truth and pointing it out to our clergy,
and, on the other hand, sitting here in a judicial, or something
very like a judicial, capacity. ... If in our desire to warn
people we hurry into any ' decision ' now, we may perhaps destroy
our ability to afford them that future and most effectual warning
which it may be in our power to give them if we wait till the
matter is brought before a properly constituted tribunal." x
The debate was adjourned, and next day, in the Bishop
of London's absence, a long resolution was proposed by
Bishop Sumner of Winchester, and carried, to the effect
that while the book did, in the judgment of the Bishops,
"involve errors of the gravest and most dangerous char
acter," they declined to take further action in the matter,
inasmuch as the book was "shortly to be submitted to
the judgment of an Ecclesiastical Court." 2
It was already in process of being so submitted. On
April nth, 1863, Bishop Gray landed at Capetown, and
immediately announced that he was ready to do his duty
by citing the Bishop of Natal to appear before him for
trial. Formal " Articles of Accusation " were in the next
1 Chronicle of Convocation, May 19, 1863, p. 1166.
2. Ibid. May 20, 1863, p. 1205.

350 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiii.
few weeks drawn up by the Dean of Capetown and two
others. Bishop Colenso remained in England, where he
received, on July ist, the formal citation of his Metropo
litan to appear for trial in the Cathedral of Capetown in
the following November.1 He took no notice of the
?summons, and in the meantime Bishop Gray's authority
received a somewhat serious check. On June 24, 1863,
the Privy Council gave decision in the case of Long v. The
Bishop of Capetown, reversing a sentence of deposition
which Bishop Gray had pronounced against the Rev.
William Long, an incumbent in Capetown, for refusing to
recognise the authority of the Bishop's Synod. The Privy
Council judgment entered elaborately into the whole
history of Bishop Gray's position.2 It expressly declared
that he would have been entitled to deprive a clergyman
for any cause which would authorise a deprivation in
England, but that this was not such a cause, the Synod
being a voluntary association of Churchmen, whose decrees
can only bind those who have already agreed, as in the
case of any other contract, to be so bound. All this was
important, as running directly in the teeth of Bishop
Gray's diocesan action ; but, what concerned the Colenso
case more closely, the judges declared the Bishop's Letters
Patent, formally given him by the Crown in 1853, to be
practically worthless, and to convey no such coercive
jurisdiction as they professed to give.8
Bishop Gray did not greatly regard this judgment, as
he had always determined to rest his case less upon the
jurisdiction conferred by Letters Patent, than upon what
he believed to be his inherent rights as Metropolitan.
1 These various documents may be seen in full in the Appendices to
Bishop Gray's Life, vol. ii. pp. 591-618.
2 The full text appears in Bishop Gray's Life, vol. ii. pp. 577-591. The
judges were Lord Kingsdown, the Dean of the Arches, Sir Edward Ryan,
and Sir John T. Coleridge. a See above, p. 333.

1861-66] THE CAPETOWN TRIAL 351
But it gave fresh strength to Bishop Colenso in his resolve
to protest altogether against the jurisdiction claimed by
Bishop Gray.
The trial took place, as arranged, in the Cathedral
Church of Capetown, in November 1863. The Bishop of
Capetown sat in person as judge, with Bishop Cotterill of
Grahamstown and Bishop Twells of Orange Free State
as his assessors. It is easy to criticise, and even to
ridicule, the proceedings at this quasi-trial, conducted in a
manner, to say the least, unusual, and unaided by the
presence of any legal assessor or lay judge. But it is
impossible to read the voluminous record of what passed
without recognising the extreme difficulty of the position
in which Bishop Gray and those who felt with him had
been placed. Their strongest religious convictions had
been roughly or contemptuously assaulted by a brother
Bishop, whose undisputed oath of canonical obedience
seemed certainly to put him in some sense under Bishop
Gray's jurisdiction. The case was altogether new in the
history of the Colonial Church. Every successive decision
in the law courts seemed to increase the confusion sur
rounding the whole position of Colonial Bishops in the
growing autonomy of Colonial government. What was
the value of their Letters Patent? Were such Bishops
amenable to the ecclesiastical law of England? If so,
with whom did it rest to try them in case of offence ? If
not, to what law were they amenable ? What was the
real value and extent of a Metropolitan's authority ? What
appeal, if any, lay from his decision ? On all these ques
tions, and a score of others, the lawyers were hopelessly
at sea, and gave contradictory advice at every turn.
" It would not haye been greatly to be wondered at," wrote
Bishop Gray, " if a few clergy in a distant land, without any great
amount of learning or ability, and without the opportunity of con-

352 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiii.
suiting any whose opinion ought to guide them, should have made
mistakes with regard to questions which have troubled and per
plexed the wisest and most learned, though I am not aware that we
have made any of moment. It may be said, perhaps, that, fore
seeing what was coming, I should have fortified myself on such
questions as I should have to consider, by counsel with the
Fathers of the Church, and of eminent men learned in the law.
But this was precisely what I endeavoured to do, though without
any great results. Men shrank, amid the uncertainties of the
case, and the absence of precedents, from giving any clear,
definite advice, and I left England, after every effort to obtain
authoritative and decided counsel, with the conviction that I
must act upon my own responsibility; that I must decide the
questions which I, at least, could not avoid, as best I might, and
carve out a course for myself."1
The difficulties and complications were certainly im
mense. The misfortune was that the strong, brave man
who was called upon to face them was, alike by his natural
temperament and by the opinions to which he had com
mitted himself, unfitted in a singular degree for this
particular task. When Mr. Keble extolled Bishop Gray's
celebrated Charge as looking " like a fragment of the
fourth century recovered for the use of the nineteenth," 2
he very fairly described the position adopted by the
Bishop. The complications and safeguards, resulting, for
good or evil, from the conditions of modern Church life,
Bishop Gray swept scornfully aside, absolutely sure of the
truth of his own opinions, and determined, so far as in
him lay, to smite his opponents, hip and thigh, whatever
the law courts or the civil power might have to say to the
contrary. His published Biography gives abundant in
stances of his outspoken denunciation, beforehand, both
of the writer whom he was about to try, and of the Co'urts
which might be called upon to revise his decision. It was
to the actual prosecutor in the approaching trial that he
1 Lifl< vo1- "• P- 73- 2 lb. vol. ii. p. 133.

1861-66] BISHOP GRAY'S VEHEMENCE 353
had written about the "condemnation" of the accused.1
To another he had written •: " If he [Bishop Colenso] is
tolerated, the Church has no faith, is not a true witness to
her Lord " : 2 and to a third, " The Church of England is
no true branch of the Church of Christ, nor is her South
African daughter, if either allows one of her Bishops to
teach what Natal teaches, and to ordain others to teach
the same. If the Faith is committed to us as a deposit,
we must keep it at all hazards ; and if the world and the
Courts of the world tell us we have no power, we must use
the power which Christ has given us, and cut off from
Him and from His Church avowed heretics, and call upon
the faithful to hold no communion with them." 3
The full vehemence of his opinions, his intolerance of
opposition, or even criticism, and his scorn of the ' time-
servers ' who showed respect to the existing Courts and
modes of procedure, became more manifest, if not more
earnest, in the years that followed, when even his staunchest
friends in England felt bound to deprecate the steps
he took, with a fiery disregard of consequences, in pro
moting what he believed to be the cause of truth. The
far-reaching character of his Metropolitan rights, as inter
preted by himself, had long been a source of combined
irritation and amusement to his suffragans,* and in the
delivery of his Capetown judgment he gave himself a
licence of criticism and comment not usually regarded as
judicial. Before such a judge Bishop Colenso declined,
not unnaturally, to appear. He remained in England,
and contented himself with putting in a protest against
the whole proceedings, and refusing to admit their legality.
" For further explanation of his meaning " he referred to a
letter which he had written to Bishop Gray two years before.
1 See above, page 340 ; and Bishop Gray's Life, vol. ii. p. 32.
2 Life, vol. ii. p. 63. 3 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 64.
* See Bishop Colenso's Life, vol. i. p. 341, etc.
VOL. I. Z

354 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT (ch. xiii.
But he offered no ' defence ' of any kind, and admitted
without reserve the publication of the incriminated pass
ages. The speeches of the prosecutors lasted for five
days,1 and on December 16th Bishop Gray delivered formal
judgment, deposing the Bishop of Natal from his office as
such Bishop, and prohibiting him from the exercise of any
divine office within any part of the Metropolitical Province
of Capetown. On a further protest by Bishop Colenso's
agent against the legality of the proceedings, Bisho'p Gray
replied, " I cannot recognise any appeal, except to his
Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, and I must require
that appeal to be made within . fifteen days from the
present time."
This was exactly what Bishop Tait had anticipated
might happen. The only appeal recognised was to the
Archbishop in his personal capacity, not in his Court,
and Archbishop Longley had already, by his formal
inhibition, prejudged the case. Bishop Colenso, accord
ingly, refused to have recourse to a tribunal, fell back
upon the law, and claimed to be put in the same position
as any other accused clergyman.
Looking back upon the controversy now, after the
lapse of a quarter of a century, most critics who are at
the pains to examine what it was that Dr. Colenso really
said, will doubt whether to marvel more at the alarm his
words aroused, or at the arguments employed in answer
to them,2 either in the 'Capetown Judgment' or elsewhere.
But it would be a simple anachronism were we to criticise
Bishop Gray's action in the light of what would now be
the general opinion of Churchmen. Whatever men's views
as to the fairness or wisdom shown by the Metropolitan,
1 Nov. 17-21, 1863.
2 Some amazing specimens of these are collected by Bishop Colenso in
the Preface to the Second Part of his Pentateuch, pp. xii, xix, etc.

1 86 1-66] F. D. MAURICE ON COLENSO 355
there were few, of any party, who did not join in the desire
that, at all events, Dr. Colenso should cease to be a Bishop
of the Church.
Men like Frederick Maurice felt this perhaps as
strongly as either the High Churchmen or the Evangelicals.
Mr. Maurice, as will be seen,1 thought a protest against
Colenso's teaching so necessary that he contemplated, on
grounds not very easy to understand, the resignation of
his own incumbency : —
" The pain which Colenso's book has caused me," he said in
a letter to a friend, " is more than I can tell you. I used nearly
your words, ' It is the most purely negative criticism I ever read,'
in writing to him. Our correspondence has been frequent but
perfectly unavailing. He seems to imagine himself a great critic
and discoverer, and I am afraid he has met with an encourage
ment which will do him unspeakable mischief. . . . His idea of
history is that it is a branch of arithmetic. I agree with you that
it is very difficult to say to what point of mischief he may
go, but it seems to me just as likely, with his tolerance of
pious frauds, that he may end in Romanism, and accept every
thing." 2
In pronouncing sentence, Bishop Gray gave the incrimi
nated Bishop four months' ' grace,' within which time he
might make " full, unconditional, and absolute retractation "
of his opinions. Bishop Colenso, of course, took no action,
and Bishop Gray, the day after delivering judgment,
wrote home as follows : —
" We are prepared, if there is to be a struggle with the world,
to do what we believe our duty to our Lord requires us to do.
If Civil Courts interfere and send Colenso back, God helping, I
will excommunicate, and, if my brethren will join, will (if the
Church at home is afraid to do so) consecrate an orthodox
Bishop. I know that this will provoke the vengeance of the
civil power, but I am prepared to brave everything in this case.
If ever there was a heretic, Colenso is one. If we allow him to
1 See below, p. 511. 2 Life of F. D. Maurice, vol. ii. p. 423.

356 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiii.
act in the name of the Church the sin is ours, and the punish
ment will be ours. What would our Lord have us do in this
case ? What would the early Bishops and martyrs have done ?
They would have said, 'To whom we gave place by subjection,
no, not for an hour.' ... It is through Civil Courts that the
world in these days seeks to crush the Church. They represent
the world's feelings, and give judgment accordingly." 1
And again, a few weeks later, on hearing of the
criticisms made at home upon his action : —
"The line of the press and of Churchmen sickens me. . . .
I write by this mail to the Archbishop, and pray him, if Civil
Courts reinstate Colenso, and prevent him from consecrating a
successor, to write and encourage me to do my duty to our Lord
and to the Church, for which He gave Himself, and to elect out
here and consecrate one without letters patent or other idle
formalities.2 And again : —
"I fully anticipate an appeal to the temporal Courts . . .
perhaps a verdict in Colenso's favour — return to Natal — resump
tion of spiritual functions — excommunication — and then the real
struggle. Will the diocese place the appointment of another
Bishop in my hands, to be consecrated in the teeth of the
Crown without letters patent ? . . . Upon these topics my mind
is dwelling. Nothing has more discouraged me or weakened
my hands than the low, worldly, servile view which nearly every
body in England takes of these questions. Well, say they,
you have done your duty, whatever the result of an appeal
to the Privy Council. What would a Christian of the first
three centuries have said to such a notion? And whatever
your state in England may be, ours is that of the three first
centuries." 3
April 1 6th was the day up to which it was in Bishop
Colenso's power to retract, and express his repentance,
and on that very day the indomitable Metropolitan took
ship for Natal.
1 Bishop Gray's Life, vol. ii. p. 108.
2 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 119. 3 ibid. vol. ii. p. 136.

1861-66] BISHOP GRAY'S FIERY CHARGE 357
" I start to-morrow," he wrote, " to take charge of the diocese,
and, if I can, guide it into a right path. . . . Keble writes me most
loving letters, and Pusey too, and Denison, in the tone of the
shield, the sword, and the battle. . . . The real struggle is now
coming on — hitherto it has been skirmishing. Now it is with
the world clothed in ermine. God defend the right."1
On May 18th Bishop Gray delivered in the Cathedral
of the Diocese of Natal the fiery Charge which has already
been alluded to : —
He had come, he said, to " a widowed diocese. The whole
flock is without its pastor. The clergy without their guide,
counsellor, friend. The Church without its ruler. The duty of
my office compels me, sede vacante, to take charge of this diocese.
I have come among you for the express purpose of doing so.
During the vacancy the clergy will hold themselves responsible
tome."2 He recapitulated in vigorous language the sum of
Bishop Colenso's errors — "theories destructive of all
Revelation — of Christianity itself — . . . put forth with
the reckless arrogance which marked the infidels of the
preceding century." 3 He recounted the process of deposi
tion which had taken place, and announced his intention,
if need be, to proceed to a solemn excommunication in
accordance with the command of Christ and the injunc
tions laid down in the Canons of the early Church : —
"Your late Bishop," he said, "led captive of the Evil One,
has parted with the Truth of God, and now seeks to destroy that
faith which once he upheld. If the Church were willing to keep
him company . . . she would be a dead branch of the living
vine, would wither away, die out. She would be destroyed, and
ought to be destroyed."
Bishop Colenso, who was still in England, replied to
1 Bishop Gray's Life, vol. ii. p. 138. 2 Charge, p. 35.
3 Charge, p. 20. * Ibid. p. 33.

358 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiii.
this attack in a copious pamphlet.1 He had already
declared his readiness to appear for trial before any com
petent Court, whose proceedings should be conducted in
accordance with English law, and he had undertaken, in
such case, to raise no merely technical objection. He now
appealed to the Queen in Council as to whether the
deposition which had been pronounced was valid, and on
March 20th, 1865, the Lord Chancellor pronounced judg
ment in his favour, on grounds similar to those which had
governed the decision in the Long case,2 namely, that the
Letters Patent had exceeded their power in professing to
confer coercive jurisdiction upon the Bishop of Capetown,
and that, accordingly, "the proceedings taken by the
Bishop of Capetown, and the judgment or sentence pro
nounced by him against the Bishop of Natal, are null and
void in law."
Bishop Colenso's alleged errors of doctrine had not, of
course, come, in any shape, before the Court.8 The ques
tion referred to the judges was merely whether there had
or had not been a legal trial and a legal deposition. They
decided that there had not, and the Bishop of Natal
immediately returned to his diocese, reiterating his claim
to be tried, if at all, by some process known to English
law, either ecclesiastical or civil. He landed at Durban
on November 6th, 1865, and, in spite of opposition, resumed
his ministerial work. Thereupon " in accordance with the
decision of the Bishops of the Province in Synod
1 Remarks upon the Proceedings and Charge of the Bishop of Capetown.
2 See above, p. 350.
3 It is perhaps necessary to point out that the Judicial Committee of the
Privy Council, which had adjudicated upon Bishop Colenso's petition, was
not the much impugned Judicial Committee, " constituted as a Court for
hearing Ecclesiastical Appeals." The matter came before the Court as a
purely civil case. The Court had to decide whether a certain citizen of the
British Empire had or had not been wronged. The judges were the Lord
Chancellor, Lord Cranworth, Lord Kingsdown, the Dean of Arches, and the
Master of the Rolls.

1 86 1-66] EXCOMMUNICATION 359
assembled," Bishop Gray, true to his word, pronounced a
solemn sentence of "the greater excommunication," and
required it to be publicly read and " promulged " in the
Cathedral of the Diocese of Natal. This document
declared John William Colenso "separated from the
communion of the Church of Christ," and " to be taken of
the whole multitude of the faithful as a heathen man and
a publican."1 Bishop Colenso replied in a long and careful letter
to the excommunication and the documents which
accompanied it, and again offered to submit his writings,
" in accordance with the provision in your own letters patent,
to the Archbishop of Canterbury — not, of course, to the Arch
bishop in person, for that would be a mere idle form, since his
Grace has repeatedly condemned me unheard — but to the Arch
bishop of Canterbury sitting in his Ecclesiastical Court, before
which the case of any clergyman of his province, and of every
dignitary below a bishop, might be brought by appeal."
Clearly, Bishop Gray could not admit such a reference
to the Court of Arches without stultifying what he had
already done as Metropolitan, and he decided rather to
strengthen his position, if possible, by obtaining the
authoritative sanction of the Church at home to the steps
he had taken against his recalcitrant or impassive suffragan.
In the previous year, before Bishop Colenso's return to
Natal, the Convocation of Canterbury had passed a guarded
resolution expressing personal admiration of the " courage,
firmness, and love of truth " which had been shown by the
Bishops of South Africa in their " stand against heretical
and false doctrine."2 But this fell far short of the definite
1 For the full text, see Bishop Gray's Life, vol. ii. p. 248.
2 For an explanation of the real character and purport of this resolution,
which was carried without previous notice, and almost without debate, in
the absence of Bishop Tait and others, see the speeches of the Bishops of
Oxford and Ely a year afterwards {Chronicle of Convocation, June 28, 1866,
pp. 488-490).

360 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiii.
indorsement of his action which Bishop Gray desired, and
now that his last step had been taken, and the excom
munication formally pronounced, he felt it to be more
important than ever that he should obtain specific and
authoritative answers to the questions he had officially
asked with respect to his own and Bishop Colenso's
relations to the Church at home. These questions were
reduced, for purposes of debate, to three : —
i. "Whether the Church of England holds communion with
the Right Rev. Dr. Colenso and the heretical Church which he
is seeking to establish in Natal, or whether it is in communion
with the orthodox Bishops who in Synod have declared him to
be ipso facto excommunicate?"
2. (From the Dean of Maritzburg.) "Whether the accept
ance of a new Bishop on our part, whilst Dr. Colenso still retains
the letters patent of the Crown, would in any way sever us from
the Mother Church of England ? "
3 "Supposing the reply to the last question to be that they
would not be in any way severed, what are the proper steps for
us to take to obtain a new Bishop ? "
These questions obviously covered the whole ground,
and, as full notice of their discussion in Convocation had
on this occasion been given,1 it was seen that the Bishops
must necessarily make a public declaration of their several
opinions. A debate of the utmost importance accordingly
took place. Bishop Wilberforce urged upon the House
the solemn duty of indorsing the Bishop of Capetown's
action by a formal declaration that the Church of England
is not in communion with Bishop Colenso, but is in com
munion with Bishop Gray. On the latter proposition
there was no difference of opinion ; but Bishops Tait,
Thirlwall, Harold Browne, and Jackson,- succeeded in
preventing any such formal pronouncement of non-com-
1 As contrasted with the previous year, when the subject had come forward
without notice.

1861-66] BISHOP GRAY'S QUESTIONS 361
munion with the Bishop of Natal as should seem to admit
the validity of the excommunication. A few sentences
from Bishop Tait's speech will make his position clear : —
" I should have been very glad," he said, " if in some mode
that would have avoided the appearance of difference of opinion,
we could have communicated to the Bishop of Capetown our
impression that the questions addressed to us were couched in
such a form that it was almost impossible for us to return the
answer which he desires. ... Of course, in times of excitement,
it requires great caution and considerable courage to endeavour
to stem the tide of opinion, especially as the common sense
which the English people generally show in all such matters
decides that the cause maintained by the Bishop of Capetown
is the right cause, however he has erred in his manner of ad
vancing it. None of us have the slightest doubt that Bishop
Colenso has published most dangerous books — books of the
tendency of which I doubt whether he was fully aware when he
published them. Whether it be the case, as has been stated in
the public papers, that he is about to proceed further with these
dangerous publications, I know not; but what he has already
done is sufficient to convince us that he is quite unfit to exercise
the office of a Bishop of the Church of England. I only wish
he had followed the judicious advice which we have given him.
I do not think he can, with any satisfaction to himself, any more
than to the satisfaction of the Church, continue to perform the
duties of the office which he holds. But, however that may be,
he would not accept our advice, and we must take the matter as
we find it. We are for the moment placed in the painful posi
tion of appearing to sympathise with Bishop Colenso, and not
with Bishop Gray. I think it most desirable to state how far I
sympathise with the Bishop of Capetown. I have great respect
for him as a man of courage, as a man of undoubted zeal in
carrying out what he believes to be true, and as a man honestly
desirous of extending the Church of Christ according to his own
views. But I hope I am not saying anything uncourteous if I
say that on every occasion on which he has come before the
public, his conduct has made me suspicious of his own opinions.
I consider him to hold very strong opinions on one side, differ
ing from myself and more than one-half the Bishops of the
Church of England. He is fully entitled to hold these opinions,

362 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiii.
but I think there is this fault in his character, that he is not
content with merely holding these opinions, but that he wishes
to make every other person hold them too. And, therefore, I
do not wish to endow him with anything like absolute authority
over the Church in the colony in which he presides. ... He
asks,— Is the Church of England in communion with Bishop
Colenso and the heretical Church which he is endeavouring to
establish? Now, is Bishop Colenso establishing a heretical
Church ? . . . Suppose we granted for a moment — which I do not
—that Bishop Gray had acted rightly and lawfully in excommuni
cating, where is the proof that if a clergyman, after taking an
oath of obedience to one Bishop, refuses to concede that another
Bishop has the power to excommunicate him, he is thereby
guilty of heresy ? No such definition of heresy has been given
by any writer on the subject. . . . The whole matter turns, as
the Bishop of Salisbury has remarked, upon the validity of this
excommunication. And that is a very difficult question. What
is Bishop Colenso excommunicated for ? Because he disobeyed
a certain sentence. It was not for holding heretical opinions,
but for disobeying a sentence condemning him on account of
his opinions. He disobeyed that sentence, and appealed to a
high Court in England, and that Court pronounced . . . that
the Bishop of Capetown had no jurisdiction whatever over
Bishop Colenso, and, therefore, that the proceedings against him
were null and void in law. ... I think it would be the right
course for the Bishop of Capetown, instead of adhering with
extraordinary tenacity to the step which has been declared null
and void, to reconsider the matter, and endeavour to institute
such proceedings as may be sustained by law ; and I do not
believe that any difficulty stands in the way of his pursuing such
a course."1 The. last paragraph gives Bishop Tait's answer to the
question frequently asked of him both then and afterwards.
It used to be said — " You have shown your objections to
what was done, but what do you consider ought to have
been done ? " In later years he frequently expressed his
opinion that, if Bishop Gray had thought well to accept
Bishop Colenso's invitation to submit the question of his
1 Chronicle of Convocation, June 28, 1866, pp. 505-509.

1 86 1 -66] BISHOP GRAY'S DISSATISFACTION 363
heresy to an Ecclesiastical Court in England, a conviction
would almost certainly have been obtained, not probably
on the ground of the Bishop's Old Testament criticism,
but of his teaching as to the Person of Our Lord. But
it was impossible for Bishop Tait, before whom the case
might have come in the Court of Appeal, to express at the
time any opinion as to the probable issue of a new trial.
Nor could the Bishop of Capetown, without stultifying his
previous management of the matter, have listened for a
moment to such a suggestion. He had, on his own
responsibility, taken an independent and, as Bishop Tait
thought, an irregular course, and it was now impossible for
the Church at home to extricate him from the position in
which he found himself.
Bishop Wilberforce's motion1 was lost on a division,
and the House contented itself with affirming, what was
indeed undisputed, that the Church of England continued in
communion with Bishop Gray. Even Bishop Wilberforce
declined to recognise the excommunication as fully valid.2
He had, a yea- before, deprecated so extreme a step ;3
but Bishop Gray was not to be restrained, and his con
temptuous carelessness as to what the English Courts,
either Ecclesiastical or Civil, might say, placed his friends
at home in a rather uncomfortable plight. He was now,
very naturally, disappointed and irritated by the marked
refusal of the Upper House of Convocation to indorse
what he had done. And he was in no way pacified by a
further resolution carried in that House, to the effect that
neither by electing nor by refusing to elect a new Bishop
would the Church in Natal sever itself from communion
with the Church of England. Archbishop Longley de-
1 See above, page 360.
2 Chronicle of Convocation, June 28, 1866, pp. 520-521, and February 21,
1868, p. 1292.
8 Bishop Wilberforce's Life, vol. iii. p. 128.

364 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiii.
clared from the chair that while he " could never vote for
a resolution which could be construed as being a recom
mendation to the Church to consecrate a new Bishop " in
Dr. Colenso's place, he thought the general expression of
sympathy and fellowship was " a harmless resolution, and
calculated to give much comfort." 1 Bishop Gray, however,
thought the comfort rather cold, to say the least, and
wrote home protesting passionately against the whole tone
of the discussion : —
He had read it, he said, " with exquisite pain and humilia
tion. . . . The Synod of the Church, expressly and deliberately,
after long time for consideration, refuses to say that the Church
of England is not in communion with the heresiarch. . . . What
a position does this place the Church of England in ! If she
refuses to cast him off, is she not implicated in his heresy ? I
confess that her act fills me with the deepest alarm lest her
candlestick should be removed. . . . She must, I believe, repent
of that her act, or perish. . . . This surely is the secret cause of
this sad act of the Bishops of the Church : they are not prepared
to witness for Christ, or to reject this new manifestation of anti-
Christ."2
1 Chronicle of Convocation, June 29, 1866, p. 595,
2 Life, vol. ii. p. 278.

CHAPTER XIV.
THE COLONIAL CHURCH {continued) — THE DIOCESE OF
NATAL — THE FIRST LAMBETH CONFERENCE.
1866-68.
The controversy now entered upon a new phase, and
Bishop Colenso ceased to be its prominent figure. In
the opinion of Bishop Gray and his supporters, the
heretical Bishop had been duly deposed and excommuni
cated, and the Metropolitan now regarded it as his im
mediate duty to secure the election and consecration of
an orthodox successor for the Diocese of Natal. From
the first he had made no secret of this intention, and
Bishop Tait and Archbishop Longley had for some time
been in correspondence on the subject.
The Bishop of London to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
" 20th April 1866.
" My dear Lord, — ... I much wish something could be
done to induce the Bishop of Capetown to pause before he
proceeds to the consecration of a Bishop to act in Natal. From
what I know of the feelings of a large body of churchmen, I feel
confident that if he takes this step without waiting for the decision
of the Master of the Rolls, and for the Ministerial Colonial
Bishoprics Bill,1 he will be held guilty of taking the law into his
own hands, and having separated himself from the Church of
England, and the Bishop whom he consecrates will be treated
as a schismatic. This feeling extends amongst a large number
of persons who hold Bishop Colenso's errors in abhorrence, but
1 See below, p. 369. 866

366 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiv.
highly disapprove of any violation of the law in dealing with him.
. . . — Yours faithfully and dutifully, A. C. London."
The Archbishop replied at some length, and Bishop
Tait again wrote as follows : —
The Bishop of London to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
" isl May 1866.
" My dear Lord, — Let me thank you for so kindly and
fully stating your views respecting the Bishop of Capetown's
proposal to consecrate a new Bishop to act in Natal. My anxious
desire is that your Grace should know all the circumstances, and
the whole bearing of the case on the various parties in the Church,
before anything is done. I have just heard of letters received
from ' Dr. Callaway and two or three of the sounder clergy,'
amongst the ten who are said to compose the whole Diocese of
Natal, ' expressing distress and apprehension under the pressure
placed upon them to elect a second Bishop.' . It would, I think,
be very important if your Grace could see Mr. Bullock of S.P.G.
and ask him what he knows of such a feeling in Natal.
" I am very glad to hear that the Bishop of Capetown is not
likely to proceed before the Government Bill is brought into
Parliament and the case before the Master of the Rolls decided.
" The future position of the Colonial Church cannot be said to
be known till the Bill becomes law, and, unless I am misinformed,
it will contain a clause, insisted on by Mr. Venn and the
Evangelical party, that missionaries and other clergy, as well as
laity of the Church of England in the Colonies, who do not wish
to subject themselves to the arbitrary rule of such Churches as
that of South Africa, shall be recognised in their complete inde
pendence of any authority but that of the Church of England at
home. This seems to show how likely we are, if any false step
is made, to exhibit in the Colony of Natal, e.g. in the face of the
serried ranks of Roman Catholics, the spectacle of three Churches,
one headed by a Bishop commonly regarded as heretical, another
by a Bishop largely regarded as schismatical, a third paying no
attention to either Bishop, and professing no allegiance except to
the Church at home. . . .
" Lastly, I think this point is very important : let it be granted

1866-68] A NEW BISHOP FOR NATAL? 367
for argument's sake that the Church in South Africa is perfectly
free of all connection with the Royal Supremacy. A dispute has
arisen in that Church, which has found its way to the highest
civil courts, just as a dispute between Wesleyan Methodists
might, and the Supreme Court, while repudiating all coercive
jurisdiction on the part of the Bishop of Capetown over the
Bishop of Natal, has also given judgment on the terms of the
voluntary compact which existed between them, just as it would
on the compact between various parties in a dispute of Methodists,
and this judgment has been to the effect that no such power as
that claimed by the Bishop of Capetown, of deposing his suffragan,
existed by compact. The case in this view is like that of a Free
Church minister who lately appealed in Scotland to the Civil
Courts to say whether the compact by which he entered the
Free Church has been violated by his deposition.
" Certainly this view of the Natal Privy Council judgment is
widely taken, and any who take it would consider the consecra
tion of a new Bishop, without some fresh legal authority to do
so, a flying in the face of the law.
" I know you will excuse my writing so fully and freely, and
attribute it to my wish that your Grace should be fully informed
of the views of various bodies of attached churchmen who have
no sympathy with Colenso, but deprecate hasty steps against him
as likely to injure the Church. — Yours faithfully and dutifully,
"A. C. London."
The Archbishop, however, took a different view. He
seems, at this stage, to have encouraged rather than
dissuaded Bishop Gray, and the arrangements for a fresh
election in Natal went briskly forward. A conference of
those clergy and laity of the diocese who supported the
Metropolitan was held on October 25th, 1866, and the
Rev. William Butler, Vicar of Wantage,1 was elected to
be " Bishop over the Church in Natal." The Bishop-elect
consulted the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop
of Oxford as to whether he should accept the nomina
tion. These prelates recommended caution and delay
and further inquiry. 1 Now Dean of Lincoln.

368 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiv.
"We perceive," they said, "(i) That the electing clergy were
a decided minority of the clergy of the Diocese; (2) That an
equal number voted for and against the proceeding to an elec
tion ; (3) That some of those who opposed proceeding to an
election recorded their refusal to receive a Bishop if he were
consecrated as the result of so nearly balanced a vote. These
considerations suggest to us the doubt whether there is, as yet,
the proof which you have aright to require — (1) That the canoni
city of the election is certain ; (2) That it will be recognised by
the Metropolitan and Suffragans of the Province as canonical ;
(3) That it will be so recognised by the Church at home.
"We further notice that though a large majority of the lay
communicants present voted for the election, yet that they
amounted only to twenty-nine, so small a proportion of the
whole number of lay communicants in the Diocese that we
doubt whether their vote can properly be taken as expressing
' the assent of the laity,' more especially as we do not perceive
that they pledged their order to make the needful provision for
their Bishop. We advise you, therefore, to suspend your de
cision until these important questions concerning your election
shall have been completely answered. — With earnest prayers to
God to lead you in this matter to see and do His will, we remain,
ever yours, C. T. Cantuar.
S. Oxon."
After further inquiry, however, the doubts of Arch
bishop Longley and Bishop Wilberforce seem to have
been set at rest,1 but, owing probably to the approaching
Lambeth Conference, any actual decision in the matter
was postponed.
In the meantime Bishop Colenso had brought an action
at law to secure the continuance of the income hitherto paid
to him as Bishop of Natal by the Council of the Colonial
Bishoprics Fund, and now withheld in consequence of his
deposition. On November 6, 1866, Lord Romilly (Master
of the Rolls) gave judgment in Bishop Colenso's favour,
and in the course of it controverted some parts of the
1 Bishop Gray's Life, vol. ii. p. 304.

1866-68] BISHOP TAIT'S COLONIAL CIRCULAR 369
legal decision given by Lord Westbury a year before as
to the status of Colonial Churches and their Bishoprics.
The prevailing confusion was thus worse confounded, and
a fresh maze of complication was opened for the sorely
tried but undaunted Metropolitan of Capetown, who
arraigned the judgment, more suo, as '" a most impudent
judgment, artfully framed to crush out all life and liberty
from our Churches." x
The troubles of the Colonial Church came before Par
liament on several occasions during the session of 1866.
On May 16th Mr. Cardwell, as Colonial Secretary, intro
duced a ' simplifying ' Bill, which might possibly have
become law but for the change of Government, which took
place a few weeks later. He was succeeded at the Colonial
Office by Lord Carnarvon, who promised to attempt legis
lation in the following year. The debates which had taken
place — whatever else their issue — showed, at least, the
ignorance and confusion that prevailed, even on the part
of those who had given attention to the subject. One
speaker after another referred in general terms to the
opinion of Colonial churchmen, and this was usually
represented as being markedly upon what may be called
Bishop Gray's side.2 The Bishop of London believed the
opinion of the Colonies to be often misrepresented in such
references, and, in order to obtain definite information, he
asked the Archbishop of Canterbury to issue a circular
letter to the different dioceses. The Archbishop, after
consulting Bishop Wilberforce, replied that there was, in
his opinion, no particular need for such an inquiry.
Thereupon Bishop Tait determined to act for himself
On October 13th, 1866, he wrote in circular form to
all the Colonial Bishops, Deans, and Archdeacons of
1 Bishop Gray's Life, vol. ii. p. 306.
2 See, for example, the speeches of Lord St. Leonards and others in the
House of Lords on July 13, 1866.
VOL. I. 2 A

37° LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiv.
the Anglican Communion, asking for specific infor
mation upon the disputed questions. His letter was as
follows : — "Fulham Palace,
13th October 1866.
" My dear [Lord], — It is probable that the connexion of the
Colonial Church with the Mother Church at home will next session
come under the serious consideration of Parliament. As circum
stances have very closely connected me with the difficult questions
likely to arise, I am desirous to be in possession of accurate in
formation as to the feelings of the members of the Colonial Church
direct from themselves. I trust, therefore, that you will excuse
me for asking you kindly to send me information on some points.
" I desire very much to know what is your feeling, and what
you believe to be the feeling both of the clergy and of the laity
in your diocese, on the following points : —
" First — The desirableness, or otherwise, of all Bishops in
British Colonies receiving their mission from the See of Canter
bury, and taking the oath of canonical obedience to the Arch
bishop. "Second — Whether it is desirable that there should be an
appeal in graver cases from the judgments of Church Courts, or
decisions of Bishops or Synods in the Colonies, to any authority
at home; and, if so, (1) to what authority, (2) under what
restrictions ?
" Third — How far the Royal Supremacy, as acknowledged by
the United Church of England and Ireland, can be maintained
in our Colonial Churches.
"Fourth — What seems the best guarantee for maintaining
unity of doctrine and discipline between the different scattered
branches of our Church in the Colonies.
" If you are kind enough to answer this letter, may I request
you to do so on thick paper, and in such form as will best enable
me to circulate the answers amongst my episcopal brethren at
home. " I should be glad to do this, if possible, before or early in
the next session of Parliament. — Your faithful brother in Christ,
" A. C. London."
In the course of the next few months the Bishop

1866-68] BISHOP GRAY DISAPPROVES 371
received about eighty replies to his inquiry. The writers for
the most part thanked him in cordial terms for the interest
he was taking in these knotty problems, and sent him
copious and statistical information.1
Bishop Gray, on the other hand, was indignant at the
action of Bishop Tait. Writing to a friend, he refers to
the matter as follows : —
" The Bishop of London has been very impertinently address
ing not only all Colonial Bishops, but their clergy, on questions
at issue. He will get well snubbed, for the clergy are very indig
nant, and say that they should have been addressed by the Arch
bishop through their own Bishops. I have sent copies of my
replies to him to the Archbishops, and to S. Oxon., and have
written, in the name of the Synod of the Church, fully and formally
to Lord Carnarvon." 2
A few sentences may be quoted from his formal reply
to Bishop Tait's circular of inquiry : —
"Your Lordship will, I trust, pardon me for saying that some
dissatisfaction has been expressed to me, chiefly through the
Dean and Archdeacon of another Diocese, at the course adopted
by you with a view to obtain information on matters relating to
the internal condition of this Church. While ready and anxious
to afford any information in their power, the feeling of the clergy
is, that that information should have been sought through His
Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, with whom this Church is
connected, rather than by official communications from the
Bishop of a diocese with which we have no immediate connec
tion ; and that if the views of the clergy of these dioceses were
desired on delicate matters affecting their internal state, they
should have been approached through their Bishops. Colonial
Churches are sensitive on the subject of Church Order, and feel
aggrieved if they are dealt with differently from what one Bishop
1 "I cannot sufficiently thank your Lordship," wrote the Bishop of
Guiana, "for the interest you are taking in the Colonial Church. That God
in His goodness may give you strength equal to what is required of you, is
our very sincere prayer."
2 Bishop Gray's Life, vol. ii. p. 316.

372 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiv.
in England would deal with the Bishop of another diocese there.
With these few remarks I proceed to answer your Lordship's
questions : —
" i. The Canons of the Church require that all Bishops of
a Province shall, before consecration, be confirmed in their elec
tion by the Metropolitan and Bishops of that Province. They
are bound by the same Canons to take the oath of Canonical
obedience to the Metropolitan of the Province. And this has
hitherto been the practice wherever there are Provinces and
Metropolitans in the Colonies. If by 'receiving their mission
from the See of Canterbury' be meant a departure from
this practice, there can be no doubt that it would be most
objectionable, inasmuch as it would be a violation of the customs
and Canons of the Church as received and acted upon in the
Church of England. . . .
" ii. I think that all the Bishops of this Province, nearly all
the Clergy, and the most intelligent and earnest of the laity,
would, if asked, desire that the question of the Final Court of
Appeal for Colonial Churches should be referred to, and decided
by, a National Synod, in which the Colonial Churches should be
represented. . . . Neither the Bishops nor the Clergy of this
Province would ever consent to be subjected to the Final Court
of Appeal as now constituted for the Church of England. . . .
"in. I object to the form of this question, and think it
calculated to mislead. It implies that the Royal Supremacy, as
acknowledged by the United Church of England and Ireland, is
not acknowledged by the Colonial Church; and appears to
appeal to their loyalty to acknowledge it; whereas the real
object of the question is to learn — and it appears to me that it
had better have been put in that form — whether the Colonial
Churches are prepared to submit the ultimate decision of ques
tions affecting the faith to the Judicial Committee of Privy
Council, which the Church of England cannot be considered to
have acknowledged ; and, if not, whether to any other Court con
stituted by the British Parliament. I have already stated my
opinion on that point. . . .
" iv. Nothing, in my belief, but the speedy assembling of a
National Synod can bind the Churches of our Communion in
one, or prevent wide dissensions and probably separations.
"In conclusion, I beg to enter my solemn protest against
legislation for this Church by the British Parliament. . . ."

1866-68] REPLIES TO BISHOP TAIT 373
A few weeks later Bishop Gray wrote sending further
information, and added : —
" I must again express my regret that your Lordship should
have forced upon the consideration of parties not very well able to
understand the questions at issue, matters of very great moment
to the future welfare of the Church."
Bishop Tait replied : —
" I am sorry that you should feel aggrieved by anything which
I have thought it my duty to say or do in reference to the very
grave and anxious questions which, arising at the Cape and in
Natal, have threatened seriously to affect the Church at home,
and alter its whole position as we have received it from past
times. I feel sure that if I saw you I could remove from your
mind any unpleasant impressions which late events have made
upon you in reference to the line adopted by myself and a very
large and influential portion of the Church at home. It is im
portant that we should each remember how very grave are the
points at issue, and give each other full credit for conscientious
adherence to principle. I am in full hopes that I may see you
at Fulham in September, and I believe the discussions at Lam
beth will, by God's blessing, lead to good results."
It was only from South Africa that the Bishop received
other than friendly replies, and even from the Diocese of
Capetown some of the clergy wrote to him a. joint letter
in opposition to the views of their Diocesan : —
" We are fully persuaded," they said, " that it is most desir
able, as .a means of keeping up the unity of the Church, that all
her Bishops in the Colonies, without exception, should receive
mission from, and take the oath of Canonical obedience to, the
See of Canterbury. If the claim put forward by the Bishop of
Capetown, to have his decisions as Metropolitan regarded as
final, be allowed, — if, in other words, as he affirms, there is no
appeal to any court on earth from a judgment which he may pro
nounce as Metropolitan, it is evident that the Suffragan Bishops
of the Province are in a far worse position than the humblest
Priest in pre-Reformation times : he at least had an appeal to

374 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiv.
the Roman Pontiff, whilst they are subject without appeal to the
sentence, however arbitrary, of the Metropolitan."
It would of course be impossible to summarise here
the voluminous answers which Bishop Tait received.
Enough to say that they confirmed him in his belief
that there was a great preponderance of opinion in the
Colonial Church adverse to the policy of Bishop Gray,
and that they furnished him, in preparation for the
events of 1867, with a mine of varied and valuable infor
mation.1 The affairs of the South African Church were by this
time exciting attention all the world over, and one con
sequence resulting from what was oddly described in Par
liament as their ' red-hot tangle ' was the summoning by
Archbishop Longley of the first 'Lambeth Conference.'
The suggestion emanated, not from South Africa, but
from North America, but it was admittedly the Natal
troubles that prompted and strengthened the appeal for
such a gathering.
On February 22, 1867, Archbishop Longley issued his
invitation to the whole Anglican Episcopate, which (in
cluding the Bishops of the United States) numbered at
"that time 144. The venerable Bishop of St. David's had
at first opposed the issue of such an invitation, believing
the intention of its promoters to be nothing less than to
outvote, by the voices of. Bishops from America and the
Colonies, the more cautious resolutions of the Home Epi
scopate. The influence of such a meeting, he said, would
evidently be brought to bear on the disputed question in
order " to modify the Constitution and Government of our
Church." This view was shared by the Archbishop of
1 The letters in question, although shown at the time to such Bishops
and others as desired to see them, have never been published. They are of
great historical interest to students of Colonial Church History.

1866-68] FIRST LAMBETH CONFERENCE 375
York and the Bishops of Durham, Carlisle, Ripon, Peter
borough, and Manchester, who all resolved upon declining
to attend the Conference. Bishop Tait had been expected
to join them, but he took a bolder course, and expressed
his cordial approval of such a gathering, provided its nature
and the limits of its authority should be carefully specified
beforehand.1 Archbishop Longley consented to this
course, and his letter of invitation stated clearly that " such
a meeting as is proposed would not be competent to make
declarations or lay down definitions on points of doctrine." 2
To allay the fears of the Bishop of St. David's, and to
gain for the Conference the weight of his presence, the
Archbishop gave him privately a further undertaking that
the question of Bishop Colenso's position should not be
one of those debated at Lambeth. On these conditions
Bishop Thirlwall consented to attend. But whatever the
value of these ' understandings,' it was certain that the
conflict must be sharp between those who still desired, so
far as possible, to preserve in the Colonies the same degree
of liberty and discipline as are characteristic of the Church
of England, and those who aimed at the virtual inde
pendence of each Colonial Church, and the authoritative
recognition of its acts throughout the Anglican Communion,
whatever the Civil Courts might say to the contrary.
Bishop Gray was naturally regarded as the champion of
the latter party, and he had the warm sympathy of several
Colonial Bishops, and of some of those belonging to the
United States. His whole mind was set, with charac
teristic enthusiasm, upon securing that Mr. Butler should
be summoned as Bishop-elect to the Conference in place
of Bishop Colenso, who had received no invitation, and
that thus Bishop Colenso's deposition should be officially
1 See Chronicle of Convocation, February 15, 1867, p. 807.
2 See The Lambeth Conferences af 1867 , 1878, and i888(S.P.C.K.), p. 12.

376 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiv.
recognised even before the meeting of the Conference
He even wrote to Bishop Wilberforce as follows : —
" If the English Bishops . . . will not give the right hand of
fellowship to him who has been elected, . . . but ignore the act
of deposition and separation from the Church, . . . they involve
the Church of which they are Bishops in formal heresy, and —
forgive me for speaking what I feel — are unfaithful to Christ,
and betray His cause. God forgive me and teach me otherwise
if I am wrong. I shall be the greatest sufferer if I be in error ;
but believing this, I do not see what other course is open to us,
if that came to pass which appears too probable, but for me to
resign my present position, and with it communion with the
Church of England."1
Bishop Wilberforce's Biography records his half suc
cessful efforts to restrain the fiery Metropolitan, whose
attitude — clear, outspoken, and indomitable — has been so
far as possible described above in order the better to ex
plain what follows, — Bishop Tait's scarcely less vehement
opposition to a system and course of action which were in
his opinion intensely harmful both to the Church at home
and to her growing offshoots in the Colonies. To the
general question it will be necessary to return hereafter.
Bishop Tait's own Diary will best describe what occurred
in the Conference itself with reference to the 'burning
subject ' of Natal : — Diary.
"Woodside, Windsor Forest, \8th Sept. 1867. — Yesterday
we held, at 5 Park Place, in the rooms of the S.P.G., the pre
liminary meeting for the purpose of arranging proceedings, and it
may be well to make a note of what took place.
"Met at 12. I travelled up in the train with the Bishop of
Quebec — not inclined to be communicative. I introduced
myself, and he did the same. I took the opportunity of express
ing to him my views as to Lord Carnarvon's conduct in dispens-
1 Bishop Gray's Life, vol. ii. p. 330.

1866-68] PREPARATIONS FOR CONFERENCE 377
ing with the Royal Mandate at the election of the Bishop of
Niagara, as explained in Parliament at the beginning of last
session. Also I took the opportunity of showing how an appeal
to the Crown could not be avoided, even by Churches not
established, as shown in the recent decision of Lord Westbury
in the Privy Council with reference to a minister of the Dutch
Reformed Church at the Cape, deposed by their Synod or
Presbytery for denying the personality of the Evil Spirit.
" I reached 5 Park Place in good time. A large assembly of
Bishops, many of whom I had never seen before, and some of
whom were so much changed since I last saw them that I could
scarcely recognise the new faces. Of the latter were New
Zealand, Perth in Australia — even Nova Scotia. The others
were chiefly Americans from the United States. There were
present, besides those named — Montreal, Capetown, Grahams-
town, Orange-River, Huron, Quebec, Ontario, Coadjutor of
Newfoundland, Bishop Smith, Bishop Trower, and a large body
of Americans, including old Vermont, the presiding Bishop, a
jolly old man with white beard and wideawake hat; Potter of
New York, like a very respectable English clergyman; Iowa
and Louisiana.
" At this preliminary meeting there cropped up, as might be
expected, all the difficulties of Natal and Church-and-State. I
thought it well to let it be distinctly understood that I thought
the Romeward tendency more dangerous for our clergy than the
tendency towards freethought, and stated that if the Natal
question were introduced, the Bishop of St. David's and others
would find themselves in a great difficulty, having agreed to
attend on the distinct understanding that the subject would not
be entered on. I pointed out to the Bishop of Capetown that it
would be much better for him privately to take counsel with the
English Bishops at home, especially those who differed from him
in opinion, and with some of his Colonial brethren, than to bring
the subject before a mixed body of English, American, and
Scottish Bishops, many of whom could not enter into the diffi
culties arising from English law and the connection of the
Church with the State. The Archbishop of Canterbury entirely
concurred with me, but Capetown intimated that he would
certainly bring the matter forward.
"We came to Fulham on Friday the 20th, to be ready to
entertain, and from the 23d to 27th inclusive kept almost open

378 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiv.
house.1 Craufurd read a lesson in Chapel daily till Thursday,
when he left us for Eton ; and the little girls ' presided at the
organ.' Our American brethren were much touched by the
presence of Craufurd and the children, and the part they took.
"On the 24th the whole party started from Fulham in
carriages, some to the station, and some to go with me. We had
Holy Communion in the chapel at Lambeth at n. A goodly
array gathered from all parts of the earth. The only English
\ Bishops absent on principle : — York, Carlisle, Durham, Ripon,
\Peterboro', Manchester. The Bishops of Exeter, Chichester,
Bath and Wells, and Hereford are all ill. The sermon by the
Bishop of Illinois was wordy, but not devoid of a certain kind of
impressiveness. The subject was not clear — 'We fill up what
is behind in the sufferings of Christ.' The characteristics of the
Episcopal work, 0\i\j/ets. The Bishop of Oxford was very much
afraid of ridicule attaching to us all if the sermon were published,
as the hospitalities of the week were not very like afflictions.
There certainly was an unreality in the sermon. The best part
of it, one American Bishop pointed out, was a passage contrast
ing the world and the Church.
" I like the Bishop of Illinois, and though certainly it appeared
to me that he was too fluent, I do not know that I should have
thought more of his wordiness if our American brethren had not
spoken of it as they did, telling the story of a great speech
which he made in their Convention. The speech ended, the
Bishops retired, and in the room in which several were spending
the evening was a new Dictionary. ' What is it ? ' ' You will see
on the title-page that it professes to contain 4000 new words.'
' Let us begin by returning thanks that our brother of Illinois had
not seen it, or he would have gone on for ever.'
"After the first day we did not meet again in Lambeth
ChapeL In the great dining-hall in which we sat, surrounded
by the pictures of the Archbishops, we had a few prayers at the
commencement of each of the four sittings, and those who were
our guests assembled each morning and evening in Fulham
Chapel. " As to our discussions, it is impossible now to recall them all.
The Conference decided not to admit the Press, — to have only
1 Most of the Bishops who were living in or near London, including
Bishop Gray, were invited to dine daily at Fulham during the Conference,
and fifteen Bishops spent the week there as the Bishop of London's guests.

1866-68] THE BISHOP'S NOTES 379
two reporters, who would make out a fair copy of their short
hand notes, and place them in the Archbishop's custody, to be
deposited in Lambeth Library. The Pastoral and the resolutions
adopted are alone published. The great discussions were, as
might naturally be expected, on the following points: — 1st,
Whether or no the Natal question was to be introduced. Its
introduction most strongly opposed by St. David's, who declared
that he came there on the faith of the Archbishop's programme,
and ended his appeal, ' I throw myself on your Grace's honour
and good faith.' I wish I could have had a photograph of the
old man as he pronounced these words with the utmost
vehemence and solemnity of manner and voice. Old Vermont
proposed a very strong resolution pronouncing Colenso ex
communicated, but he got no backers. New Zealand committed
the great mistake of attacking the Bishop of St. David's for his
charge reflecting on Capetown. This produced a storm, and let
the Americans and Colonials understand that St. David's was
looked on as a sacro-sanct. I first rose to the rescue, and then
the Bishop of Ely (Harold Browne) in great emotion reproved
New Zealand, declaring St. David's to be not only the most
learned prelate in Europe, but probably the most learned prelate
who had ever presided over any See. The Archbishop ended
the matter by declaring that he did not think it competent to
introduce the Natal question except in the guarded way adopted
in a resolution which appointed a committee to go into the
question of the scandal existing in that diocese. But this
decision was very much against the feelings of the more ardent
spirits, and attempts were made each day to reintroduce the
dangerous subject. A paper was drawn up by the Bishop of
Oxford, and circulated privately for signatures, declaring that
those who subscribed acknowledged the spiritual force of Bishop
Gray's sentence against Colenso. I of course refused to sign
this, on the ground that I believed the sentence had been pro
nounced null and void by the highest Court of the realm.
Harold Browne of Ely refused, on the ground that a Metropolitan
had not power to depose a Bishop in the way Bishop Gray had
done, even by the purely ecclesiastical law. It was insisted on
that this paper, if it did receive signatures, should in no way be
connected with the Lambeth Conference, but be considered
the private act of those who signed it.
"To the Bishop of New Zealand we were indebted for a

380 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiv.
closing warm discussion. It was late on the fourth day, and
thanks were expressed (I think by the Archbishop of Armagh)
for the tone which had animated the meeting, and every one
seemed pleased. New Zealand rose to second the resolution of
Armagh, and to our surprise poured forth his regrets and dis
approval in a way that shocked us. He spoke bitterly of Stanley
having declined to give the Abbey, reproached the Established
Church for trusting to an arm of flesh, and altogether spoke in
such a spirit — holding up his Colonial Church as our model —
that I could not contain myself, and spoke in severe rebuke, and
think I expressed myself as I ought. I believe the meeting
generally approved. Wordsworth of St. Andrews fully 'indorsed
what I said of the Established Church, and Oxford made an
apologetic speech for New Zealand.
" Thus far all had gone well. There had been ebullitions, but
the general tone was good. It was late on the fourth day — the
time when we were all expected at St. James's Hall for the great
S. P. G. meeting was long past; some, as the Archbishop of Dublin,
had left — when the Bishop of Capetown suddenly proposed
that the Conference should adopt the resolution of Convocation
respecting Natal. The greatest confusion ensued. He declared
that he would resign his Bishopric unless his proposal was
adopted. No one knew what the resolution which he proposed
we should adopt was. It was with great difficulty that we could
get what he wanted read. I got from him the Chronicle of Con
vocation, from which he was reading, and found that he had
omitted the first clause of a hypothetical sentence — ' If it be
decided that a new Bishop for Natal should be consecrated.' I
insisted on these words being inserted. A vote was hurried
on, and began to be taken. The Bishop of Winchester moved
that the subject be referred to the committee on the Natal
question. Capetown's friends became greatly excited. Oxford
protested that the question had been put, and that it was not
competent now to introduce an amendment. Capetown tried to
get both the resolutions passed by Convocation adopted by us.
The Archbishop (who ought, after his previous decision, to have
prevented this new question from being raised at the last
moment) thought that the Bishop of Winchester's amendment
was too late and could not be put! I besought them not to
carry so important a resolution by a 'ruse,' but in vain.
" Then Gloucester (our admirable Secretary) insisted that the

1866-68] BISHOP GRAY'S SPEECH 381
one resolution only, viz., the hypothetical one, should be put.
It was put, and carried almost unanimously ; 1 and I thought that
after all no great harm was done, as it was only a hypothetical
proposition. Great therefore was my astonishment when we
reached St. James's Hall to hear the Bishop of Capetown, as I
understood him, announce that the last act of the Synod had
been to give its approval to the consecration of a new Bishop for
Natal. This made my blood boil, but I restrained myself in the
room. I went out, and seeing the danger more clearly, as I
thought of what had happened, I went to the Athenaeum, where
I consulted the Bishop of Limerick, and was hurrying back to
the hall with a note requesting the Bishop of Capetown to
explain to the meeting, when I met Argyll and others, who told
me the proceedings were all ended and the hall cleared. I
confess to having been made very angry, and to having spoken in
the strongest terms to various persons at my dinner-table of the
inaccuracy of what appeared to have been announced. I wish I
had not used such, strong language, as it is not right.
" Next morning I wrote a note to the Times, which I sub
mitted to Lincoln, Chester, Argyll, and others, and which, with
their approval, I published in all the papers.2
" On Saturday we met again for Communion and Sermon in
Lambeth Church. I had a note handed to the Bishop of Cape
town, telling him of my letter to the Times.
" But notwithstanding this sad incident at the close, I feel that
the tone of the Conference generally was very good. And as the
1 The words of the Resolution as adopted by the Conference were as
follows : —
Resolution vii. — " That we who are here present do acquiesce in the
Resolution of the Convocation of Canterbury, passed on June 29, 1866, relat
ing to the Diocese of Natal, to wit —
" If it be decided that a new Bishop should be consecrated, — As to the
proper steps to be taken by the members of the Church in the
province of Natal for obtaining a new Bishop, it is the opinion of
this House,— -first, that a formal instrument," etc.
See Resolutions of the Conference, published by authority (Rivingtons, 1867),
page 16.
2 The letter was as follows : — " Sir, — As the Bishop of Capetown was by
some understood to say, in his speech at St. James' Hall yesterday, that the
Conference of Bishops at Lambeth had given its approval to the appointment
of a new Bishop of Natal, I beg leave to refer all your readers who are
interested in this subject to the carefully guarded words of the resolution
actually adopted by the Conference, which will, I believe, soon be published.
— Yours, etc. A. C. London.'

382 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiv.
Bishop of Argyll said, we must consider that the poor Bishop of
Capetown has had a most difficult position— that it is very diffi
cult to know what any one would have done with such a Suffragan
as Colenso. On the whole, let us be thankful for the kindly
spirit of the Conference— for the essential amity.
"The Pastoral, though severely criticised, is the expression
of essential agreement, and a repudiation of infidelity and
Romanism. " May God direct all to the good of His Church ! "
The Conference broke up on September 28th, and
was adjourned until December 10th, when a few of its
members met to receive the Reports which had been
drawn up in the interim by its Committees. In the de
liberations of these Committees Bishop Tait took an active
part, and he has left elaborate memoranda of his opinions.
The adjourned Session lasted for a few hours only. Of
the eight Reports received, seven were " commended to
the careful consideration of the Bishops of the Anglican
Communion." But these words were omitted in the reso
lution respecting the eighth Report, which " accepted the
spiritual validity " of Bishop Colenso's deposition, and
judged the See to be "spiritually vacant." The Report
therefore received no further indorsement than that of the
Committee which drew it up.1
Although Bishop Gray had not attained within the
Conference walls to the success he had anticipated, his
presence at clerical meetings and congresses throughout
the country was the signal for immense enthusiasm, and he
was encouraged on all sides to go forward without more
ado to Mr. Butler's consecration. As usual, he could see
1 The resolution was as follows : — " That the Report be received and
printed, that the thanks of this meeting be given to the Committee for their
labours, and that His Grace be requested to communicate the Report to the
Council of the Colonial Bishoprics Fund." — See History of the Lambeth
Conferences of 1867, 1878, and 1888, pp. 19 and 137 (S.P.C.K.).

1866-68] MR. MACRORIE'S NOMINATION 383
no difficulties, but for this purpose he required the co
operation of the Archbishop, on whom the Lambeth
debates had had anything but a reassuring effect. Indeed,
Archbishop Longley had now, it would seem, come round
to a view not very different in some respects from that of
Bishop Tait, and a few weeks after the Conference he
wrote to Mr. Butler dissuading him in decided terms
from accepting the Bishopric,1 although he retained his
opinion that some orthodox diocesan must sooner or later
be appointed. Mr. Butler accordingly declined to go
further, and Bishop Gray, disappointed and indignant, but
not disheartened, set to work to find a substitute. One
clergyman after another was offered the post in vain, but
at last, on January 13, 1868, Bishop Gray wrote to the
Guardian that the nomination had been accepted by the
Rev. W. K. Macrorie, Vicar of St. James', Accrington.
" The place and time for the Consecration," he said, "have
not yet been definitely fixed." It became known,
however, in a few days, that arrangements were being
privately made for the consecration to take place at the
earliest possible date, and that there was no intention of
asking for, or waiting for, the usual mandate from the
Crown. It would have been the only consecration tha,t
had ever taken place in England without such mandate,
and the new departure might have had serious results.
Had Bishop Gray been content to return to Capetown
and consecrate the new Bishop there, no further difficulty
would have arisen. But he was naturally bent upon hold
ing the consecration in England, so as to secure the appa-
1 " I have come to the conclusion," he said, "that I ought to dissuade you
from availing yourself of your election to the See of Pieter Maritzburg. To
my mind, the appointment of any one of very marked opinions to the See
would be open to serious objections, and it would be better to select some
one more calculated to meet the various shades of religious opinion that exist
among the faithful members of the Church of England in the Colony of
Natal."— Bishop Gray's Life, vol. ii. p. 368.

384 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiv.
rent imprimatur of the Home Church upon all that had
been done. Archbishop Longley was puzzled how to act.
He seems at first to have consented to allow the conse
cration, notwithstanding its irregular character, to be held
in the Province of Canterbury, and various Churches were
in turn suggested by Bishop Wilberforce and others.
Failing these, it was thought that the consecration might
be in Edinburgh, in accordance with an invitation from
the Scottish Bishops. But everything was kept pro
foundly secret, and Bishop Tait's information as to what
was passing was derived from a series of unauthentic and
unsolicited letters and telegrams, which kept arriving
from various parts of the country, announcing different
and contradictory reports and plans, and begging for his
advice or action. Most of these he preserved, and they
give a curious picture of the excitement, the mystery, and
the confusion : —
" It will be January 25th, in Chapel of St. Augustine's Col
lege. This is secret, but certain."
" It is said that the consecration will take place in St. Mary's,
Oxford." " It has been proposed to have the consecration in Wantage
Church next Sunday. Bishops of Capetown and Grahamstown,
Jnd some third Bishop, to consecrate."
" The consecration will be here in Edinburgh. Can nothing
be done to arrest this injudicious step?"
And so forth.
Bishop Tait at once wrote a letter to the Primus of
the Scottish Episcopal Church, pointing out the gravity of
the step the Scotch Bishops had proposed : —
" I venture to urge on yourself and your brethren," he said,
" to be very careful on the subject. You remember what passed
at the Lambeth Conference, and how many of the English Bishops
feel that such a consecration is unlawful. . . . You may rest
assured that the feeling on the subiect is very strong in the whole

1866-68] WHERE TO CONSECRATE HIM? 385
evangelical and the whole so-called liberal sections of the Church
of England, and that nothing but a strong feeling of the injustice
and wrongness of the proposed course would induce men like
myself, and the Bishops of Ely, Lincoln, and St. David's, to have
appeared, by opposing it, to favour Bishop Colenso, of whose
proceedings and of whose modes of thinking and writing we so
strongly disapprove. Under these circumstances I feel that the
Scottish Episcopal Church will take a very false and wrong step
if they thus interfere in a matter with which very important legal
interests in the Church of England are bound up. . . . Do not
suppose that we are insensible to the difficulties of the Bishop
of Capetown's position, or the evil done by Bishop Colenso, but
we think that Bishop Colenso's cause, like that of any other
accused man, must be tried on its merits, and decided against
him by a competent tribunal before another can be lawfully or
canonically substituted in his place."
He enclosed a copy of this letter, by the same post, to
the Bishop-designate, Mr. Macrorie, who had formerly
been a clergyman in his diocese, and for whom he had
the warmest possible regard.
The Scottish Bishops met, and it was decided that the
consecration should take place in England. Thereupon
Bishop Tait published the following letter in the Times : —

The Bishop of London to the Bishop of Capetown.
"Fulham Palace, fan. 20, 1868.
" Mv dear Lord, — I feel myself constrained by a sense of
duty, much against my inclination, to address your Lordship
publicly on the subject of a letter which you sent to the news;
papers last week. You announce, as I understand you, that it
is your intention forthwith to consecrate a new Bishop for Natal..
Had Parliament or Convocation been sitting, I should have
asked in my place for an answer to the following : —
"1. Whether, considering the words of the 26th of George
m. cap. 84, and other Statutes, the law officers of the Crownv
having been consulted by the Government, have declared such
consecration to be lawful ?
vol. 1. 2 B

386 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiv.
"2. If you are not acting on the authority of the law officers
of the Crown, has a legal opinion been taken justifying the step
you propose ? by whom has it been given ? and what are its
express terms ?
" 3. When and where is it proposed that the consecration is
to take place, and who are to be the officiating Bishops ?
" But neither Parliament nor Convocation is in session ; and,
as it seems there is no time to lose, I take the only means open
to me for asking you, before you proceed further in this matter, to
give a public answer to these questions. It was only last week that
I learnt accidentally, but from the most undoubted authority,
that you proposed to hold the consecration on the 25th inst.,
and in Scotland. A vigorous protest against this proceeding has
been made by persons who are among the most attached members
of the Scottish Episcopal Church. The Scottish plan is, I now
learn, abandoned ; and it is stated that, on Saturday next, you
propose to consecrate in England.
" Meanwhile your brother Bishops in England may well be
thrown into perplexity. We know not in which of our dioceses
an act, which, to say the least, is of most doubtful legality, is to
take place. We may read in the newspapers any morning that
the thing has been already done ; and we may be left in the
disagreeable position of being called upon by others, as. well as
moved by our sense of public duty, to visit some of our clergy for
taking part in proceedings contrary to the law of the Church and
realm ; when, had we been properly informed beforehand, and
the matter formally investigated, we might have prevented them
from committing themselves.
" I am sure you will see, my dear Lord, that the Church of
England is entitled to a plain and immediate answer to the
questions I have asked.
" You remember, from your recent presence at the Lambeth
Conference —
" 1. That the assembled Bishops, under the direction of the
Archbishop of Canterbury, deliberately abstained from affirming
that Bishop Colenso's deposition was valid, either spiritually or
in any other way.
" 2. That at the adjourned meeting of the Conference the
Report of the Committee recommending the consecration of a
new Bishop, was, by the wish of the Archbishop of Canter
bury, as well as of the Bishops of Lincoln, Ely, Chester,

1866-68] BISHOP TAIT'S REMONSTRANCE 387
and myself, with others, deliberately not approved, but only
received. "3. That many of the English Bishops, feeling strongly, like
myself, how dangerous is the teaching of Bishop Colenso, still
hold that his See is not vacant, since his deposition has been
pronounced null and void in law by the highest Courts of the
realm. " 4. That some also of our body, whose authority is very great
in such matters, believe that (quite independently of questions of
English law) the deposition is uncanonical.
"You will remember also —
"5. That, whereas the words of 26 George in. cap. 84,
declare that by the laws of this realm no person can be conse
crated to the office of Bishop without the Royal authority, if any
doubt exists as to the applicability of these words to your case,
that Consecration Service which alone can be lawfully used
within the Church of England prescribes that the Royal mandate
shall be produced before the consecration is proceeded with ;
and, moreover, the Bishop-elect is called upon to declare, in the
face of the congregation, that he is persuaded he is truly called
to his ministration in the office of a Bishop, not only according
to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, but also ' according to the
order of. this realm.'
" To many it seems inconceivable that any man will be found
to make this solemn declaration, in the midst of all these doubts,
before the legality of his consecration has been publicly estab
lished by some competent authority.
" Under these circumstances I venture to call upon you, my
dear Lord, not to go further without the most perfect openness,
and the most complete examination by the authorities of Church
and State as to the legality and propriety of what you are doing.
You surely will allow that you ought not otherwise to proceed to
a step which must be fraught with the gravest consequences for
the Church, both at home and in the Colonies, and for which
certainly there is no precedent since the schism of the Non-jurors.
" Let me remind you that what I ask implies no long delay as
to the authoritative settlement of whether or no you are right in
your view of your duty. Parliament and Convocation both meet
early next month ; and it surely would be unbecoming, in the
face of statutes and of ecclesiastical precedent, to hurry on this
step before either authority has had an opportunity of expressing

388 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiv.
its opinion.— Believe me to be, my dear Lord, yours very
faithfully, A. C. London."
This letter rendered the prosecution of Bishop Gray's
plan impossible. His Biography gives a vivid picture of
the hurried consultations which took place — the telegrams
and journeys between Cuddesdon and London — the
resolution arrived at to revert, if possible, to the plan of
consecrating in Scotland — the successive consent, recon
sideration, and refusal by the Scottish Bishops — the un
successful endeavour to obtain after all a mandate from
the Crown — and the ultimate resolve that there was
nothing for it but to hold the consecration in South
Africa.1 The following extracts from the innumerable
letters which have been preserved, and from the Convo
cation Debates, will give a sufficient idea of the line
adhered to by Bishop Tait throughout the stormy and
complicated controversy. He received from Bishop Gray
a long reply2 to the public letter of January 20th, quoted
above. In the course of it Bishop Gray wrote : —
"You have asked me, in the name of the Church of England,
a question, to which in this letter I give my answer. In return
I venture, in the name of the same Church, and in my own, as
Metropolitan of a province which you have deeply and grievously
wounded by your whole course of proceedings in this matter, as
I have shown in my published ' Statement,' to ask you whether
you do hold communion with Dr. Colenso, or not? Whether
you regard him as the representative Bishop of the Church of
England in Natal, or not? Whether he is entitled, in his char
acter of teacher, to speak in the name of this great and ancient
Church, or not? Vague phrases about disapproving of his
teaching evade the question, and do not meet the necessities of
this crisis. The issue at stake is simply this : — Have we received
1 Bishop Gray's Life, vol. ii. pp. 384-443.
2 This letter, which afterwards formed the body of a pamphlet, was the
joint handiwork of Bishops Gray, Hamilton, Wilberforce, Cotterill, and
others. See Bishop Gray's Life, vol. ii. p. 385.

1866-68] BISHOP GRAY'S DIFFICULTIES 389
a revelation from God, of which the Scriptures are a written and
infallible record ? Or have we not received any such revelation ?
Is Christianity, as it has been delivered to us from the first, true.
or is it a lie ? Are we to exchange it for a new religion or not ?
Nothing less than these are the questions raised by Dr. Colenso's
writings. We must take our sides on these great questions ; we
cannot be neutrals. The African Church has taken its side, and
rejected from its communion this false teacher, and resolved to
send forth another in his place. It is for the Bishops of the
Church of England to decide to which party in this great contest
they will commit the Church which they rule. The real question,
which has yet to be decided, is this, Will the Church of England
incur the guilt of complicity with heresy, by not openly separating
from her communion one of whom she has declared in her
Synod, that he teaches doctrine full of dangerous error, and
subversive of the faith ? The whole Christian world is waiting
anxiously till she shall stand clear in the sight of God and man
in this matter."

The Bishop of London to the Bishop of Capetown.
"London House, 6th February 1868.
" My dear Lord, — I received yesterday afternoon your letter
of the 28th ult, and have since read it in the Guardian news
paper in connection with the rest of your correspondence with
the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in reference to the
consecration of a new Bishop for Natal.
" You will not expect me to enter on all the matters to which
your letter alludes. I would only express my thankfulness that
you have, as I understand you, abandoned the intention of conse
crating a new Bishop in England or Scotland; also I cannot
refrain from assuring you how much, considering the respect
which I entertain for you, I regret that you should misunderstand
the motives under which, from an imperative sense of duty, I
have felt obliged on several occasions to oppose the course which
approves itself to you in reference to the affairs of Natal.
" But you ask me a question which it would be uncourteous
not to answer. You remember that a similar question was
addressed by you to the Upper House of the Convocation of
Canterbury, and that the Bishops there assembled deliberately

390 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiv.
refrained from answering that they were not in communion with
Bishop Colenso, feeling that such an answer would be equivalent
to a public declaration of the validity of your act of excom
munication, respecting which grave legal difficulties existed and
still exist. It is only natural for me to meet your question in the
same manner, by telling you that I cannot say I am not in com
munion with Bishop Colenso till I am convinced, which I
am not at present, that the proceedings taken against him, which
resulted in your pronouncing him excommunicate, are valid.
You seem to think that because, in common with very many of
my brethren, I thought it right that you should take proceedings
against Bishop Colenso, therefore I am bound to approve of the
mode in which these proceedings were taken, and to acquiesce
in their validity notwithstanding the adverse decision of courts
of law. " I understand you to ask me whether I hold Bishop Colenso
to be not only the titular, but the actual Bishop of Natal, notwith
standing your deposition of him. I should have thought there
could be no doubt as to my opinion on this subject, after what I
have already publicly stated. The words in which you mention
that I couched a circular letter sent in 1866 to Bishop Colenso,
together with all the Colonial Bishops and other dignitaries, show
the same thing : viz., that, seeing that Bishop Colenso has refused
to resign his post when requested to do so by the Archbishops
and myself, and the great body of the home Episcopate, I must,
till the legal difficulties declaring his deposition to be null and
void are removed, however much I may regret it, regard him as
still holding his office. I cannot, as at present advised, recognise
the force of the arguments which lead you and many others
entitled to the highest respect to look upon him as spiritually
deposed, when the proceedings by which he is said to have been
deposed are granted to be null and void in law, and when very
grave doubts exist, in the minds of those whom I regard as best
informed, as to their regularity even according to ancient ecclesi
astical precedent.
" You seem also to ask me whether I am prepared to assist you
and others in opposing Bishop Colenso's errors. I might fairly
refer you in answer to my published utterances, but it is only
courteous to assure you again, as I most gladly do, that in every
lawful and proper way I desire to assist you and others in main
taining the great doctrine of the paramount and Divine authority

1866-68] HOME CONSECRATION ABANDONED 391
of Holy Scripture. But my experience has led me to believe,
with respect to Bishop Colenso and all others who teach what I
believe to be dangerous error, that nothing is so likely to give
them influence as any appearance of unfairness in the mode of
treating them, or any endeavour, through zeal against them and
their errors, to override the law. — Believe me, my dear Lord,
yours very faithfully, A. C. London."
Archbishop Longley had in the meantime taken a more
decided line, and had written to Bishop Gray as follows : —
The Archbishop of Canterbury to the Bishop of Capetown.
"Addington Park, Croydon,
fanuary 21th, 1868.
" My dear Lord, — I think it is only fair I should inform you
that I have received letters from Bishops of every shade of
opinion in our Church, some deprecating any consecration at all
for the colony of Natal, others deprecating it till the meeting of
Convocation, when the opinion of the Church may be in some
measure ascertained.
"You may remember that when Mr. Butler consulted the
Bishop of Oxford and myself as to the offer made to him by the
Church in Natal, we advised that he should certify himself —
" 1. That the canonicity of his election was certain.
" 2. That it wo.uld be recognised by the Metropolitan and
Suffragans as canonical.
" 3. That it would be so recognised by the Church at home.
" Mr. Macrorie may have satisfied himself upon the two first
points, but the above-named communications abundantly show
that he can have no certainty as to the third. In the interest,
then, of Mr. Macrorie himself, as well as of the Church in Natal,
it is of the utmost importance that no final step should be taken
before all doubt on this point is removed. Mr. Macrorie's posi
tion would be a most painful one if after his consecration he
should find that the canonicity of his election was not recognised
by the Church in this country.
" With reference to the proposed consecration of Mr. Macrorie
— while, as I have already intimated, I must withhold my consent
to its being performed in my diocese or province, I still adhere

392 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiv.
to the opinion expressed in the letter addressed by the Bishop of
Oxford and myself to Mr. Butler, that there is nothing in Dr.
Colenso's legal position to prevent the election of a Bishop to
preside over them, by those of our communion in South Africa
who, with myself, hold him to have been canonically deposed
from his spiritual office. — Believe me, my dear Lord, yours
sincerely, C. T. Cantuar."
Disappointed in his endeavour to obtain the support of
the Home Episcopate, Bishop Gray fell back upon the
Lower House of Convocation, where he had good ground
for expecting more encouragement. After two days of
vigorous debate, the Lower House, on February 20, 1868,
passed a long resolution accepting as valid both the
deposition and excommunication of Bishop Colenso, and
praying for a synodical declaration from the Upper House
to the like effect.1 On the following day Bishop Wilber
force, who was now less certain than formerly as to the
validity of what had been done, moved that the Upper
House should postpone taking any action in answer to the
prayer, and, while thanking the members of the Lower
House for the zeal exhibited in their protest against false
teaching, should appoint a Committee to consider the
whole subject. To the general surprise this resolution2 was
seconded by Bishop Tait: —
"I join most heartily," he said, "in admiring, if I may
venture to say so, the unselfish courage and devotedness which
the Bishop of Capetown has shown in this matter. I am sure
that he has acted throughout under a deep sense of his duty, as
a Christian man should, and has shown an example in not
swerving from that duty which is worthy of all praise ; but I have
ventured at various times to express an opinion that I cannot
approve of many of the individual acts to which he has con
sidered that his duty required him to have recourse in the very
1 For the words of this articulus cleri see Chronicle of Convocation, Feb.
20, 1868, p. 1275-6.
2 See Chronicle of Convocation, Feb. 21, 1868, p. 1296.

1866-68] A CONVOCATION COMMITTEE 393
difficult conjunctures he had to deal with ; and therefore, if it
should appear that any phrases in this resolution are stronger
than would naturally have been used by me as conveying my
known opinions, I beg it to be understood that I concur in
the general expressions of admiration for that courage and good
ness, whilst I reserve to myself the right of criticising such
acts. . . . We are, and have been always, anxious that
these difficulties should be settled, but we feel they are so great
that a rash step would do more harm than it would possibly do
good. These difficulties are, as has been stated by the Bishop
of Oxford, even connected with the canonicity of the proceedings
themselves ; they are also complicated by being mixed up with
a number of legal constitutional questions. We, of course, are
bound by our office, even more than the members of the Lower
House, to weigh all these difficulties. We are bound not to take
steps which shall in any way conflict either with the law of the
Church or that of the State. . . . Therefore that slowness which
the outer world has been disposed to interpret as marking a want
of sufficient care and anxiety on this matter, has really arisen
from the greatness of our desire to take no wrong step on a
matter of such importance to the interests of the Church." 1
The Committee was appointed, with the Bishop of
London as its Chairman. On June 30th, 1868, the Com
mittee presented a report, which concluded as follows : —
"With regard, however, to the whole case, with its extreme
difficulty, the various complications, the grave doubts in reference
to points of law yet unsettled, and the apparent impossibility of
any other mode of action, we are of opinion — (1) That substan
tial justice was done to the accused ; (2) That, though the
sentence, having been pronounced by a tribunal not acknow
ledged by the Queen's Courts, whether civil or ecclesiastical, can
claim no legal effect, the Church as a, spiritual body may rightly
accept its validity."
Bishop Tait dissented from this conclusion, and pre
sented a separate report.
" Independently," it said, " of my views as to the general
1 See Chronicle of Convocation, Feb. 21, 1868, p. 1295.

394

LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiv.

invalidity of the trial, I entertain grave doubts whether, in con
ducting the proceedings, Bishop Gray did not, in several import
ant points, so far depart from the principles recognised in English
Courts of Justice as to make it highly probable that, if the trial
had been valid, and had become the subject of appeal on the
merits of the case to any well-constituted Court Ecclesiastical, the
sentence would have been set aside. These difficulties have all
along made me feel that the case of Bishop Colenso cannot be
satisfactorily disposed of without fresh proceedings, in lieu of
those which I understand to have entirely failed."
In his speech upon the subject he said : —
"The report is valuable, inasmuch as it states all the
difficulties of the case, and the three different opinions that
have been expressed upon it — the opinion, first, of those who
thought the trial was canonical ; secondly, of those who think it
was not canonical ; and, lastly, of myself, who think the trial
might have been canonical or not, if it had not been of a
character which was totally illegal. . . . One word as to the
conclusion arrived at in the report, that ' substantial justice ' was
done to the accused. A man is tried for an offence, and he is
either guilty or not, the trial is either valid or not. But, though
you may say in conversation that the accused richly deserves
the sentence, which I take to be the meaning of the phrase
that ' substantial justice ' has been done, I do not think
a grave body like Convocation should record its opinion in
this way. The trial failed, according to the opinion of one large
section, because it was not oanonical. It failed, in my opinion,
because it was null and void in law. . . . The Committee
believes that nothing more can be done than to declare we
think Bishop Colenso has acted very wrongly, in order to satisfy
the minds of our brethren that we have no sympathy with his
writings. Any declaration by which that can be made apparent
seems to have been made over and over again already, but I
have no objection to our repeating it now. If it will be any
consolation to anybody, by all means let it be done. I do not
think it can be said that this report declares in any way that the
Bishop of Capetown has conducted himself properly in all
respects. It is obvious that, according.to the views of those who
signed half the report, he did not. So far as our sympathies are

1866-68] CONSECRATION AT CAPETOWN 395
concerned, we have expressed them a hundred times over, and
I am only glad that we have opportunity of expressing them
again."1 The Bishop of Capetown was present during these
debates, and was very far from satisfied with the conclu
sion arrived at : —
"It is not what I should have prepared," he writes, "and is,
I think, a feeble production, but it saves the Church of England
from complicity with heresy."
On October 10th he left England, after bitterly re
proaching the Government for the lack of support accorded
to him, and on January 25th, 1869, a few weeks after
Bishop Tait's accession to the Primacy, Mr. Macrorie was
consecrated in the Cathedral of Capetown, where no Royal
Mandate or Licence was required, and became respon
sible, as Bishop of Maritzburg, for the charge of what
Bishop Gray had termed the "widowed diocese" of
Natal. The seven years' controversy was thus ended for a time,
so far as the Home Church was concerned. To some it
may appear that the issues which had been at stake were
of a local and temporary, perhaps even of a personal, char-
racter. Such had never been Bishop Tait's opinion. He
saw, or thought he saw, in Bishop Gray's action, if it
should receive the support of the authorities at home, a
very grave peril. Large sums of money had been given
for the endowment of Colonial Churches on the under
standing, hitherto undisputed, that the doctrinal and dis
ciplinary system of the Mother Church of England
should be observed (so far as legal conditions allowed of
1 Chronicle of Convocation, July 1, 1868, pp. 1404-1408. The resolutions
carried in the Upper House were as follows: — 1. That the Report of the
Committee be adopted and communicated to the Lower House ; z. That the
remarks thereon of the Lord Bishop of London be also sent to the Lower
House.

396 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xiv.
it) in her daughter Churches in every part of the empire.
Difficult as it was to define the manner in which the
Royal supremacy was to operate in the varying conditions
of Colonial life, Bishop Tait was determined to maintain,
so far as in him lay, the rules and liberties which he
believed that supremacy to guarantee. The principle for
which he and others were contending was well expressed
by Mr. Maurice in a letter which he published during the
controversy : l —
" If the notion [is sanctioned]," he said, " that the jurisdic
tion of the Queen is a mere vulgar, secular jurisdiction, which
must give way, in all graver questions, to the jurisdiction of a
Bishop or Metropolitan, I believe the minds of the Colonists will
be perplexed as to their political allegiance ; and, as to their
moral duties, I believe the minds of the natives will be still more
perplexed ; that there will be no continuance of faith among the
first, and no spread of faith among the second. . . . [Bishop Gray]
seeks to establish in his colony one law for the clergy and one for
the laity — the first to be administered in the name and by the
authority of the Metropolitan ; the second to be administered in
the name and by the officers of the Queen. I do not say that
these two laws will be equally administered. I believe the
Queen's officers will struggle, under great obstructions, to follow
some standard of justice. They will be said to obey a secular
instinct. The other tribunal will be what such tribunals have
been in other countries ; what they have already proved them
selves to be in South Africa. Those who are zealous for the
well-being of their own countrymen, and of the heathen among
whom they dwell, should ask themselves whether they will be
parties to so fatal a contradiction. If they are, they may expect
to see the example which has been afforded by the Colonies
copied here : in England a jurisdiction will be restored which
neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear."
No one knew better than Bishop Tait that the time
must come when the link would be loosened which
united the Colonial dioceses to the Church at home but
1 Times, Oct. 4, 1864.

1866-68] RESULTS TO THE COLONIAL CHURCH 397
he desired to postpone the change as long as possible,
in order that these young Churches might have time to
settle themselves firmly upon the lines of English law
before they should be called upon to stand alone. He
had made it clear from the first that he had no sympathy
with Bishop Colenso's opinions, and that his resistance to
what he deemed the perilous highhandedness of Bishop
Gray was no isolated act of merely personal or local
significance. It was part of a definite and well-con
sidered policy. The ecclesiastical despotism which he
dreaded and opposed might take one form in South
Africa, and some other form, not less mischievous, else
where ; and it was his deliberate opinion in later years
that the restraints successfully imposed by himself and
others upon the impetuous Metropolitan of Capetown
had had a wholesome and reassuring effect upon Colonial
Churchmanship in every quarter of the globe.

CHAPTER XV.
RITUALISM. 1860-68.
DISCUSSIONS IN PARLIAMENT AND IN CONVOCATION — THE RITUAL
COMMISSION — CORRESPONDENCE — ALL SAINTS, MARGARET
STREET — ST. ALBAN'S, HOLBORN — ST. PETER'S, LONDON DOCKS
—ST. MICHAEL'S, SHOREDITCH— CHARGE OF 1 866.
Although the controversies which turned upon Essays
and Reviews, and upon the writings of Bishop Colenso,
had for some years diverted public attention from Ritual
disputations, it is necessary to remember that the Ritual
movement was all the while in full swing, and that the
Bishop of London, from the necessity of his position, stood
at the very centre of the strife, for in those years it
was to London — with a few noteworthy exceptions — that
Ritual difficulties were confined. In May i860, Lord
Shaftesbury introduced a Bill into Parliament to restrain
Ritualistic novelties,1 but it perished without even the
dignity of a debate, and his intolerance of High Church
innovations was tempered for a time by his alliance with
Dr. Pusey and others against what was regarded as the
yet more dangerous rationalistic school. Dr. Pusey, on
February 17, 1864, wrote to the Record what was described
in its leading article as " an admirable and faithful letter,"
1 It provided that the Queen in Council might, on the advice of any three
of the four Archbishops of England and Ireland, issue orders to regulate the
furniture and ornaments of Churches and the vestments of the Clergy.

1860-68] RITUALISM 399
advocating a union of High and Low Churchmen to resist
" the common enemy— unbelief." " The recent miserable,
soul-destroying judgment," 1 he said, " surely requires one
united action on the part of every clergyman and lay
member of the Church to repudiate it."
Notwithstanding this, the Ritual question came again
before the House of Lords on several occasions during the
next few years, on the motion of Lord Ebury, Lord West-
meath, and others, and although there was no serious
attempt at legislation, Bishop Tait had frequently to
answer questions, and even to debate the points at issue.
His position at that time was one of singular difficulty.
If ultra-Protestant opinion has of recent years taken a
more active and organised shape, it is only because, thirty
years ago, the Ritualistic movement was supposed by the
average British Protestant to be too puny to call for the
use of weapons so strong and stern. The public mind, as
represented in the daily press, treated the whole thing
with sovereign contempt, and the earnest advocates and
the hot opponents of the Ritual advance — say, Mr. Bryan
King and Lord Westmeath — were impartially ridiculed or
impartially ignored. Bishop Tait had better reasons than
any other man to know that the force of the movement
was altogether underrated by these humorous or super
cilious critics. How much of the new departure was
doctrinal, and how much was aesthetic, might with him or
others be an open question, but the reality of the change
that was taking place became more apparent every week.
It was in his diocese that the battalions were being armed
and organised both for the defence and the attack, and his
daily correspondence bore ample evidence to the widening
area of the contest. On May 2nd, i860, was held the
first meeting of the English Church Union, with Mr. Colin
1 i.e. on Essays and Reviews.

400 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xv.
Lindsay as its President. On February 7th, 1863, the
first number of the Church Times appeared, and by the
time the Church Association, in November 1865, rallied
the militant forces upon the other side, the number of
London churches was considerable in which an elaborate
and significant ritual was coming into use, as distinguished
from what was, comparatively speaking, the mere
aestheticism of 'restored' churches, choral services, sur-
pliced choirs, and other orderly and reverent arrange
ments.1 Considering the objections which have in recent years
been felt by moderate men of every school to litigation
upon these ritual matters, it is curious to notice how
general at that time was the opinion of High Churchmen
that the questions in dispute might be, and indeed ought
to be, set at rest by obtaining fresh decisions in the
Courts of Law. It would be easy to multiply examples
of this advice being given. The Rev. C. W. Furse, for
example, then Vicar of Staines and Rural Dean, a pro
minent and trusted High Churchman, wrote as follows
in a published letter on February 5, 1866 : —
"There is only one efficient mode of settling the vexed
question at issue between the extreme Ritualists and the Mode
rates of the Church of England, and that is the course which was
taken in the case of stone altars, crosses on chancel screens, etc.
Until the legal question be decided, it is utterly futile to ask
Bishops to take steps to suppress, by moral persuasion, such and
such practices. We may as well provoke them to preach to the
wind. . . . The silence of the law, if continued, may provoke
priests to claim licence instead of liberty, and Bishops to mistake
irritable impatience for a firm administration of the Church's
law." 2
1 On the aesthetic rather than doctrinal character of these changes, see an
important letter written by Bishop Wilberforce to Archbishop Longley on
Dec. 16, 1865 {Wilberforce's Life, vol. iii. p. 188). See also the speech of
Lord Nelson in the House of Lords on May 14, 1867 (Hansard, p. 506).
2 Guardian, Feb. 7, 1866, p. 123.

1 860-68] ATTITUDE OF OLD HIGH CHURCHMEN 401
The Ritual question, as has been said, was occasionally
mooted in the House of Lords, but so far as this book is
concerned, the Parliamentary discussions were of little
moment until the year 1867, when Lord Shaftesbury, as
will be seen below, made a vigorous attempt to procure
coercive legislation in the direction he desired. And,
strange to say, Convocation had been silent on the sub
ject. During the eleven years that had elapsed since
its revival in 1854, not a single debate of any import
ance had taken place upon the Ritual question. But
the prominence which the movement had assumed in
1865, both in Parliament and outside, rendered that
silence no longer possible. On February 1, 1866,
weighty deputations were received by the Archbishop
of Canterbury and the Prime Minister, and Archbishop
Longley's replies excited wide attention. Archdeacon
Wordsworth 1 headed the first and most important of
these deputations, and presented a memorial " in reference
to the recent introduction into the celebration of Divine
Service of practices which, by their diversity, and by their
deviation from law and from long-established usage, are
disturbing the peace and impairing the efficiency of the
Church." The spirit of the innovators, he said, in his
speech, "seems to be sectarian in its character, and schis-
matical in its practices, inasmuch as it divides the Church
into parties, wastes her energies, and casts stumbling-
blocks in the way of souls for which Christ died." 2
To a subsequent deputation from members of the
English Church Union and others, who deprecated "any
alteration being made in the Book of Common Prayer,
respecting the ornaments of the Church and of the
ministers thereof," the Archbishop said : —
" I have already declared my determination never to consent
1 Afterwards Bishop of Lincoln. 2 Guardian, Feb. 7, 1866, p. 138.
VOL. I. 2 0

402 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xv.
to any alteration in any part of the Book of Common Prayer,
without the full concurrence of Convocation. I could not, how
ever concur in giving countenance to the extreme ritualism that
has been adopted in some churches. I cannot but feel that
those who have violated a compromise and settlement which has
existed for three hundred years, and are introducing vestments
and ceremonies of very doubtful legality, are really, though I am '
sure quite unconsciously, doing the work of the worst enemies of
the Church. ... I confess I have witnessed with feelings of
deep sorrow the tone of defiance with which the recently intro
duced practices have in some instances been supported. I fear
that such advocates know not what spirit they are of, and I would
fain hope that they may still learn to adopt something more of
Christian moderation and Christian humility, that, with S. Paul,
they may be ready to acknowledge that there are many things
which may be lawful and yet not expedient, and that they may be
more ready to lend a willing ear to the pastoral and paternal
counsels of those who are set over them in the Lord."
Convocation was to meet in a few days, and it was
evident that the thorny Ritual problem would at last be
handled in the proper quarter. In a clear and weighty
speech, the Dean of Ely, Dr. Harvey Goodwin, introduced,
on February 8, 1 866, a series of resolutions upon the subject,
and, at the request of Archdeacon Denison, a Committee
of the Lower House was appointed — the first of its kind —
to consider and report upon " such measures as may seem
fit for clearing the doubts and allaying the anxieties " to
which copious allusion had been made. In the course of the
discussion which, in the Upper House, preceded the appoint
ment of the Committee, Bishop Tait spoke as follows : —
"Of course we naturally view these subjects from different
standpoints. The Church of England is very wide, embracing
persons of very various opinions within the limits of our common
faith, and the Episcopal Bench would not be a true representa
tion of the Church, if within our own body there was not that
variance of sentiment in minor matters which exists in the
Church itself. But there are limits beyond which the practices

.1860-68] A COMMITTEE OF CONVOCATION 403
in question cannot be allowed to go, and if men's differences
are so expressed that they are practically obtruding themselves
on the public in our worship, and interfering with the liberty of
the Christian community, I am sure that there is not one of our
body who will not desire, by persuasion or any other means, to
induce those persons who infringe the liberty of the Christian
community to desist from the practices we condemn. Whether
or not the persons attached to this excessive ritualism have a
Rome-ward tendency I do not pretend to decide. I trust they
have not ; but that they have the ill-luck to be extremely like per
sons who have a Rome-ward tendency I think cannot be denied.
That persons well acquainted with theology, persons of the
calmest minds, persons willing to admit perfect liberty in the
Church of England, are assured of the Rome-ward tendencies of
these practices none of us can doubt. I have heard of a dis
tinguished divine of very calm mind1 being present at one of the
churches where these practices were resorted to, with a view of
satisfying himself as to what was going on, and being so shocked
that he felt he could not, without a compromise of all that was
dear to him, partake of the Lord's Supper at the hands of the
persons who were officiating, so like was it to the Roman fashion.
... I see nothing, I read nothing, which is brought before the
public, which has the slightest chance of inducing persons who
believe them to be inclined towards the errors of Rome to alter
that opinion. On the contrary, I contend that works which they
circulate amongst their flocks, which seem to favour the worst
errors of the Church of Rome, and the general appearance which
they make of sympathy with Rome, deserve the serious con
sideration of the leaders of this movement. . . .
" It is a serious thing that the time of the Bishops should
be occupied so much as it is by complaints from parishes in
their dioceses ; and if it is a serious evil that the time of the
Bishops should be so occupied, what must be the evil in the
parishes themselves, when a Christian community is agitated
about the shape of tunicles, or the number of candles to be lighted
during the day — while the ministers of the Gospel exhibit to the
careless and the worldly the unseemly spectacle of contention
about matters which worldly men regard as contemptible. .
How is this evil to be dealt with ? The most satisfactory way of
1 The "divine" alluded to was Archbishop Trench, who had been in
communication with Bishop Tait upon the subject.

404 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xv.
dealing with it will certainly be by good and intelligent men,
who have sympathy with these innovations, coming to the
rational and right conclusion that they ought to be guided by
their Bishops in this matter, and if they did not desire to be
guided by the opinion of a single Bishop, they might be
content to be guided by the expression of your Grace's opinion,
and by what they might ascertain to be the universal sentiment
of the whole of the Bishops of England. That would be a
highly satisfactory way of dealing with the subject, for men
would be doing what they should have done long ago : namely,
submit themselves to the decision of those whom God had
placed over them in His Church. We are told that we ought
to enforce the law, and if need be we must enforce the law, but
what an unpleasant position would that place us in — a position
from which any one would shrink, inasmuch as we should be
involved in the prosecution of some of the best men in our
dioceses. I deprecate following such cases from court to court
for many reasons, not the least because I cannot bear that one
whose title in the Church is that of a Father in God should pro
secute the very persons for whom he has a deep respect. ... If
the laity feel that their liberty is infringed in this matter, they
have a very plain course before them ; namely, to strengthen the
hands of the executive of the Church. But if any mode of
strengthening the hands of the Ordinary be adopted, I should
greatly desire that it should be done with many safeguards. I
should wish that the individual Bishop should be assisted by
whatever counsellors might be thought desirable in treating of these
questions, and I believe that if such power were exercised by the
Ordinary, subject to the proper appeal pointed out by law, it would
tend to calm many dissensions in the Church. My own experience
is that many of these disputes do not arise from disputed law
so much as from matters of disputed discretion, and that persons
who are unwilling to submit themselves perhaps to a newly
ordained priest will submit themselves to the Church of which
he is the minister — to the Bishop of the diocese, calmly deciding
after full consultation, subject to an appeal to the Archbishop of
the province."1
1 Chronicle of Convocation, Feb. 9, 1866, pp. 156, etc. It is noteworthy
that the suggestion here made in general terms for the solution of ritual
difficulties is precisely that to which he tried eight years afterwards to give
effect when drafting the Public Worship Regulation Bill of 1874.

1 860-68] REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE 405
A strong Committee of the Lower House was ap
pointed, and its meetings were prolonged and anxious, for
it was obvious that weighty consequences might depend
on its report. The Dean of Ely was its chairman, and
Archdeacon Denison presided when he was absent. A
special interest belongs to its Report, as the first of many
documents of a similar kind. It is dated June 5, 1866,
and it treats in detail of the various Ritual points at issue
— Vestmenls-^-^AJtarJiights-; Incense ; Elevation of the
Elements ; the encouragement of non-communicating at
tendance, and the use of wafer bread. After full debate in
the Lower House, the Report was adopted in its entirety,
with scarcely a dissentient voice, " as a temperate state
ment on the subject of Ritual practice in the Church of
England," and its conclusions may best be summarised
by quoting the resolution, adopted without a division, on
the motion of Archdeacon Denison himself : —
" That with regard to the six points of ritual which have been
specially discussed in the Report, the judgment of the House is
as follows : — 1. That the use in parish churches of the surplice is
a sufficient compliance with the directions of the Church.
2. That without pronouncing on the legality of the vestments
prescribed in the First Book of King Edward vi., or of altar
lights, the House considers that they should not be introduced into
any parish church without reference to the Bishop, and that a
similar reference should be made with regard to the introduction
of incense in the simpler manner described in the Report. 3. That
the House expresses its entire disapproval of the practice of censing
persons and things, and of all elevation of the elements after con
secration, and considers that the presence of non-communicants,
excepting in special cases, during the celebration of the Holy
Communion, and the use of wafer bread, are to be discouraged."1
This important resolution, the deliberate outcome of
no small debate, was communicated to the Upper House
on June 29th, too late for any discussion by the Bishops
1 Chronicle of Convocation, June 28, 1866, p. 562.

406 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xv.
in that session. Ample time was thus given for its con
sideration, and on the House assembling in the following
February (1867), the Bishops, after two days of debate,
agreed unanimously upon a long resolution, which was
moved by Bishop Wilberforce, and seconded by Bishop
Tait. After setting forth in careful terms the dangers
attaching to an undue Ritualism, the Bishops' resolution
ended with the following words : " Our judgment is that
no alterations from long-sanctioned and usual ritual ought
to be made in our churches, until the sanction of the
Bishop of the diocese has been obtained thereto." :
In this 'judgment' the Lower House was formally
invited to concur, and again there was an ample debate.
In the end the Lower House resolved, with only three
dissentients, " That this House, having regard to the Ritual observances •
treated of in the Report presented to the House on the 26th
June 1866, do concur in the judgment of the Upper House, that
no alteration from the long-sanctioned and usual ritual ought to
be made in our churches until the sanction of the Bishop of the
diocese has been obtained thereto."2
It has seemed worth while to record these facts with
care, as the first occasion on which the revived Provincial
Synod of Canterbury came to a deliberate resolution upon
the Ritual questions which were agitating the Church.
Some two hundred and forty-five closely-printed pages of
the Chronicle of Convocation are occupied with these par
ticular debates, and the ultimate unanimity, after so much
discussion, is almost, if not quite, without a parallel. But
the judgment, important as it was, could have no coercive
force without State aid, and the scene was now shifted
from the Jerusalem Chamber to the House of Lords.
1 Chronicle of Convocation, Feb. 13, 1 867, p. 71 1.
2 Ibid. Feb. 15, 1867, p. 843.

1860-68] DEBATES IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS 407
In that assembly three peers, Lord Ebury, Lord West-
meath, and Lord Shaftesbury, had been long maintaining,
each from his own point of view, that the rubrics of the
Church required reform. Lord Ebury had been the most
persistent of the three, and it was not in his opinion a
question of Ritualism alone. His principal gravamen,
indeed, was the compulsory use of the Burial Service, and
on this subject he had for years been urging that a Royal
Commission should be issued. His case was now
strengthened by the new and larger Rubrical difficulties
that had arisen, and many who had hitherto opposed his
annual motion were now ranged upon his side in asking
for a Royal Commission to consider not the Burial Service
only, but the whole rubrics of the Prayer Book.
Lord Shaftesbury was not among these. He was all
in favour of immediate legislation to set at rest the ques
tion of the Eucharistic vestments, and he obtained a half
promise of support from Archbishop Longley, and from
many other Bishops, for a bill which he proposed to intro
duce to that effect. The Archbishop, on further con
sideration, preferred to introduce a bill of his own ; but
this plan was abandoned, at the instigation of Bishop
Wilberforce, on the Government's announcing that a
Royal Commission would be issued.1 Lord Shaftesbury
was thereupon pressed by Bishop Tait and others, includ
ing the Archbishop himself, to postpone his action for a
time, and to await the first Report of the Commission, but
he stoutly and bluntly refused to do anything of the sorv\
and on May 14, 1867, he moved the second reading of
his ' Clerical Vestments Bill.' The bill as proposed gave
the force of law to Canon 58, which enjoins "that every
minister saying the public prayers, or ministering the
1 The story of what passed is told in Bishop Wilberforce's Life, vol. iii.
pp. 205-212.

408 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xv.
sacraments or other rites of the Church, shall wear a
decent and comely surplice, with sleeves, to be provided
at the charge of the parish."
Lord Shaftesbury's speech was an elaborate and
weighty indictment of the extremer ritualistic practices
and books. He was armed with abundant quotations
from such sources, and although his own words were
unusually temperate and calm the speech gave great
offence to High Churchmen.
Archbishop Longley, " while expressing his full agree
ment with the greater part of the noble earl's powerful
address, and his sympathy with the indignation he had
expressed, urged the advantage of waiting for the action
of the Royal Commission about to be appointed, and
moved the postponement of the second reading."
Bishop Tait followed : —
"I should be very sorry," he said, "were an erroneous im
pression to prevail in the country as to the feelings of those who
sit on this bench with regard to the noble earl's bill. I believe
I speak the sentiments of this bench generally when I say that
we are obliged to the noble earl for the clear and temperate
manner in which he has laid this matter before the House to
night. We are all agreed with him in believing that a very great
evil exists, and that it is our duty to endeavour to remedy this
evil. . . . But I am not sanguine enough to suppose that either
by the carrying of his or of any other bill, or by the most mature
deliberations of any Commission, the evils the noble earl de
plores will suddenly disappear. . . . Believing, as I do, that the
time has now arrived for action, if the noble earl perseveres with
his bill, I shall be prepared to fulfil my promise, and to support
it. Still, I do not believe that mere Acts of Parliament, however
carefully prepared, can cure the evil : and one important defect
in the present bill is that it proposes to deal with one branch only
of the subject. My impression is we must go thoroughly into the
whole matter, and this can only be done by such a Commission
as the noble earl at the head of Her Majesty's Government has
promised we shall have. That Commission must extend its

1860-68] LORD SHAFTESBURY'S BILL 4°9
investigations to a wide range of subjects. I do not wish that it
should touch doctrine ; but whatever bears upon public worship
must come within its sphere. One thing, it appears, would be a
necessary result of the deliberations of such a Commission — the
law must be made clear. I do not mean that liberty should be
altogether restrained, but that liberty shall be legally secured, not
licence seized by individuals in the hope that they may escape in
immunity from the consequences of their licence. . . . Any
legislation which is to be complete, having settled what the law
is, must also strengthen the hands of the central authority, what
ever it is to be — whether we refer to the Bishop called on by
appeal from the laity, or the Bishop subject to the Archbishop,
the central authority must be strengthened. . . . Depend upon
it, if this nation once loses its Protestant character, it will suffer
very greatly in. the position it occupies. I believe that the Church
of England has before it at this moment as great a work as ever
lay before any Church. It is a time, I think, for anxiety, but not
a time for alarm, still less for despondency. Even in these very
eccentricities there is some proof of zeal, and zeal is a good thing.
This Church more than any other has power to deal with the
civilisation of this age — to deal with the very dangers civilisation
causes — it is the Church's duty not to thwart the course of
events ; but while it follows, at the same time to lead and guide
the men of the nineteenth century, and this I believe our Church
can do beyond any other body, either of our Protestant or Roman
Catholic brethren."1
On a division being taken, Lord Shaftesbury's bill was
thrown out by sixty -one votes, to forty-six. Seven Bishops
voted in the majority, and eleven (including Bishop Tait)
in the minority. A fortnight later 2 the Royal Commis
sion was appointed to inquire into " the varying interpreta
tions put upon the rubrics, orders, and directions for
regulating the course and conduct of public worship, the
administration of the sacraments, and the other services
contained in the Book of Common Prayer . . . with a
view of explaining or amending the said rubrics ... so
1 Hansard, May 14, 1867, p. 507, etc.
2 The Commission is dated June 3, 1867.

410 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xv.
as to secure general uniformity of practice in such matters
as may be deemed essential."
Among the Commissioners were the Archbishop of
Canterbury, the Bishops of London and Oxford, the
Deans of Ely and Westminster, Lord Beauchamp, Sir
Robert Phillimore, Mr. Beresford Hope, Mr. J. G. Hub
bard, Canon Gregory, and nineteen others — twenty-nine in
all. Lord Shaftesbury was invited, but declined to serve.
The Commissioners began their sittings on June 17th,
and issued their first Report on August 19th. This
Report was confined to the ' burning question ' of the
Eucharistic vestments, and the Commissioners' recom
mendation was practically unanimous : —
"We find," they said, "that whilst these vestments are re
garded by some witnesses as symbolical of doctrine, and by
others as a distinctive vesture, whereby they desire to do honour
to the Holy Communion as the highest act of Christian worship,
they are by none regarded as essential, and they give grave
offence to many.
"We are of opinion that it is expedient to restrain in the
public services of the United Church of England and Ireland all
variations in respect of vesture from that which has long been the
established usage of the said United Church, and we think that this
may be best secured by providing aggrieved parishioners with an
easy and effectual process for complaint and redress."
Five weeks after the issue of this Report came the
meeting of the first Lambeth Conference, or " Pan-
Anglican Synod," and the unwonted muster of American
and Colonial Bishops, together with the Colenso contro
versies narrated in the last chapter, once more diverted
the attention of churchmen from the Ritual question. But
only for a time. When Convocation met in February
1868, the Bishop of London, at Archbishop Longley's
request, re-opened the discussions in the Upper House, by
moving the following resolution : —

1860-68] THE RITUAL COMMISSION 411
" That this House, viewing with anxious concern the increas
ing diversity of practice in regard to ritual observances, as causing
additional disquietude and contention, and perceiving with deep
regret that the resolutions adopted by the Convocations of
Canterbury and York have failed to secure unity, deems it ex
pedient for the peace of the Church— 1st, That the limits of
ritual observance should not be left to the uncontrolled discretion
of individual churchmen, and therefore ought to be defined by
rightful authority ; 2d, That some easy and inexpensive process
should be provided whereby, while the liberties of the officiating
clergymen and their parishioners are protected, the evils of unre
strained licence in such matters may be checked."
In making this motion, the Bishop called attention to
the evidence given before the Ritual Commission and
published in the Blue Book, as showing that the recom
mendations of Convocation in the previous spring had
fallen upon deaf ears.
" I' am afraid," he said, "that with regard to certain persons
who are promoters of these observances we must take it for
granted, through their own declarations in their evidence, that
they do not regard the decision which this House arrived at as in
any way binding. They apparently are unwilling to be guided
by their individual Bishops ; they are unwilling to be guided by
the collective voice of the Bishops expressed in their visitations ;
they are unwilling to be guided by the decision of the Provincial
Synod of Canterbury, or of the Provincial Synod of York, or by
the united opinion of those two Synods when their decisions are
compared together, . . . and I cannot really understand by what
they would be guided except by their own individual will. True,
it is stated that persons who think it right to act in this way
would be guided by a General Council. Well, I do not know
that a General Council is exactly the body which is to settle the
ritual of a particular National Church ; I think one of our Articles
seems to imply that each National Church has to settle these
matters for itself, and not that we are to wait till a General
Council settles them. I mention this to show that the kindly
intended advice which we gave in our collective and individual
capacities has not succeeded. ... Our efforts have proved a

412 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xv.
failure : this evil, be it what it may, exists unchecked, the dis
quietude in the public mind is increasing, and the contentions
also, I am sorry to say, are increasing, and the question now
arises whether anything further can be done by us to bring
matters to a better state. . . . Now, for my own part, I think I
may say that I have always endeavoured to act in a large and
kindly spirit towards those who are advocates of these practices.
I desire that my own conscience shall be respected, and I desire
also that the consciences of others shall be respected, and whether
in matters of doctrine, or in allowable matters of practice, I think
that within due limits in the National Church we ought, as com
pletely as we possibly can, to act upon that principle. I certainly
have had very kindly intercourse during the time of my Episco
pate with persons of almost every shade of opinion in my diocese,
and I believe that if any blame is to be attached to me in these
matters, it is rather the blame of having allowed people to act for
themselves than of having interfered where I might have been
expected to interfere, to restrain and curb their liberty. . . .
It may be the case that certain of the points in dispute can be
settled without fresh legislation — it may be the case that the
courts of justice may settle some of these questions. I shall
be very glad if they are so settled, provided they are settled
speedily; but I do not think we should allow a long time to
pass now while these matters are the sport of the advocates in
various courts; and my experience of the ecclesiastical courts
is that, with many virtues, they do not possess the virtue of
speed. . . . Whatever is the mode which is adopted, I think
we cannot be wrong in saying there ought to be some easy
and inexpensive process whereby ' the evils of unrestrained
licence in such matters may be checked.' The only other point
on which I ought to say a word is, 'Do you really think that
your declaration will have any effect ? ' I think it will. ... If
it be said that after all there is no binding power in these
resolutions, I am afraid we must allow that that is a condition
under which a Synod such as this exists. We cannot bind people
by laws made by ourselves, but we can express our opinion in
condemnation of these practices, and express our earnest hope
that the ambiguity which betrays our brethren into these excesses
may be removed. We are bound to do this for the sake of our
brethren, and for the sake of the law of this country, and the
authorities in ecclesiastical matters are to blame in allowing that

1860-68] BISHOP TAIT AND THE RITUALISTS 413
ambiguity to exist which betrays the unwary. Men are very
willing to obey laws when they understand what they are, but
when you make them such that no human being can say what
they mean, those who have the1 power of making the laws plain
are much to blame in permitting that ambiguity to remain."1
After a long and memorable debate Bishop Tait's
resolution in a modified form was adopted by the Bishops,
with only one dissentient, and was sent to the Lower
House for its concurrence. The debate which there arose
upon it was not concluded when the prorogation took
place. When Convocation reassembled on June 30th,
the Ritual Commissioners had issued their second Report,
and the debate — by request of the Archbishop — was
accordingly allowed to drop.2
It will be observed that in the foregoing speech the
Bishop claimed that he had always " acted in a large
and kindly spirit" towards the Ritualistic clergy in his
diocese. It may be right to see how far his statement is
borne out by facts. The events and arguments which
this chapter has hitherto chronicled were of a general and
public sort, and it has sometimes been maintained that
while the Bishop spoke smooth things and claimed a tole
rant spirit in his utterances to the world at large, he was
all the while worrying and even persecuting those of his
own clergy who adopted an elaborate ritual in their
churches. Correspondents of the Church newspapers in those
years were constantly reiterating such a charge. The
Bishop is described, for example, as "a tyrant to the
weak and a sycophant to the strong " ; or again, as " that
ecclesiastical bully, the Presbyterian-minded Bishop of
London, who with all his professions of large-heartedness
and toleration, has shown himself to be as narrow-minded
1 Chronicle of Convocation, 18th February 1868, pp. 1056, etc.
2 Ibid. 30th June 1868, p. 1374.

4i4 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xv.
a bigot and as un-Christian a gentleman as ever disgraced
a Bishopric " ; and there is much more to the same effect.1
To this mere abuse he attached no great importance, but
the difficulties of the position are illustrated by such a
correspondence as the following : —

The Rev.  to the Bishop of London.
" 5th Feb. 1866.
" My dear Lord, — Almost every post brings me some cir
cular or form of address to somebody on the subject of Ritual.
One says boldly that it wants to put down Tractarianism ; an
other mysteriously hints at 'certain practices' contrary to the
custom of the Church, and so on. I suppose that all these are
attacks on clergymen who like myself have what is called high
ritual, and even hope that in time they may peacefully and profit
ably have more of it. Now nothing could better serve our pur
pose than what wears the appearance of an inconsiderate and
uncharitable agitation, were it not that it helps us too fast. For
instance, in my own church, vestments and high ritualistic prac
tices, which six months ago would have offended very many,
grieved not a few who are too good to take offence, and pleased
hardly any one, are now calmly talked about, instruction sought
in their meaning and use, and the things themselves asked for
by many. . . . The feeling of appreciation of high ritual is very
much more widely spread than is generally supposed : it is in
many cases very intent, and, more than that, very bent upon
being gratified. ... I am one of the Council of the English
Church Union, and I signed their memorial to the Archbishop
against altering the Rubrics or touching the Prayer Book in any
way ; but I desire nothing less for myself and for my party than
to be left to carry out these rubrics unregulated and unadvised
by the Ordinary, guided only by individual taste, notion, or dis
cretion, or driven on by lay pressure. The feeling that one is
regarded as lawless has a tendency to beget lawlessness ; besides
it exposes us to the influence of those who are lawless and want
to make us so. Then the effect on the High Church laity is
1 See, for example, letters in the Church Times, 1867, pp. 282, 283 etc
and (in milder language) in the Guardian of 1865, pp. 715, 739, etc.

1860-68] LETTERS ON RITUAL 415
very injurious. While we may invariably deplore our position
and be in heart and spirit most desirous of submitting to autho
rity (however openly we seem to act without it), they come to
have no such feeling, and presently are developed into despisers
of Bishops. . . . But if being left to act by our own discretion
did no other harm, it would be intolerable as presenting the
unseemly spectacle of anarchy and self-rule in a Church which
in theory is a model of order. Conceive, my dear Lord, our
misery — for we would be loyal as well as honest men — in fearing
that the Bishop should visit our Churches or hear of our doings.
" Some would say that I have made out a good case against
high ritual, and shown how much evil attends it. I admit it, but
then, as I need not point out to your Lordship who has frankly
and generously owned it, very great spiritual good has been done
under it, not to say by means of it. Besides, high ritual is an
established fact ; we cannot do away with it. This is what I
very humbly and respectfully ask the Bishops to consider, and so
to take us in hand as those who have, it may be, odd ways of
their own, but who yet may be regulated and influenced as they
need to be by their spiritual fathers. . . . Do not let us alone
as those hopelessly beyond the pale of approval. In the begin
ning of any revival it is well perhaps that the visible and audible
workers should be those who have comparatively little official
responsibility resting upon them ; but when the revival has esta
blished for itself a footing, it must be guided in its further pro
gress by those in authority. It may be that if we were left alone,
in a few years the movement would regulate itself and settle
down soberly and satisfactorily, but in the meantime a miserable
school, that of the Church Times, is being formed and stereo
typed to the spiritual injury of its disciples, and the offence, the
grievous offence of all good sober Christians. It is authority
only that can help us, and authority I am sure will be duly re
spected if it will cautiously take us in hand. — I am, my dear
Lord, your Lordship's very obedient servant,  ."

The Bishop of London to the Rev.

"London House, Feby. 10th, 1866.
" My dear Mr.  , — I have read your letter of the 5th very
carefully. I certainly should advise any Bishop who consulted me,

416 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xv.
and I should be ready myself to act on the rule, that where any
of his clergy intimate their readiness to be guided by the Ordinary
in matters of Ritual, the Ordinary should show himself willing to
give such guidance. But on the other hand, I do not think that
it is wise in a Bishop to undertake to offer advice where he is
made to understand that, unless what he says coincides with the
preconceived opinion of the person seeking advice, it will be
treated as of no value. I have, of course, examined and con
sidered all or most of the questions now agitating the Church
respecting Ritual, and I fully believe that I am well qualified by
this fact, as well as by my office, to give proper guidance. If,
therefore, you or any other of the clergy will ask for such guid
ance with a bona fide intention of being guided, I am at your
service. But I do not think it would be well, by interfering
unduly, to run the risk of appearing to sanction practices which
there is no intention of altering whether I disapprove of them or
no. I shall be very glad indeed to hear that such guidance as I
have indicated is sought. — Believe me to be, my dear Mr.  ,
yours very truly, A. C. London."
These letters suggest some of the difficulties which beset
the Bishop's action in those disturbed years, but it is
important that the facts should be made quite clear, and
this can best be done by looking in detail at some typical
instances of his dealings with parishes in which an ' ad
vanced' Ritual was in use. Something has been said
in a former chapter about his relations to St. Paul's,
Knightsbridge, St. Mary Magdalene's, Munster Square,
and the old parish of St. George's in the East.1 A few
other examples may now be given.
The Church of All Saints, Margaret Street, was con
secrated on May 28th, 1859. It had formerly, as a pro
prietary chapel, been under the charge of Mr. Frederick
Oakeley, Bishop Tait's old tutor and friend, who has left
a graphic picture of the character and circumstances of his
ministry, from 1839 to 1845, in this the first outpost of the
1 See pp. 215-249.

1860-68] ALL SAINTS, MARGARET STREET 417
Tractarians in London.1 Mr. Oakeley was received in
1845 into the Church of Rome, and in 1849, Mr. Upton
Richards, who had been Mr. Oakeley's curate, was
appointed incumbent of the Chapel, to which a district
was now for the first time assigned. In the opening years
of Bishop Tait's Episcopate, the Chapel of All Saints was,
so to speak, the propugnaculum of the extreme High
Churchmen in London, and complaints (often vague and
foolish) against its ritual and doctrine were incessantly
arriving. To most of these the Bishop paid no heed, but
in November 1858, a correspondence passed between him
and Mr. Richards, to which it is necessary to allude. One
of Mr. Richards' curates, the son of an incumbent in the
diocese, joined the Church of Rome. The father com
plained bitterly to the Bishop, who wrote at once to Mr.
Richards, and took occasion at the same time to remon
strate against the continued use of Altar Lights at All
Saints, notwithstanding the judgment delivered by Dr.
Lushington in the Consistorial Court of the Diocese.2
Mr. Richards was dissatisfied with Dr. Lushington's
dictum, and thought the question ought, by fresh liti
gation, to be carried to the Privy Council for decision.
Bishop Tait, on the other hand, retained his opinion that
litigation on such points was eminently undesirable. The
importance attaching, from an historical point of view,
to this difference of opinion will perhaps justify the re
production of the following letters : —
The Rev. W. Upton Richards to the Bishop of London.
"Albany St., 18 Nov. 1858.
"My Lord, — ... I beg to renew my assurance to your
Lordship of my desire to yield to you not only a canonical, but
1 Historical Notes on the Tractarian Movement, Part iii. pp. 58-82.
2 See p. 219.
vm t 2D

418 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xv.
a hearty and loving obedience in all things in which I am not
called upon to give up my own principles  Your Lordship
will, I trust, pardon me for reminding you that there have always
been in the Church of England, as there now are, two distinct
views held by different parties within her pale, and I believe that
the great object of the compilers of the Liturgy was so to frame
it, that room might be given for the expression of the views of
both. The Liturgy and Articles ought, I think, to be regarded
as a great compromise, in which the middle course between the
two contending parties was adopted, and so while both are at
liberty to hold their own opinions, so are they at liberty to carry
them out as they please, provided they keep within the letter of
the law, the one party not exceeding, the other not falling short
of, the terms agreed upon. This I believe to be the spirit of
the law which governs the Church, and I conceive it to be of
the last importance that this spirit should be maintained. It is,
as I believe, one great office of the constituted authorities of the
Church to maintain this principle inviolate, and I cannot think
that, in asserting my right of appeal to the laws of the Church, I
am in any way setting myself against these authorities. It is the
privilege of every suitor to appeal in all cases in which he believes
himself to have a fair ground to do so, and I am not aware that
in any appeal to the highest tribunal the appellant is ever con
sidered to show any disrespect to the judge from whose decision
he appeals. On the contrary, it is, so far as my observation
goes, always a matter of satisfaction to the Judge that any error
he may have committed may be redressed by the higher tribunal.
" Your Lordship says that the interpretation of the law given
in your Consistorial Court has no weight with me. My Lord, 1
beg most respectfully to deny having written any such thing. To
speak disrespectfully of your Consistory Court would be an
offence ; to express any want of confidence in the individual who
exercises the office of the Judge is, I submit, quite another thing,
and is my undoubted right. . . .
" Of course, I do not mean to assert that the use of the lights
is in any way essential, or has in itself any virtue, but I do believe
that this is one of the outworks of the Church's citadel, and that
in contending for this, as for every other rite which the law of the
Church permits, I am only contending for those protections which
the piety and wisdom of our forefathers have thrown around
sacred things. The ceremonies which the Church of England

1 860-68] ALL SAINTS, MARGARET STREET 419
has retained are few and simple enough, if all were conceded for
which I and those who think with me contend, and I believe that
in proportion as we refrain from the use of them, we shall
encourage and propagate the laxity which prevails among us.
"These, my Lord, are some of the reasons which induce me
to think that it would not be right for me to discontinue the use
of lights at the Holy Communion, and I trust that they will be
such as to induce you to withdraw the requirement contained in
your letter. But if not, then I must still hope that your Lord
ship will allow the question to be placed in such a form as may
enable us to ascertain what the law really is. If I am wrong in
this (which it is my conscientious belief I am not) I assure your
Lordship I shall readily and dutifully submit myself; but enter
taining the very strong conviction which I have endeavoured to
express to you, I can only hope that I shall not be accused of
maintaining an unlawful practice against the commands of con
stituted authority, or of asserting that your authority is nothing
unless it be enforced in a Court of Law, if, in the spirit of S. Paul
I appeal to the highest judicial authority in this realm. — I am, my
Lord, your Lordship's faithful servant,
" W. Upton Richards."

The Bishop of London to the Rev. W. Upton Richards.
" London House, Dec. 15, 1858.
"Rev. and dear Sir, — ... I gather from your letter of
the r8th Nov. that you altogether decline to pay obedience to
my advice, given in accordance with the exposition of the law
made in the Consistorial Court of the Diocese, that the candles
shall not be lighted on the Communion Table at the celebration
of the Lord's Supper in broad daylight, unless I enforce obedience
by process of law. Now, giving due weight to all you have said
on this point, I cannot look upon the course you have the inten
tion of following as one consistent with the regard due to my
office and your canonical obligations. I may not deem it right
to agitate the public mind by a lawsuit on the subject of candles,
and yet I think I may fairly require you to desist from a practice
which, after very mature consideration, I have satisfied myself
cannot be regarded as consistent with the law, especially as you
have adduced no proof that the practice was introduced at first

420 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xv.
into your church otherwise than by your own private authority.
I am quite sure that any of your people who now attach import
ance to the practice will be quite satisfied that you should give it
up if you explain to them that you do so from not wishing to put
yourself into the painful position of disobeying your Diocesan.
. . . Sincerely regretting that these painful difficulties should
exist. — I remain, Rev. and dear Sir, yours faithfully, "A. C. London."
The beautiful and costly church erected in 1858 by the
munificence of Mr. Beresford Hope and others x to replace
the very unecclesiastical edifice in which Mr. Oakeley and
Mr. Richards had ministered was duly consecrated on
May 28, 1859. Appeals were made to the Bishop that
he would use the occasion of his sermon on that day to
protest against the ' Popish mummeries ' of its ornaments
and services, and there was excitement on both sides as to
what he was likely to say. Taking as his text 1 Cor.
viii. 9, " Take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours
become a stumbling-block to them that are weak," he
described the circumstances of the Corinthian Church and
the practice of St. Paul : —
" We see," he said, " that St. Paul had one rule, though his
practice might appear to vary. He had no objection to innocent
liberty and the indulgence of old associations, if they did not
interfere with the purity and simplicity of the Gospel of Jesus
Christ. He had no objection to men following the bent of their
own tastes in matters indifferent, if they did not endeavour to
force those things indifferent as commands of God upon their
brethren. He gladly showed by his own practice that he thought
those points indifferent, as well by complying with them when he
could do so, in furtherance of the Gospel, as by resisting them
when Christian truth required it. Would, my brethren, that we
1 Mr. Beresford Hope's contribution, including the gift of the site, is said
to have amounted to about ^10,000. One anonymous donor gave about
,£30,000, and another £4000, towards the cost of the building. See
Guardian,' 1859, p. 461.

1860-68] CONSECRATION OF ALL SAINTS 421
could at all times approach similar questions in St. Paul's spirit,
free from all strife and uncharitableness, yet never flinching from
maintaining the paramount majesty of Christian truth. . . .
This building which we are met to consecrate to-day, during its
time of erection, has been a sort of rallying-point for two sorts of
persons, who have sought — the one to exaggerate every point in its
ornamental details, as if the richness of its ornaments was neces
sarily connected with unsound doctrines and a dereliction of the
pure Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ; the other, as if this beautiful
and expensive adornment secured a holier worship and more last
ing impression of spiritual truths on wavering human souls.
My friends, I appeal to all of you, as you shall answer to God, in
soberness to consider that the costly beauty of this house in
which you worship does neither of itself secure nor endanger
your Christian faith. . . . There are, of course, two kinds of
minds within our pale, one of which takes great pleasure in such
costly ornaments as now surround us ; the other," which finds in
them no help to its earnest aspirations after spiritual truth. The
latter class, I presume, are not likely to be found often amongst
the worshippers in this place. To the former I would say, in all
affectionateness, while you thankfully acknowledge the munifi
cence with which this church has been prepared to suit your
peculiar tastes, be very careful, I beseech you, that in all your
worship here, you surround yourselves, through the Lord Jesus
Christ's help, with a beauty far above that of outward adornment
— the beauty of a pure Gospel faith, and of a simple, earnest, self-
denying Christian life. I truly believe that in these days, both
amongst High Church and Low Church, there are persons who
are tired of the miserable controversies that have long divided
Christendom, and who simply desire, while using the liberty
allowed them to follow their own tastes in things indifferent, to
worship the Lord Jesus Christ faithfully, and to follow Him in
their lives. God grant that the church opened this day may be
no cause of any fresh dissensions, but a fresh help to those whose
tastes it gratifies to serve the Lord faithfully according to the
form they love. . . . Beware also lest, in your zeal for antiquity,
you be not ancient enough — going back to the wavering followers
of the Apostles, and not to the Apostles themselves. Alas ! we
must speak in this language of warning, for the age in which
we live has produced many sad examples of very many persons,
trained in the pure Gospel teaching of our Apostolic Church led,

422 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xv.
away by excited feelings to the miserable worship of human
saints and the Lord's human Mother, into which in their calmer
moments they never would have believed that they could have
fallen. God grant that those who teach and those who worship
in this church may ever be kept by the Spirit of God safe from
these and from all delusions — that their abundant labours of
self-denying love may never be tainted by an unscriptural de
pendence on human ministrations or human traditions in prefer
ence to the Word of God. Ah, my friends, however different
may be our opinions, there is great and abundant work before
all of us, to labour heartily, simply, and prayerfully in the midst
of a world and of a city lying in wickedness, to advance the
kingdom of Him who died to save poor human erring souls.
God grant that we may all labour in that work heartily, faithfully,
and in a loving spirit, as in the sight of the Lord Jesus Christ."
Similar in some respects to All Saints, Margaret
Street, was the still more notable case of St. Alban's,
Holborn. This church, too, was the gift of a wealthy
layman, Mr. J. G. Hubbard (afterwards Lord Addington),
who not only erected the building at his own cost,1 but
gave £5000 as endowment, and for some time ^100 a
year for each of two curates. The church was not com
pleted till 1863, but a year previously the Rev. A. H.
Mackonochie was nominated by Mr. Hubbard as the first
vicar of the newly constituted parish, — a parish consisting
of some of the worst streets and alleys to be found in
London. Mr. Mackonochie, it will be remembered, had
long been known and respected by Bishop Tait as one of
the successful pioneers of the Riverside Mission in St.
George's in the East.2 While the beautiful church of St.
Alban's was being built Mr. Mackonochie held his services
in a room over a fish-shop in Baldwin's Gardens, and in the
cellar of a house in Greville Street. As the new church
approached completion the Bishop received many letters
1 The site was given by Lord Leigh.
2 See p. 243.

1860-68] ST. ALBAN'S, HOLBORN 423
beseeching him not to consecrate it. One of these, from
a neighbouring incumbent, was as follows : —
The Rev.  to the Bishop of London.
"Feb. 18, 1863.
" My Lord, — I cannot suppress my sorrow that your Lordship
will consecrate St. Alban's with its present clergy. ... I entreat
your Lordship to consider the fearful responsibility that you, a
Bishop of the Protestant Church, are incurring. These are their
doctrines : Auricular Confession, Prayers for the Dead, Absolution
(opus operatum), Invocation of the Virgin, Extreme Unction,
Corporal Presence.
" It was my duty, I feel, to have called upon the Primate ' with
all faithful diligence to banish and drive away all erroneous and
strange doctrine contrary to God's Word ' from his Province of
Canterbury. But I cannot bring myself to offer this obvious
slight to your Lordship, and therefore I trust I shall be held
harmless in this matter, and that your Lordship will write and
state the same to me for the relief of my conscience, since I
almost feel that I ought to have called together a meeting of
Presbyters when the leaders of the Church neglect their duty,
and certainly ought to have laid the matter before the Primate.
With deep regret that your Lordship's rule over London should
be instrumental to such doctrines, I remain your Lordship's
faithful servant, ¦  ."
The Consecration Service took place on February 21,
1863, and Bishop Tait's sermon on the occasion was full of
kindly sympathy and encouragement as to the difficulty
and the hopefulness of the new work thus begun among
those squalid streets.
But there was already friction between the founder,
High Churchman as he was, and the new Vicar. Within
a few days of the Consecration Mr. Hubbard, as church
warden, wrote to ask the Bishop's counsel : —
"As Altar lights were not used," he said, "on the day of
Consecration, I beg to know your mind upon the subject. If
your Lordship does not object to the use of lights as an accessory

424 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xv.
of Holy Communion, I shall not object. If your Lordship does
object to their use I shall express to Mr. Mackonochie my inten
tion to act in conformity with your opinion in this matter."
The Bishop at once saw Mr. Mackonochie, and Mr.
Hubbard's letter is indorsed thus : — " M. has since agreed
to give up the lights." Three weeks later the Church
warden-founder wrote in renewed distress, that Mr. Mac
konochie had changed his mind as to the lights.
" His desisting from lighting the candles applied only to the
day following the one on which he wrote. ... I cannot but feel
deeply disappointed at the resolve he has taken."
And again —
"I have been quite beaten down by the shock which Mr.
Mackonochie's decision occasioned me . . . and I feel much
uncertainty as to the best course to be taken. I shrink from the
position of having to carry out by compulsion under your Lord
ship's mandate a change which ought not to need such a
pressure." The Bishop cordially agreed with Mr. Hubbard in
deprecating any resort to compulsion, and through all the
disputes that followed, his personal relations with Mr.
Mackonochie continued to be of the most friendly kind.
A correspondence, for example, took place in the summer
of 1863 about a sermon which had been preached by
one of the curates of St. Alban's, and Mr. Mackonochie
again and again thanked the Bishop for his "uninter
rupted kindness" in the matter. The final letter was
as follows : —
The Rev. A. H. Mackonochie- to the Bishop of London.
" St. Alban's Clergy House,
June 29, 1863.
"My dear Lord Bishop, — I found your Lordship's letter
awaiting me when I came home on Saturday night, having been

1860-68] MR. MACKONOCHIE AND MR. HUBBARD 425
absent the whole day. I cannot too strongly express my entire
concurrence in your Lordship's opinion of the extreme importance
of preventing any recurrence of so painful an event as the
preaching of the sermon in question. I desire to assure you,
my Lord, that no negligence on my part shall be wanting for
that purpose. — Believe me, my dear Lord Bishop, yours most
truly and respectfully, Alex. Heriot Mackonochie."
The ritual troubles increased, and in December 1863
the Bishop offered, in accordance with the direction given
in the Preface to the Book of Common Prayer, to in
vestigate carefully, with Mr. Mackonochie and Mr.
Hubbard, the various points upon which they differed,
and to give his direction respecting each, transmitting
any questions which might still remain doubtful "for
the formal decision of the Archbishop of the Province."
" I shall," he added, " be glad, before I enter on the questions
at issue, to be assured on the part of the Incumbent and Church
wardens that there is a bona fide agreement to abide by the
decision to be pronounced. I understand it to be the desire of
both parties that the questions at issue should be decided in the
quietest way possible without giving occasion for needless offence
and scandal, and I am of opinion that the mode of settlement
thus prescribed by the Church is at once the most likely to avoid
any such evil consequences, and that in which earnest and loyal
members of the Church of England may most suitably bind
themselves to acquiesce."
Mr. Mackonochie, however, declined to give any such
assurance, and the proposed reference came to naught.
It would be impossible to follow in detail the history
of St. Alban's during the next few years. Mr. Mac
konochie introduced coloured vestments in 1864, and
incense in 1866. Mr. Hubbard complained in each case
to the Bishop that he had done so " without the consent
of either of the Churchwardens." On the second occasion
the Bishop replied : —

426 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. XV.
"London House, Feb. 8, 1866.
"My dear Mr. Hubbard, — If you and your brother Church
warden will submit to me a formal memorial stating that you
believe unlawful practices have been introduced into the services
at St. Alban's, and calling upon me to regulate the services, this
will enable me to go to my Chancellor at once for full considera
tion of the case, with a view to action. — Believe me, yours very
faithfully, A. C. London."
It was thought better, however, not to proceed to liti
gation, and the Bishop and Mr. Mackonochie had several
interviews upon the subject. After one of these the
Bishop wrote : — "London House, Feb. 20, 1866.
"My dear Mr. Mackonochie, — I cannot allow the night
to close after our very serious conversation of to-day without
saying how earnestly I trust and pray that you may be guided to
submit your own judgment and that of your friends to some
authority set over you in the Lord. I cannot ask you or any
man to set aside the dictates of conscience, but I pray that your
conscience may be guided to see that in the outward ordering of
the Church service you are not justified in acting without refer
ence to the Bishop. — Sincerely yours, A. C. London."
The following is the Bishop's reply to Mr. Spiller, one
of the Churchwardens of St. Alban's, who had written in
praise of Mr. Mackonochie's self-denying work among
the poor, and of the beauty and attractiveness of the
church services : —
The Bishop of London to Mr. C. C. Spiller.
" Brighton, Dec. 20, 1866.
" My dear Sir, — I have read your very interesting testimony
to the zeal of Mr. Mackonochie and the other clergy of St.
Alban's, Holborn, and if there were no other proof but their
having so favourably impressed yourself, it would be much in

1860-68] RITUAL AT ST. ALBAN'S 427
their favour. Let me say, however, that I am sure the same
amount of influence might be gained, and would be free from
the objections so commonly urged against it, if the services of
the Church were restrained within those limits of which, as
Diocesan, I could heartily approve. It is not the heartiness of
the services that any one objects to, but certain peculiarities, the
effect of which is to break down the distinction between the
reformed service of the Church of England and the unreformed
service of the Church of Rome.
"I have heard Mr. Hubbard speak in the highest terms of
you, and, if you are continued in the office of Churchwarden, I
trust you may be able, in co-operation with him, to suggest such
an alteration of the services as may avoid the offence at present
given, while the hearty and cheering character of the whole is
preserved. . . . — I am, your faithful servant, " A. C. London."
On January 4, 1867, Mr. Mackonochie wrote to the
Bishop to say that in consequence of the remonstrance
contained in the Bishop's Charge, which had been pub
lished a few weeks before,1 and in consequence also of
the opinions expressed by the Lower House of Convoca
tion in the previous summer,2 he had decided to modify
the ritual of St. Alban's in certain important particulars.
He enclosed at the same time a printed address to his
parishioners explaining his views upon ritual symbolism
generally. The Bishop replied as follows : —
The Bishop of London to the Rev. A. H. Mackonochie.
"Brighton, 8th fan. 1867.
" My dear Mr. Mackonochie, — I have to thank you for
your letter of the 4th, and for sending me the printed paper.
I hail the desire which you express in your letter to make the
service at St. Alban's more accordant with my wishes, and with
what I feel convinced are the requirements of the Church of
England, and I shall be glad to learn that the changes which
1 See page 441. 2 See page 405.

428 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xv.
you, on full consideration, make in the service, go so far as to
remove what is a serious stumbling-block to so many attached
members of our Church. I shall at all times be ready to give
you my best advice in this or any other matter. With regard to
the printed paper, I should not be dealing candidly with you if
I did not say that I fear its statements are very difficult to
reconcile with the 29th Article, and certainly go beyond anything
which I believe to be warranted by the general teaching of our
formularies. I cannot but think that you make a great mistake
in supposing that these (which I must hold to be) exaggerated
statements are at all conducive to real devotion. The acknow
ledged Spiritual Presence of Our Blessed Lord with faithful
worshippers, in the Sacrament of His death, must call forth all
healthy reverential feelings ; and I think your statements of
doctrine, like certain parts of the ceremonial which you have
been in the habit of using to symbolise your doctrine, are rather
impediments in the way of the Spiritual worship which the Lord
loves, and have a tendency to substitute for it a morbid excite
ment of the feelings. My belief is that the acknowledged
earnestness and devotion of your congregation spring, not from
the peculiarities of the ceremonial you have used or the doctrines
you have preached, but, in spite of these, from God's blessing
on the deep sense of the real Christian verities, and the anxious
love to save souls, which are daily shown in the preaching and
lives of yourself and others who co-operate with you. It is my
earnest prayer that God may more and more enable you to dwell
on these verities, and cause your zealous conviction of them to
shine forth more and more, to the complete emancipation of
yourself and your people from the errors with which I so much
regret to think they are at present mixed. — Believe me to be,
my dear Mr. Mackonochie, yours very truly, "A. C. London."
A few months later the long controversy entered upon
a new phase. A prosecution of Mr. Mackonochie was set
on foot by the Church Association, with the view, as the
promoters stated, of obtaining a definite decision upon
the disputed points of law. The 'promoter' was Mr.
John Martin, who, as treasurer and manager of the
schools in Baldwin's Gardens, had for more than thirty

1860-68] JUDGMENT OF THE ARCHES COURT 429
years taken a keen personal interest in all that concerned
the district, although his actual residence was in another
part of London. The case was sent by letters of request
to the Court of Arches, where it was heard in December
1867 before the newly appointed Dean of Arches, Sir
Robert Phillimore. On March 28, 1868, in a long and
elaborate judgment, the Dean of Arches decided, inter
alia, in favour of the legality of the Altar Lights, but
against the (ceremonially) mixed Chalice, and the censing
of persons and things. Immediately on the delivery of
this judgment Mr. Mackonochie wrote to Bishop Tait
as follows : —
The Rev. A. H. Mackonochie to the Bishop of London.
" St. Alban's Clergy House,
March 31, 1868.
" My dear Lord Bishop, — It is due to your Lordship that
I should communicate to you, as soon as possible, my intentions
with regard to the judgment of the Arches Court in the case sent
to it by your Lordship by letters of request. According to the
account of that judgment in the public papers, which I assume
to be correct, I am admonished to abstain for the future from
the use of incense and from mixing water with the wine, as
pleaded in these Articles; and further, not to recur to the
practice, which I have abandoned under protest, with regard to
the elevation of the Blessed Sacrament, and the censing persons
and things. I have taken a few days to consider what course it
is my duty to take under this judgment, and have decided to
abide by it without appeal to the Higher Court, unless compelled
to do so by any act on the part of the promoter. It will I know
be most satisfactory to many of my friends that I should thus
accept the decision of the Highest Court which claims Spiritual
Authority, rather than appeal to a civil tribunal. At the same
time I cannot but feel the deepest thankfulness that a judgment
conceived in such a spirit of deep and true Catholicity should
have been pronounced at this time. It will do more than any
thing to calm the minds of those who have been much troubled
by many past events. — Believe me, my dear Lord Bishop, yours
very truly and respectfully, Alex. Heriot Mackonochie."

43° LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xv.
The Bishop of London to the Rev. A. H. Mackonochie.
" London House, 6th April 1868.
"My dear Mr. Mackonochie,— I have delayed for some
days my answer to your letter of the 31st ult., in the hope that
I might know with certainty whether there is likely to be an
appeal on the part of the promoters of the suit against you. I
have, however, no information on the subject, and therefore delay
no longer to write to you.
" I could not doubt that you would at once drop any practices
in the celebration of Divine Service which were formally decided
by a competent tribunal to be contrary to the law of the Church,
and I gladly receive your assurance in respect of the points which
you specify. Most earnestly do I trust that your hearty zeal
for the spiritual welfare of the people committed to your pastoral
charge may be directed aright, and that, both in point of doctrine
and of ceremonial, being kept safe from dangerous extremes, you
and the clergy who work with you in so self-denying a spirit may
find your usefulness daily increased by being more and more
enabled to give yourselves to spread among your flock the simple
Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. — Yours very faithfully and
truly, A. C. London."
On May 22, 1868, Mr. Hubbard wrote a long letter to
the Bishop of London, explaining his own position with
respect to the difficulties at St. Alban's. In the course of
this letter, which was published at the time, he says : —
" It is now five years since I had the painful duty of presenting
to you at some length the complaints which I had to urge against
the proceedings at St. Alban's. You received them with the
utmost kindness and consideration, you submitted them to the
perusal of Mr. Mackonochie, and you invited us to leave to your
decision (by which we should engage to abide) the matters in
contention, including several of those which I have just noticed.
Mr. Mackonochie, however, declined the reference to your Lord
ship, and he declined also, at successive periods, as I proposed
them, references to any ecclesiastical lawyer (whom he should
choose) — to his best friend, and to his own brother. Unable to
accomplish a private and friendly reference, you intimated your

1 860-68] MR. HUBBARD'S DISSATISFACTION 431
readiness to receive a formal presentment from my co-church
warden and myself. Mr. Spiller, having first agreed, subsequently
declined to join in a formal presentment, upon the plea that Mr.
Mackonochie had published his intention to abide by the decision
of Convocation upon the points under contention.
"After the publication of the resolutions on Ritual passed
by the two Houses of Convocation, I again proposed to Mr.
Mackonochie a reference to your Lordship for a decision which
should be based upon those resolutions, but Mr. Mackonochie
replied that, a suit having been commenced against him in the
Arches Court, he preferred awaiting its result.
" The judgment of the Dean of Arches, by condemning the
ceremonial use of incense, has removed one of the causes of my
dissatisfaction. Incense is no longer used in the services at
St. Alban's, but I find no pretence for delaying my petition that
you will take into consideration the other matters which I have
offered to your Lordship's notice. . . .
" During all these years, although I privately made known my
dissatisfaction to your Lordship, I shrank from giving it any overt
expression, for I was especially jealous for Mr. Mackonochie's
influence, and was satisfied rather to bear the penalty of being
personally misunderstood than to occasion any distrust of him or
of his office in the estimation of his people.
" You, my Lord, who know the distress my difference of opinion
with Mr. Mackonochie has occasioned me, know also the sincere
admiration I entertain for his zeal and untiring devotion. I
gratefully acknowledge the disinterested, the abundant, and
efficacious labours of himself and his curates, especially among
the young, the aged, and the afflicted of his district, but I see no
connection between these, his meritorious services, and the
persistent introduction of strange and obsolete practices.
" In these days it would be as impolitic as unjust to narrow
the liberty of either the clergy or the laity of our Church, but
liberty must not degenerate into licence. No Church, no cor
poration, no society, can exist without order and without law,
and it must be decided whether, consistently with order, law,
and the uniformity which results from them, individuals can be
permitted to act independently of all authority and opinion but
their own.
" I may not now claim your Lordship's hearing in any official
capacity, for I hold none; yet, as founder and patron of St.

432 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xv.
Alban's. I venture to challenge your sympathy and assistance.
The law, by vesting in me the patronage of the benefice, makes
me a trustee for the Church of England in general, and for the
inhabitants of the district in particular, and in that character I
approach your Lordship. . . ."
The Bishop's reply was as follows : —
The Bishop of London to Mr. f. G. Hubbard.
"Fulham Palace, /##.¦ 182$, 1868.
" My dear Mr. Hubbard, — I have very carefully perused
your letter bearing the date of the 2 2d of May, but the finally
revised copy of which, as you are aware, only reached me within
the last few days.
" You scarcely require to be again assured, after all that has
passed between us privately, of the sympathy which I feel with
your disappointment that the services of St. Alban's Church,
Holborn, have been conducted in a manner so different from
what you approve of, or my regret that Mr. Mackonochie, on the
various occasions on which you have appealed to him to submit
the points of difference to the decision of myself as his Diocesan,
or to the arbitration of some other third party, has uniformly
declined any such reference. The natural result has been that
the mode of conducting divine service at St. Alban's has become
the subject of litigation in the Courts, and though the Dean of
Arches has pronounced judgment, the parties who have moved
in the prosecution of Mr. Mackonochie are not satisfied with that
judgment, and have appealed to the highest Court of the Church
and realm.
" Under these circumstances, you will not be surprised that I
prefer, in reference to the points which you have brought before
me, to wait for the ultimate decision of this case. I have for
some time past been of opinion, and have taken public occasion
to express my opinion, that the evils of excessive ritualism, which
at present give so much distress to many attached members of
the Church of England, cannot be remedied unless, either by the
decision of the Courts or by fresh legislation, some new method
is secured for the exercise of controlling power on the part of the
Ordinary. — Believe me to be, yours very faithfully,
"A. C. London.'

1860-68] CATECHISM USED AT ST. ALBANS 433
In the year 1868 other difficulties arose, connected
only indirectly with the Ritual question, and the following
letters passed between the Bishop and Mr. Mackonochie : —

The Bishop of London to the Rev. A. H. Mackonochie.
"London House, Oct. 29, 1868.
" My dear Mr. Mackonochie, — There has been laid before
me a Catechism of Private Prayer for Children, professing in its
title-page to be compiled by you this year. I confess myself
grieved at the mode in which this Catechism inculcates habitual
confession and prayers for the dead. I will not undertake to
say that a clergyman teaching his people to comply with these
practices, as set forth in this little book, would be liable to
punishment if his case were brought before a legal tribunal, and
if the alleged silence of our Church were pleaded in his defence ;
but I am sure that this Catechism oversteps anything to which
the formularies of the Church of England have given their
sanction. " Again, I consider the teaching on the subject of the inter
cession of the Blessed Virgin, though the same defence might
perhaps be set up in case of iegal proceedings, to be not only
unwarranted by Holy Scripture, but distinctly contrary to the
mind of our Church. I deeply deplore that such a book is
circulated in my diocese, and I cannot but fear that it must
prepare the unformed minds of children for the gradual recep
tion of distinctly Romish error. I must warn you very earnestly
of the danger of circulating this book as a Church of England
Catechism amongst the children of your flock.1
1 Among the passages which the Bishop has marked in the little Cate
chism are the following : —
Q. What do you say next ?
A. I say next a prayer to my dear Lord, to ask for the prayers of Mary
and of all the Saints.
Q. Repeat this prayer.
A. The prayer is this : "Most Blessed Jesus, grant of Thy mercy that
Holy Mary, Thy Mother, and all Thy Saints may pray for us both now and
at the hour of our death. Amen."
[Prayer.] Bless, O Lord, my father, mother, brothers, sisters, relations,
and friends. . . . Bless the clergy of this parish, especially my own ghostly
Father, and our Bishop. . . . Bless Thy whole Church, and make it one in
VOL. I. 2 E

434 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xv.
" It deeply pains me to be obliged to write thus, but I should
otherwise neglect a plain duty. — Believe me to be, dear Mr.
Mackonochie, yours faithfully, A. C. London."

The Rev. A. H. Mackonochie to the Bishop of London..
" S. Alban's Clergy House,
November 3, 1868.
" My dear Lord Bishop, — I have to thank your Lordship
very sincerely for the great kindness of your letter. I hope
I am not doing wrong in saying that it is but one more of
those many acts of friendliness on the part of your Lordship
which make it personally so very grievous to me that I should be
paining you by acting under the supreme obligation of obeying
my own fullest and most carefully formed convictions as to the
teaching of the Church of England, of the whole Church Catholic,
and, above all, of the Gospel of Christ. I do not presume to
obtrude upon your Lordship the reasons of my conviction. They
have been so often urged most ably in various quarters, that for me
to reiterate them would be very unseemly ; but I venture to think
that your Lordship is one of the last men in England to wish me
to act contrary to my convictions, or to withhold any part of
that which I conceive to be the Gospel of Christ from those
whom I have to teach. I cannot be ignorant that the full asser
tion of that which I am convinced is the truth may lead me into.
serious inconveniences, but I hope that the same God who has
revealed it will, by His grace, carry me through any difficulties
which He may suffer to come in my way. — Believe me, my dear
Lord Bishop, yours very truly and respectfully,
" Alex. Heriot Mackonochie."
In the meantime the Church Association had appealed
to the Privy Council against the recent judgment of the
Faith and Love, and give eternal rest to the faithful departed, through Jesus
Christ. Amen.
Q. Who do you mean by your " ghostly Father " ?
A. I mean by my "ghostly Father" the priest who hears my confession.
Q. Do you think that your Prayers help [the dead] ?
A. Yes ; I think they will get for them from God more grace and
peace.

1860-68] PRIVY COUNCIL JUDGMENT 435
Dean of Arches, so far as it was in favour of Mr. Mac
konochie. The case was again argued, Mr. Mackonochie
appearing by counsel, and on December 23, 1868, the
Privy Council reversed the Dean of Arches' decision, and
declared the Altar Lights to be illegal. Bishop Tait had
a few weeks before been nominated to the Primacy, and
on December 29th, as the last act of his London Episco
pate, he wrote to Mr. Mackonochie as follows : —

The Bishop of London to the Rev. A. H. Mackonochie.
"Fulham Palace, 29 Dec. 1868.
"My dear Mr. Mackonochie, — I have received from the
Privy Council Office a copy of the judgment which has now with
authority explained the law on the various points of ritual
observance in the service at St. Alban's, Holborn, respecting
which there has been so much contention. I expect that this
will be the last day of my tenure of the See of London ; otherwise
I should have invited you, at a personal interview, to arrange
with me what is the best mode of giving effect to such changes in
your service as will at once bring it into conformity with the
simplicity enjoined by the Rubrics, and at the same time be the
least distasteful to a congregation like yours, which has been
accustomed to a form of worship more ornate than, it is now
ascertained, the law of the Church has sanctioned. Probably
before you receive formal notification of what is now required of
you, through the proper officers of the Bishop's and Archbishop's
Court, I shall have ceased to be your Diocesan. But I will take
upon myself, as my last act in that capacity, to advise you and all
others of the London clergy who may now feel themselves placed
in a difficulty by their having conscientiously, though I believe
unwisely, thought it their duty hitherto to act against the advice
and judgment, I believe I may say, of all the Bishops, in intro
ducing novelties of worship, to do now what I believe all the
Church principles must suggest, viz., to take counsel with those
directly set over them in the Lord as to the mode in which their
services are henceforward to be conducted in conformity with the
ascertained law of the Church.
" Some weeks must elapse before my successor has entered

436 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xv.
fully on the duties of his office, but I can have no doubt he will
be ready to give you his best advice at once, and to approach the
subject of your present difficulties with the same appreciation of
your devotedness and zeal which I have ever myself entertained.
You are quite at liberty to make any use you please of this letter,
which I shall myself make public. — I am, yours very faithfully,
"A. C. London."

The Rev. A. H. Mackonochie to the Archbishop of
Canterbury.
" St. Alban's Clergy House,
Feast of the Circumcision, 1869.
" My dear Lord Archbishop, — I beg to acknowledge with
many thanks your Grace's very kind letter of Dec. 29, which has
since appeared in the Times newspaper. The subject of it is one
which deeply concerns many, both clergy and laity, and not my
self alone. It is, moreover, at this time the matter of their most
serious deliberation. Under these circumstances, I feel sure that
your Grace will excuse me from entering into any detailed dis
cussion of the question. I cannot, however, close this letter
without specially thanking you for the great personal kindness
and consideration which I have received from your Grace during
the last ten years. — Believe me, my dear Lord Archbishop, yours
very truly and respectfully, "Alex. Heriot Mackonochie."
A score of other instances might easily be given, to
show the Bishop's difficulties in various parts of London,
with respect to the practice of an ' advanced ' and advanc
ing Ritual. The records of St. Matthias, Stoke Newing-
ton, under its successive incumbents, have recently been
given to the world, from a partisan point of view, in the
interesting and vigorous biography of Mr. Robert Brett,
the most stalwart and polemical of churchwardens, and
the champion of what he believed to be Catholic practices
of every sort and kind.1 In matters of opinion, whether
1 Robert Brett : his Life and Work. By Dr. T, W. Belcher. 1890.

1860-68] ST. MATTHIAS, STOKE NEWINGTON 437
ecclesiastical, educational, or even political, Bishop Tait
and Mr. Brett were in frequent and sometimes stormy
opposition to one other, but Mr. Brett never lost an oppor
tunity of expressing the respect and regard which, through
all these controversies, he entertained for his Diocesan.
In a rousing, speech, for example, which he delivered to
the English Church Union on June 20th, 1865, he refers
as follows to Bishop Tait : —
"I wish it to be distinctly understood that I intend no
personal reflections whatever on our Diocesan. I have had some
very earnest contentions with him on matters of principle, but I
must say he has always met me as a Christian man should do.
He has maintained his opinions, and I have maintained mine,
and when he has found that the principle which I have con
tended for has been right, he has yielded up his own opinion. I
feel great respect for him, not only for his office, but personally
for the many great efforts which he displays in advancing the cause
of the Church, and also for acts of personal kindness to myself,
and especially for tender sympathy in times of bitter trial. . . .
Therefore, whatever I say must not be taken personally to his
Lordship." 1
The consecration in 1 866 of St. Peter's, London Docks,
the enduring outcome of Mr. Lowder's energy and faith,
was an important day in the history of the Ritualist move
ment. Strained as his relations had for a time been with
the Rector of the Mother Church,2 Bishop Tait had never
ceased to encourage and support the devoted workers in
Mr. Lowder's mission district, now formed into a separate
parish. The magnetism of Mr. Lowder's personal in
fluence, not less than his untiring devotion to the people
committed to his care, had lived down active opposition
even in the worst purlieus which he was trying to reclaim
and on June 30, 1866, the friendly feeling which he had
1 Life of Robert Brett, p. 153.
2 St. George's in the East, see pp. 232-249.

438 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xv.
inspired found enthusiastic utterance among those who
were assembled for the consecration of his Church. In
Mr. Lowder's words :
" It was a day ever to be remembered in the history of the
Mission, whether for the fulfilment of long-indulged anticipations
in the sight of a duly consecrated church, the beauty and solemn
character of St. Peter's, the full attendance of clergy and friends,
or, above all, for the hearty sympathy of the Bishop in the work
of the Mission, and the warm applause which his encouraging
words elicited from the large gathering of friends (about three
hundred) at the luncheon."
The Bishop's speech, as reported in the Guardian,1 was
as follows : —
" He had had an intimate connection with the work for more
than ten years, for it was before his consecration that Mr. Lowder
first brought it under his notice. He was of opinion that it would
not do for the Bishop of London, or the Bishop of any other
place, to agree with everybody, for in that case he believed he
would agree with nobody. What a Bishop was bound to have
was a real sympathy with goodness wherever he found it. He
would be unworthy of the office he held if he did not sympathise
with the clergy and the noble-minded ladies who had worked so
hard in this district, which had at one time enjoyed a world-wide
reputation for the bad character of its people, but which, he was
glad to say, was fast losing that stigma. . . . He then alluded to
the high character and worth of Mr. Lowder, whom he looked
upon as one of the principal agents in effecting that union of the
East and West of which he had spoken.
"Mr. Lowder, in reply, alluded with great feeling to the
manner in which the Bishop had recognised the honesty of their
purpose, and said that he should indeed have felt humiliated if
he had not always conducted himself as he ought to his spiritual
superior. He had always met with kindness from the Bishop,
even when they differed from each other, and when he had felt
it his duty to bow to his Lordship's authority, he had done so in
the spirit of love." 1 See Guardian, July 4, 1866, p. 688.

1860-68] "TAKE OFF THESE RIBBONS" 439
It was not wonderful that, in the excited state of
public opinion upon the Ritual question, many exagge
rated stories as to the Bishop's action obtained currency.
It is still commonly asserted, for example, that on one
occasion the Bishop, addressing a large body of clergy,
many of whom were wearing coloured stoles, bid them in
a stern voice — " Take off these ribbons, gentlemen." The
foundation for this story seems to be as follows x : —
On August 24, 1865, the Church of St. Michael's,
Shoreditch, was consecrated by Bishop Tait. There was
a large gathering of clergy in the Vestry. Most of them
belonged to the advanced school in Ritual matters, and
the occasion was taken for wearing the then very unusual
coloured stoles, as well as other ornaments. Twice during*
the previous year the Bishop had been told, on remon
strating with clergy for Ritual innovations, that it was
unfair to find such fault, seeing that he had consecrated
such and such a Church without objecting to the then
use of these accessories. The Bishop, as he said to a
friend, felt bound on this occasion to bear these facts in
mind : —
"One of the clergy at the St. Michael's consecration," says a
gentleman who was present, " had on a very narrow stole which
he said was copied from that of the Venerable Bede. It looked
exactly like a strip of ribbon. The Bishop noticed it, and said to
him, 'Oh, Mr.  , do take this off.' He did so, and the
Bishop then added, ' I must ask the clergy of my diocese who
are here to-day, to wear the simple dress of clergymen of the
Church of England.' Thereupon, those of the clergy present
who were wearing coloured stoles took them off and laid them in
the Vestry, replacing them by black stoles, which they wore
during the service. While the service was proceeding, a news
paper reporter was admitted to the Vestry, and on inquiring, note
book in hand, what the stoles lying there were, was told by a very
1 The facts are communicated by a very careful witness, who was present
on the occasion.

44° LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xv.
unritualistic legal function? iy who was waiting there, 'Oh, these
are the ribbons which the Bishop made the clergy take off.'
Next day appeared the story of the Bishop's stern command —
' Take off these ribbons, gentlemen.' "
On the same occasion, the Bishop required, before pro
ceeding with the consecration service, certain other
changes in the ornaments of the chancel to make it
correspond with what it had been when the usual inspec
tion prior to consecration took place. The story of what
was called, in a Church newspaper at the time, "the
Bishop's disgusting and irreverent conduct at St. Michael's,
Shoreditch," grew to large dimensions, but seems to have
been treated with deserved contempt by the clergy of St.
'Michael's. Indeed, Mr. Nihill, the incumbent, at a
Dedication Festival of the Church in a subsequent year,
in proposing the health of the Bishop of the Diocese,
expressed his " firm conviction that the Bishop was placed
over that Diocese by Providence for the special purpose of
allowing Catholics to obtain, under his truly liberal
government, a position which would be unassailable " — a
testimony, by the way, which brought the Bishop no small
trouble from the opposite quarter, where he used frequently
to be denounced for his inactivity in the suppression of
' Popery and Popish ways.' " The Bishop of London,"
said the Record, " is, to a qualified extent, decidedly Anti-
Ritualistic, but he is one of those who have planted new
ritualistic churches in his diocese, and who would widen
the platform of the Church of England, and does not fully
go v/ith the Evangelical school in following the old
Reformers of the Church."
We have now passed in review the Bishop's relation
to most of the prominent Churches of the ' advanced '
school in his diocese. His personal friendship with such
men as Mr. Lowder and Mr. Mackonochie was knit yet

1860-68] LETTER ON RITUALISM 441
closer when he and they were toiling side by side in the
cholera visitation of 1866, elsewhere described, the epi
demic reaching its height a few weeks after the consecra
tion of St. Peter's, London Docks.1
But it would be altogether a mistake to suppose that
his growing appreciation of the character and work of
these devoted men led the Bishop to change the opinion
he had formed as to the errors of their ecclesiastical
system, or as to the mischief arising from their disregard
of duly constituted Courts of Law. Quotations have
already been given in this chapter, perhaps too copiously,
from his public speeches upon the subject, both in Parlia
ment and in Convocation. These utterances were in
tended, of necessity, for the Church at large. But the
warnings he addressed to his own Diocese were even
more emphatic and detailed.
In February 1866, the Archdeacon and Rural Deans
of Middlesex presented a petition to the Bishop, praying
him to discountenance the Ritualistic practices which were
here and there coming into use, " and, so far as they are
illegal, to suppress them." The Bishop in a few days
published a long and careful answer for circulation among
the clergy of the diocese, and he incorporated the greater
part of it in his third Diocesan Charge, published in De
cember 1 866. A few paragraphs may be quoted : —
" The phrase ' excessive Ritualism,' " he said, " requires to
be explained, for, as commonly employed, it bears two meanings.
" (1) Sometimes the phrase is used for the introduction into
Parish Churches of a form of worship always sanctioned and
maintained in our Cathedrals, and in many of our College
Chapels. ... No doubt the spirit in which these efforts origi
nated has done very much of late years to invest our houses of
God with a more seemly dignity, and to give a liveliness to our
outward worship which has been found very attractive, especially
1 See p. 470.

442 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xv.
to the young. Such changes, in my judgment, are only to be
deprecated if they be introduced without proper regard to the
feelings and wishes of the Parishioners, and without due refer
ence, if need be, to the controlling authority of the Ordinary. . . .
(2) But there is an excessive ritualism of another kind, to
which I suppose in your address you especially refer, and which,
within the last year, has caused a very wide-spread alarm in the
Church. Certain persons have taken upon themselves so to alter
the whole external appearance of the celebration of the Lord's
Supper as to make it scarcely distinguishable from the Roman
Mass, and they endeavour on all occasions to introduce into the
other services some change of vestment or ornament quite alien
to the established English usage of 300 years.
"... The number of those who are so committed is, I am
confident, very small. The Church of England from the Refor
mation has allowed great liberty as to the doctrine of the Sacra
ments ; and though I fear it cannot be denied that a few are
engaged in a conspiracy to bring back our Church to the state
in which it was before the Reformation, I fully believe that
most of those who advocate what we deem an excessive ritual
would indignantly deny that they had any such purpose. . . .
" I trust that the good sense and good feeling of the Clergy
and the kindly admonitions of authority will prevail, without
making it necessary to defend the Church from the innovations
of a few, either by painful legal prosecutions or by a declaratory
enactment of Parliament and Convocation. If admonitions fail,
then at last an enactment must explain how and under what
safeguards that controlling influence, which the Church has ever
contemplated as vested in its chief officers, shall be made to bear
on the discretion of individual clergymen.
" I feel strongly on this important question, but I would not
have you, my Reverend Brethren, to suppose that I have any
great anxiety as to the future of our beloved Church. As with
evils of a totally different kind which alarmed us two or three
years ago, so with these — in quietness and confidence is our
strength. I believe our Church to be growing steadily in the
affections of our people, through the self-denying lives of our
Clergy, and every year to be more distinctly assuming its place,
as at once expressing and guiding the religious sentiments of this
great nation, and as the chief witness in the world for a zealous
loving, and intelligent Christianity.

1860-68] LETTER ON RITUALISM 443
" Commending you and all your labours and our brethren in
the ministry to the intercession of our common Lord and the
guidance of the Holy Spirit, I am, my dear Mr. Archdeacon and
Reverend Brethren, your faithful friend and servant,
" A. C. London."

CHAPTER XVI.
THE LONDON EPISCOPATE.
THE BISHOP OF LONDON'S FUND— THE LADIES' DIOCESAN ASSOCIA
TION— SISTERHOODS— CHOLERA EPIDEMIC OF 1866— ST. PETER'S
ORPHANAGE— BISHOP'S ILLNESS— THIRD DIOCESAN CHARGE.
1863-67.
Nothing has yet been said about what is popularly
regarded, and not without reason, as the greatest and most
memorable act of Tait's London Episcopate — the incep
tion and foundation of ' The Bishop of London's Fund.'
In his Charge of 1862, delivered immediately on his return
to London, after declining the Archbishopric of York, he
described, with many careful statistics, the spiritual desti
tution of vast regions of the Metropolis. The population
of London, as he pointed out, was annually increased by
about 40,000 souls, and all the efforts which had been
made were inadequate to overtake these steadily ad
vancing needs. Between 185 1 and 1861, sixty-six per
manent and twenty-one temporary Churches had been
opened, providing accommodation for about one-sixth of
the increased population.
" The appalling fact accordingly transpires," said Bishop Tait,
"that, whatever were our spiritual wants in this respect in 1851,
all our great exertions have not lessened them, but have at best
prevented the evil from growing worse." x
He pointed out that there were three parishes in the
1 Charge of 1862, p. 62.
444

1863-67] CHARGE OF 1862 445
diocese with a population of more than 30,000, and only
a single Church ; eleven parishes with more than 20,000 for
one Church ; fourteen with more than 15,000.
" Let it not be supposed," he said, " that I am speaking as if
the sole way to remedy the social evils of an overwhelming
population, and propagate true religion, was to multiply churches,
or even clergymen. We well know that neither the buildings nor
the men will avail without the mighty Spirit of God. We are
not insensible to self-denying labours of Dissenters and Roman
Catholics, and we grant the value of many other appliances for pro
moting Christian civilisation used by our own Church. Yet are
we deeply convinced that our own parochial system, carrying
with it, besides churches and clergy, schools and a hundred
arrangements of charity and philanthropy, gives the best hope of
aiding our people for time and for eternity. It is difficult to con
ceive what a city of between two and three millions of inhabitants
must become if it be not broken up into manageable districts,
each placed under the superintendence of men whose mission it
is to labour in every way for the social and religious improvement
of the people."1
He went on to suggest, in considerable detail, the modes
of carrying this counsel into practice, and, above all, the
need of greater liberality on the part of the richer citizens
of London. This Charge, like that which preceded it, aroused wide
attention. " Its whole tone and temper," said the Guardian, " are such
as to command respect and confidence. It is candid, earnest,
and impartial, and the rules the Bishop suggests are often most
wise and practical."
"We do not know," said the writer of an unfriendly and even
vituperative article in fohn Bull, " why our daily contemporaries
accord to the Bishop of London's concio ad clerum an importance
so far beyond that which they attach to the authoritative enun
ciations even of our Primates. Yet so it is, . . . the Charge has
formed the subject of comment in every paper, and, in several,
food for more than one article."
1 Charge of 1862, p. 65.

446 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xvi.
Taking advantage of the interest awakened by his
words, the Bishop, a few months later,1 summoned in
London House a large meeting of some of the weightiest
and most influential men in London, and propounded to
them his plan for raising a huge ' Bishop of London's
Fund ' of half a million sterling, wherewith to strengthen
and enlarge his diocesan work in all its forms. So great
was the enthusiasm he had kindled, that an amend
ment was carried by acclamation in the room, that they
should set themselves to raise in ten years, not half a
million, but a million sterling. The Bishop himself sub
scribed £2000, and promised to issue a Pastoral Letter
to the laity of the diocese. On June 20th, 1863, his letter
appeared, recounting what had taken place, and calling
upon all Londoners for aid.
" It is my desire," he said, " that our scheme be as elastic as
possible. . . . Each year may suggest new means for advancing.
the great work we are undertaking ; and it is my desire that no
approved agency in connection with our National Church should
be excluded from our field of operations. ... It may seem a poor
thing for a Bishop to be addressing his diocese on the old ques
tion of our need of funds, but the command of ample funds is an
indispensable condition of the great effort which the exigency of
the times requires. . . . Consider what our Metropolis is — its
vast population — its boundless influence on the whole kingdom
— the certainty that as evil breeds evil wherever men do congregate,
such a mass of population must demoralise the country, and dis
order our whole social system, unless it be leavened by a civilis
ing Christian influence."
"Each donor," he explained, "should state whether
he wishes his money to go to a general fund or to be
applied specifically to any one " of nine different objects.2
1 April 29, 1863.
2 The nine objects were as follows : — 1. Missionary clergy or additional
curates (a) to labour in the diocese generally under the Bishop's control, or
(b) to be confined in their operations to particular parishes ; 2. Scripture
readers ; 3. mission women ; 4. clergymen's residences j 5- schools ; 6.

1863-67] BISHOP OF LONDON'S FUND 447
At the head of the list stood the provision of missionary
clergy to work in crowded parishes ; the building of
churches being the last of the nine objects.
The response to this bold appeal was such as to amaze
and silence the opponents of the plan. The first sub
scription list amounted to £60,000. Before six months
had passed the sum was £94,000, and in March 1864,
— nine months, that is, after the issue of his letter, —
the Bishop was able to announce the actual receipt of
£100,456, 13s. 6d., and the promise of £92,000 more.
It would be out of place to recount here in detail the
subsequent progress of the Bishop of London's fund.1
Bishop Tait was never tired of expressing his obligation
to the great body of laymen who had from the first
administered its grants : —
" It has required," he said in his third diocesan Charge, " such
an amount of patient and laborious attention, not only to the
general condition of the diocese, but to the minute details of its
parishes, and such an amount of communication, oral and
written, with incumbents and others, as would fully employ the
energies of the whole staff of any great public office. . . . To the
laymen who have thus aided us the thanks of all of us, the clergy,
are especially due. Men of all ranks, with a thousand other
claims, have made time to work for us diligently, day by day, in
the office, and have visited all parts of the diocese, that, by
personal inspection of poverty-stricken districts, and personal in
tercourse with incumbents and other residents, they might better
understand what it was wise to undertake in each neighbourhood."
He used always to maintain in later years that, great
mission rooms or school churches; 7. endowment of old or new districts;
8. endowment of curacies ; 9. building of churches.
1 When, in 1873, the decennial period, which was originally intended to
be the limit of the fund's duration, came to an end, it was reconstructed by
Bishop Jackson as a permanent diocesan institution. It had then expended
£497,910, and its present income is about £23,000 a year. Two of the four
original trustees, Sir Walter Farquhar and Mr. John Murray, are still in
office.

448 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xvi.
as was the direct work of the fund, its indirect results had
proved incomparably greater, in the intelligent sympathies
that were awakened, and the opportunity that was given
for their active exercise.
While the energies and sympathies of the laymen of
the diocese were thus enlisted, a totally new endeavour
was also made to organise, in a manner till then unheard
of, the scattered and disjointed work of such ladies as
should be willing to make themselves useful for a longer
or shorter period of the year in the poorer parishes of
London. The plan was Mrs. Tait's.
" I remember distinctly," wrote the Archbishop, fifteen years
afterwards, " her awakening me one night in our room in London
House, and unfolding the scheme of the Ladies' Diocesan
Association, which had become impressed upon her mind ; and
she quickly set herself to work to have the scheme matured. I
must leave to others to describe the labour for which the matur
ing of her conception called. Her idea was that the great num
ber of ladies who, in London, are anxious to do distinct work for
Christ beyond the limits of their own families — in workhouse
visitation, and in hospitals, and in ministering to the wants of the
poor in their own houses — might have their efforts better systema-
tised if they met together in one centre under their Diocesan."
The chaplains^of hospitals, penitentiaries, and houses
of charity, and the clerks of Boards of Guardians were
communicated with and asked if ladies would be allowed
to visit their respective institutions. The movement was
at once successful. The special needs of particular
parishes in East London and elsewhere were by this
means brought to the notice of those able to give help,
and the ladies met for a religious service once a week in
London House, where the Bishop frequently addressed
them.1 The Association, modified to suit new circum-
1 The first chaplain was the Rev. T. J. Rowsell, who was succeeded by
the Rev. W. D. Maclagan, now Bishop of Lichfield.

1863-67] SISTERHOODS 449
stances, is still at work ; and, in its general lines of action,
it has been copied in many other dioceses.
This account of the Ladies' Diocesan Association
leads naturally to the consideration of a kindred but much
larger subject, the establishment of sisterhoods in the
Church of England.
When the time hereafter comes for estimating and
comparing the various Church movements of this century
in England, it is probable that the first place, as re
gards utility and strength, will be assigned to the revival
of sisterhood- life as an active constituent in the Church's
work. As with other changes, so with this, the motive
force behind has been complex. Although the re-estab
lished sisterhoods have for the most part been associated
with the so-called ' Oxford School ' within the Church,
that school cannot rightly be credited with the entire
responsibility for the new and admirable departure. Little
as the fact is recognised by some of the friends of these
communities, the movement forms part of a far wider
change affecting the position, the independence, the
training, and the responsibilities of educated English
women. So far, however, as this book is concerned, the sister
hood question may be regarded as an inherent part of
the High Church revival. It was in this connection
that its difficulties arose in each of the three dioceses
in which the new attempt was made — Exeter, Oxford,
and London. Although their aim was practically one,
these various revivals were independent in their origin.
A small community of women, desirous of living under
rule, had for some years been established, under Dr.
Pusey's care and influence, at Park Village, near Regent's
Park. But their object was mainly a devotional one,
and the settlement was scarcely known beyond its own
VOL. 1. 2 F

450 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xvi.
borders. In 1848 Miss Sellon began her remarkable
work at Devonport, where she was at first supported by
the Bishop of Exeter, in the face of a loud outcry from
the ultra-Protestants, and though the Bishop found it
necessary, upon other grounds, to withdraw his support,
the excellent results of the labours of Miss Sellon's Sisters
among the rough population of the seaport became be
fore long her best defence. Within the next few years,
but again independently of one another, two Sisterhoods
were founded in the Diocese of Oxford — at Wantage,
under Mr. Butler, now Dean of Lincoln, and at Clewer,
under the Rev. T. T. Carter. The first Superior of the
Clewer Sisterhood — dedicated to St. John .the Baptist —
was Harriet Monsell, widow of the Rev. Charles Monsell,
and cousin to Mrs. Tait.1 Canon Carter has drawn a
graphic record of the inception of her devoted work, and
of the spirit and power with which she guided it.2 The
intimacy of her friendship with Mrs. Tait, and so with
the Bishop of London, must have helped him not a little
in appreciating the value of the new enterprise, when his
own diocese, to its great advantage, became the workfield
of so many Sisterhoods. And such help was needed, for
it is hardly too much to say that at first the ' Community
Life,' the Sisters' special dress, and the very notion of
living under rule, were " everywhere spoken against." It
is difficult, in days when Sisterhoods have won their way,
not to tolerance only but to enthusiastic support from
almost every section of the Church, to realise the unpopu
larity, the suspicion, and even the open denunciation which
had thirty years ago to be faced by any Bishop who
threw over them the help of his official sanction. The
Bishops of Exeter and of Oxford were regarded by many
1 See vol. ii. p. 275.
3 Life of Harriet Monsell, by the Rev. T. T. Carter.

1.863-67] SISTERHOODS 451
Protestant critics as deplorably tainted with Romanism by
reason of the countenance they had given to the ' nun
neries ' at Devonport, Wantage, and Clewer, and better
things were confidently hoped and prophesied of Bishop
Tait. But from the first he took a larger view, and
expressed his readiness — provided only the conditions he
deemed essential were complied with — to become the
Visitor of any Anglican Sisterhood which asked for his
support. But it was not at first — not till he had learned
by experience the value of their work — that he can be said
to have definitely encouraged them. With Mrs. Lancaster,
whose name will ever be remembered as one of the fore
most promoters in England of such work as has been done
by Sisterhoods, he was in active correspondence from his
first accession to the See. Mrs. Lancaster seems to have
shared not a few of his anxieties upon the subject, and she
was never tired of urging upon him the advantage which
would accrue from the controlling influence of the
Diocesan. "I. do indeed trust," she writes in November 1858, "that
nothing will prevent your Lordship from remaining at the head
of All Saints Sisterhood. The work is very real and substantial,
but unless the Bishop of the diocese is practically its visitor, I
do not see how parents can possibly give up their daughters to
such institutions, or feel confident as to the prosperity or con
tinued soundness of such work."
In the course of the Bishop's reply, he says : —
" I am anxious you should understand my position with re
ference to All Saints Home. I was requested to become its
Visitor as Bishop of the diocese, and, feeling that it was an
earnest effort to serve God within our Church, which, unless
submitted to some such controlling hand as that of the Bishop,
might lead imaginative persons of deep piety to what was con
trary to the rules and spirit of our Church, I consented to become
Visitor, being thereby intrusted with power to see that nothing

452 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xvi.
took place in the Institution which our Church condemns. I
felt that if ladies, members of our Church, desire to live together
and cultivate good works for Christ's sake under rules which
separate them outwardly from worldly people, they will be
enabled to do this most safely if they subject themselves to such
restraints as the Visitorship of the Bishop of the diocese implies.
It would be a great mistake to suppose that I myself personally
think the mode of serving God which these ladies have chosen
the best or the most accordant with the simple spirit of the
Gospel ; but I conceive it to be my duty in my position to be
ready to guide and, so far as I can, to save from error many who
are working heartily for God, though not in the way which I my
self think the best. . . . One point I was most strongly impressed
with the importance of, and endeavoured to incorporate distinctly
in the rules of the Institution : that no lady was to join it with
out the full consent of those who had a right to guide her actions
in domestic life ; and that every one who joined it should be
made to feel that she is perfectly free to leave it when she pleases,
and also that there would be no sin in her doing so if at any time
she conscientiously thought she would serve God better, and
better fulfil her duties in life, elsewhere.
"Of course there is always danger lest persons (especially
females) of strong imagination may persuade themselves that
there is some peculiar sanctity in the life these ladies lead, not
to be found in the quiet discharge of domestic duties. I have en
deavoured to impress upon all who have applied to me respecting
this Institution that such is not my view. . . . My office of Visitor
will enable me to check any abuses which may be brought to
my notice, and it makes me ready to give directions to Miss
Byron and the other ladies as to the best mode of conducting the
Institution according to the rules of the Church of England when
I am requested to do so. — I am, my dear Mrs. Lancaster, yours
very truly, A. C. London."
There were many points, both of doctrine and of
practice, on which Bishop Tait and Bishop Wilberforce
were at variance, but, as Bishop Tait used frequently to
say, they were absolutely at one with respect to Sister
hoods. The principles upon which they insisted as a
condition of their acceptance of the office of Visitor were

1863-67] SISTERHOODS AND VOWS 453
the same, and, allowing for their natural differences of
style, there is a quite curious identity, even of language,
in some of the letters which passed between each of these
Bishops and the heads of the different communities in
their dioceses.
The principal question at issue then, and ever since,
has had reference to the imposition of vows of a binding
character. Some twenty years later this subject was ex
amined with characteristic learning and moderation in a
well-known pamphlet by Bishop Christopher Wordsworth,1
and his practical conclusions were entirely corroborative
of the line which had been taken in earlier days by Bishop
Wilberforce and Bishop Tait : —
" When you ask me," wrote Bishop Wilberforce to a clergy
man in the diocese, "to give [a sister] the Apostolic benediction
on her ' public resolution of chastity and devotion to Christ,' you
ask me to do what, with my sense of the certain danger and pro
bable unlawfulness of vows which Christ has not appointed, it is
quite impossible for me to do. Such a resolution made publicly,
and in appearance and intention confirmed by a Bishop's act is,
whatever distinction may be discovered by an ingenious mind,
really and bona fide a vow. . . . No one has, without God's
express appointment, a right, in my judgment, to bind themselves
for the future in such matters. Let them follow the guiding
hand of God from day to day and rely for persevering in a course
of right or service on His daily gifts of guiding, enlightening,
strengthening grace, and not on the strength or effect of any
past vow or resolution. As, then, such a benediction as you ask
would, in my judgment, seem to confirm by a dangerous vow an
unwarranted resolution, I must of course, with real regret, decline
your request." 2
And similarly with regard to another much-debated
1 See Bishop Wordsworth's Miscellanies, Literary and Religious, vol. iii.
pp. 267-289. While these pages are passing through the press, the subject
is again under discussion, with no small modification of former opinions, by
the Bishops of the Province of Canterbury.
2 Life of Bishop Wilberforce, vol. iii. pp. 331-2.

454 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xvi.
point in connection with Sisterhoods — the systematic and
ordinary practice of auricular confession — Bishop Wilber
force wrote in 1854, with reference to the Sisterhood at
Clewer : —
" As to the disputed question of Confession, we must make
provision that those whose consciences are burdened with any
weighty matter may be able, before communicating, to open
their grief to some discreet minister of God's Word and Sacra
ments, that by his ministry they may receive the benefit of
absolution, together with ghostly counsel and advice. But we
must not provide that what the Church of England so manifestly
treats as an occasional remedy for exceptional cases should
become the established rule of their ordinary spiritual life. . . .
We cannot allow the Sisters to practise continual confession to,
or erect into directors, the Warden or Chaplains of our house." 1
Similar principles were adopted by Bishop Tait with
respect to the conditions on which he consented to become
the Visitor of Sisterhoods in his diocese. On February 14,
1862, the subject was debated in the Convocation of
Canterbury, when Bishop Tait and Bishop Wilberforce
both explained their views. The Lower House requested
that a Committee might be appointed to "consider the
modes and limitations under which encouragement and
guidance might be given " to the movement. The Bishop
of London supported the request for a Committee.
"As nothing but good," he said, "can arise from these
individuals devoting themselves for Christ's sake, if their labours
are judicious, so it is desirable that we should consider what
advice can be given, and what checks can be put upon any ten
dency towards a want of that judiciousness which is necessary in
such matters. . . . Though their efforts have naturally been
viewed with some jealousy, I have great reason, in my own
diocese, to be thankful for the amount of self-denial and goodness
1 Life of Bishop Wilberforce, vol. iii. p. 362. In order fully to under
stand the attitude of Bishop Wilberforce in this matter, the whole letter
from which the above extract is taken ought to be read.

1863-67] SISTERHOODS AND VOWS 455
of every kind which has been evinced by those who have devoted
themselves to the work, and I must say that I think we ought not
to be too critical in judging of the precise way in which they
perform this work."
Bishop Wilberforce followed : —
" I think," he said, " that after what has fallen from the Bishop
of London, it would scarcely be wise to act on the suggestion of
the Lower House. There is a certain shrinking delicacy in such
movements, and I think it would be better to leave those in
London under his care, and those in other dioceses under the
care of their spiritual guides, than to establish any formal rules,
or to take any formal steps in Convocation."
He accordingly moved a resolution to the effect that it was
expedient that the guidance asked for " should be sought
directly from the parochial clergy and the bishops of the
districts in which such devoted women labour."
The resolution was carried, and in the course of the
debate the Bishop of London called attention to the
ambiguity of the word 'devoted' : —
" Etymologically," he said, " it might be supposed to have
some reference to ' vows.' . . . Now, anything like a vow on the
part of individuals to devote themselves to this work is the last
thing we should recommend. It is most desirable that this
should be clearly understood."
"In my diocese," added the Bishop of Oxford, "I have
uniformly made it the condition of my connection with these
institutions, that their statutes shall state explicitly that they are
bound only so long as they please to continue in the Society." 1
The following letters explain themselves : —
Mr.  to the Bishop of London.
"December 26, 1865.
" My Lord, — I have to ask your Lordship's forgiveness, being
1 Chronicle of Convocation, Feb. 14, 1862, pp. 963-968.

456 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xvi.
personally an entire stranger to your Lordship, for troubling you
with the inquiry contained in this letter. The urgency of the
cause, and the importance of the issue, which may greatly depend
upon your Lordship's kind reply, are my only excuse.
"A very near and dear relative of ours, a young lady,
unmarried, extremely attractive in every way, and possessed of
considerable property in her own right, is very strongly minded
to enter the St. George's Mission in London, situate within your
Lordship's diocese, as a Postulant, with a pre-determination, if
the life is what she hopes to find it, to accept the Perpetual Vows
which are there administered to ladies disposed to undertake
them. She is considerably confirmed in that intention by a
belief that the system of Sisterhoods, as practised and maintained
in that Institution, is approved and countenanced by your Lord
ship. We are not aware of her precise warrant for this belief, but
a search, so far as one is open to us, in your Lordship's published
opinions, has failed to discover any valid reason why such an
opinion should be attributed to your Lordship. I therefore take
the liberty to ask if your Lordship will be so very good as to
inform me if my sister's belief in your opinion is well founded,
since I know that your Lordship's reply, whatever it may be, will
have the very greatest weight with her.
" No person whatever, I apprehend, could take any exception
to the great work which is undoubtedly being carried on by the
St. George's Mission — we all respect and admire that ; — it is only
to the system of administering perpetual vows, and thereby form
ing exclusive Sisterhoods in connection with the Church of
England, that we object so strongly, and from which we are so
painfully striving to save our sister. Still we would not take upon
ourselves to say that we are perfectly right, and our sister entirely
wrong. God forbid that we should blindly and unknowingly
strive against Him ; we only desire to find the truth of the matter,
and a knowledge of your Lordship's belief respecting it will
greatly aid us in that behalf.
" If I might be so bold as to venture still further, I would ask
another and almost greater favour. If your Lordship does disap
prove of the system of perpetual Sisterhoods, and would write a
word or two tending to dissuade ladies from entering them, I
believe that it would influence my sister more perhaps than any
thing else in the world — certainly more than the words of any
other man in the world — so deep is her veneration for your Lord-

1*63-67] THE IMPOSITION OF VOWS 457
ship's character, which feeling, if I may be permitted to say it, is
entirely shared by us all.
" With many and renewed apologies, I have the honour to
be your Lordship's most obedient, humble servant,

The Bishop of London to Mr.

"Fulham Palace, London, S.W.,
Dec. 27, 1865.
" Dear Sir, — I beg to acknowledge your letter of yesterday's
date. There is no warrant for supposing that I in any way
approve of Sisterhoods in which perpetual vows are administered.
I have on more than one occasion stated publicly my belief that
all vows or oaths administered under the circumstances you
describe, not being sanctioned by the legislature, and being taken
by persons not authorised to receive them, are of the nature of
illegal oaths. It is a grave question whether a clergyman of the
Church of England, administering such an oath, does not make
himself amenable to prosecution before the magistrates. Cer
tainly he acts in a most improper manner.1 In all sisterhoods or
associations of ladies, members of the Church of England, to
which I have given my approval, I have been most careful to
impress upon the associates that neither must any such oath be
taken, nor is there any sort of obligation binding on the con
science, without an oath, to dedicate any larger time than is found
conveniently compatible with other duties, to the work which the
sisterhood or association promotes. I do fully approve of ladies
who have no home duties, and who think they are fitted for such
work, associating themselves together for the care of the poor and
the sick. Such an institution, under my presidency, is St. John's
1 Surprise and even amusement have sometimes been excited by the
Bishop's frequent reference to the legal question involved in the imposition of
a binding vow or oath. It is, therefore, noteworthy (as has been pointed
out to the writer of this chapter by one of the foremost living authorities upon
English Sisterhoods) that, whatever the cogency of the Bishop's argument,
its importance has received a curious illustration during the last few years.
It is understood that since, in Roman Catholic countries, the State has with
drawn its support from religious communities, modifications as to the use
of permanent life-vows have been made, their legal enforcement being no
longer possible.

458 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xvi.
House of Nurses in Northumberland St., Strand, and St. Peter's
House, Brompton Square, and the Deaconesses' House in Burton
Crescent, — in all three of which institutions arrangements are
made whereby, I believe, anything I objected to as to dress,
mode of life, or any other point, would at once be altered.
There is also the All Saints Home, Margaret Street, with which I
am connected as diocesan. Over this institution I have not the
same direct control, but I cannot but admire the self-denying
spirit in which Miss Byron and her ladies have undertaken their
difficult work in the hospitals and among the destitute. When,
however, I carried out what I understood to be Bishop Blom-
field's intention of becoming Visitor of that institution, I insisted,
in the most explicit terms, on the repudiation of the system of
vows by the inmates, and had a clause inserted in the rules with
this object. I have also taken means to prevent young persons
attaching themselves to such institutions without the full consent
of their parents or guardians, as I believe no blessing will ever
come on work, however self-denying, which is undertaken to the
neglect of those higher duties which belong to home life, and
which are imposed directly by God Himself. — I am, my dear sir,
very truly yours, "A. C. London."
The early days of Sisterhoods in London were for the
most part uneventful days, the Sisters winning their slow
way into public favour by the unchallenged excellence
of the Christian service they were able to render to the
sick and poor. If friction here and there arose between
the ladies of the Community and their Episcopal Visitor,
it must be remembered that the difficulties attending
such a revival of corporate life were neither few nor small.
The Sisters, as their numbers grew, had step by step to
move along what was, in the Church of England at least,
an almost untried path, and the Bishop had on the one
hand to encourage and support them in their devoted
work, and on the other to prevent them from impairing
their own usefulness by a rash defiance of the popular
religious sentiment, or still more by what he deemed an

1*6.3-67] SISTERHOOD DIFFICULTIES 459
unauthorised departure from the principles of the Re
formed Church.
The differences which arose were occasional and rare,
but they did occur at times. A voluminous correspond
ence, for example, passed in 1867 between the Bishop and
one of the Sisterhoods named above. It seems undesir
able, either in this case or in any other, to make public
the particulars of a controversy which was necessarily of
a semi-private character. Only such letters therefore are
reproduced as will serve to make clear the Bishop's atti
tude upon the general questions at issue. The Sisters
had been dissatisfied with the ministrations of their
Chaplain, whose views were not quite in harmony with
those which they had themselves come to adopt. On a
vacancy occurring they requested the Bishop to sanction
the appointment of another gentleman whom they
named to him, and to whom the Bishop wrote as
follows : —
The Bishop of London to the Rev.  .

" Woodside, Windsor Forest,
28th Aug. 1867.
" My dear Sir, — The Lady Superior of  tells me
that you are willing to undertake the gratuitous office of Chaplain
to the House as a temporary arrangement. I shall be glad to
sanction this plan if you see your way to agree to the following
conditions : —
" 1st. That habitual Confession shall not be urged upon the
Sisters or any inmates of the House.
"2d. That no vows whatsoever shall be administered or
sanctioned by the Chaplain. I have expressed my views fully on
the subject of these points, as connected with Sisterhoods, in my
Charge of last December.
" Feeling no doubt that you will understand my feelings on
these two points, and thanking you for your willingness to be of
use to the ladies of  , — I am, my dear Sir, yours very truly,
"A. C. London."

460 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xvi

The Rev.  to the Bishop of London.
"2,d Sept. 1867.
" My Lord,— The Mother and Sisters of  being equally
if not more interested than myself in the conditions proposed by
your Lordship, as those under which you would be pleased to
sanction my acceptance of the chaplaincy of their House, I
communicated to them your Lordship's letter. As regards
myself, I feel I could not undertake to minister to them or to
any other in my priestly office under restrictions not contained in
the office itself. In accepting the chaplaincy under the condi
tions proposed, I should also find myself in regard to the Sisters
in the following strange position, namely, that instead of being
able as their Chaplain to do more, I should in fact be restricted
to do less for them than any other Priest not their Chaplain could
do ; whilst I myself should be able to do more for any persons
not inmates of  who might apply to me, than I should
be able to do for the Sisters, who would be sure to require from
me the exercise of every possible function of the Priesthood. I
think I may also say for them that they would be as unwilling to
receive a Chaplain under the conditions proposed, as I should
be to accept of the Chaplaincy. I think I may also include them
with myself in expressing a hope that on consideration your
Lordship will be pleased not to insist upon the proposed con
ditions. — I have the honour to be your Lordship's very obedient
servant,  ."

The Bishop of London to the Rev.

" Woodside, Windsor Forest,
5th Sept. 1867.
" My dear Sir, — I am obliged, in answer to your letter of the
3d, this day received, to say that I cannot sanction the practices
which I understand you to wish to introduce amongst the Sisters
of  , viz., the urging on them the duty of habitual con
fession and the administering to them of vows. Both practices
I consider to be quite alien to the spirit of the Church of Eng
land, and it is at least doubtful whether the latter of the two is
not in violation of the law of the land. Great care has been
taken by the law of the land to guard the administration of oaths

1863-67] SISTERHOOD DIFFICULTIES 461
and besides all other objections, this consideration ought in my
judgment to prevent a clergyman of the Church of England from
administering them except where the law empowers him so' to do.
I fear the view you take of these matters makes it impossible for
you to act as Chaplain. Though this letter is marked ' private,'
you are fully at liberty to show it to [the Mother Superior], and
indeed, unless I hear from you to the contrary, I shall take it for
granted that you have done so, and not move further in the
matter of a Chaplain at present till I am applied to. — Believe
me, my dear Sir, yours very truly, A. C. London."

The Bishop of London to the Mother Superior of-

" Woodside, Windsor Forest,
10^ Sept. 1867.
" My dear  , ... I presume you are aware that
in the best regulated Sisterhoods connected with the English
Church precautions are taken against the Sisters binding them
selves by vows. It is felt that such vows are not warranted by
anything in the teaching of our Church, and are rash, as binding
the conscience not to follow the leadings of God's providence in
case of a change of circumstances. If, notwithstanding this, any
ladies choose to bind themselves by vows, I do not see what can
be done to prevent their acting in a way unwarranted by the
Church, and rash, from a mistaken notion that real devotion of
life to Christ's service is strengthened by this attempt to forecast
the events of our changeful life which God retains in His own
keeping. The Church of Rome, in sanctioning such vows,
sanctions also a power of dispensing with them ; but the claim to
such dispensing power is rightly repudiated by us — so that a vow
for life may be an entanglement of the conscience, when God
plainly, in our changing relations, prescribes for us a change of
duty. The only vows which the Church of England sanctions
are such as the Formularies recognise as based on the teaching
of God's Word, and for these the law of the land provides by
giving its additional sanction to the Formularies. . . .
" As to habitual Confession, the rule of the Church of England
is almost equally plain. There is no provision for it whatsoever
made in the Formularies. And it is to be noted that no form of
private absolution is provided, except in the Visitation of the

462 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xvi.
Sick, in which the Confession and Absolution are treated as
exceptional : ' If he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty
matter.' The words in the Exhortation for the Holy Communion
are the nearest approach to any sanction for habitual Confession.
Yet there also the case is treated as exceptional : ' If there be any
of you who by this means cannot quiet his own conscience, but
requireth further comfort or counsel.' Now, if any one feeis or
declares that he or she is always in this exceptional state, of
course there is nothing further to be said, except that ' a discreet
and learned minister of God's Word ' will try to correct anything
that is morbid in such feelings, but a Bishop will not be justified
in authorising any of his clergy to treat as habitually required
what the Church thus regards as exceptional.
" Hence the necessity of my having written to Mr.  on
the subject as I did. I believe I have before referred you for
your guidance in these matters to my two Charges for 1858 and
1866, where both these questions are treated at some length. I
must request you to read this letter to the Sisters, in case they
may be misled by erroneous views, which some seem to entertain.
I trust in this and in all other matters God may guide you to that
calm understanding of the truth, and that wise deference to the
authorities set over you in the Lord, which will be most consistent
with the faithful and humble discharge of the great duties which
you have undertaken in obedience to the call of Christ. . . . —
Beheve me to be, my dear  -, very faithfully and truly
yours, A. C. London."

The Mother Superior of  to the Bishop of London.
"12th October 1867.
" My Lord Bishop, — I have taken the opportunity offered
by all the Sisters being together in London at the beginning of
this week, to lay before them your Lordship's letters to myself,
relating to the appointment of a Chaplain for the Sisterhood, in
order that we might together, prayerfully and calmly, consider all
which your Lordship has kindly written to us, on a subject of
such vital importance to our reality and well-being as a religious
community. " The conclusion at which we unanimously arrived was that,
deeply painful and distressing as it is to us to differ, even in this
one respect, from our Bishop (and God only can know how really

1863-67] LETTER TO MR. MACKONOCHIE 463
and acutely painful it is), we yet feel so strongly, and as one, that
we could not conscientiously accept the guidance of any priest
who would consent to be restricted in the exercise of his ministry
among us by conditions over and beyond his own ordination
vow, that it would only be giving your Lordship needless trouble
for us to nominate another priest under the circumstances which
your Lordship judges necessary to his appointment. . . . We
therefore conclude that our only right course now is to sever
entirely our connection with [the Council over which your Lord
ship presides], and I have this day written to  , acquainting
him with this final decision. — -With grateful thanks to your Lord
ship for many and great kindnesses, I remain, my Lord Bishop,
your very faithful, humble servant, in our blessed Lord,

Although the Bishop's official relation to this Sister
hood came thus to an end, he did not allow the sever
ance to interrupt his personal friendship with the Sisters.
Writing a few months later to the same lady on another
subject, he says : —
" I trust you and the rest of the ladies lately connected with
 •  will not fail to remember that I entertain a grateful
sense of the services rendered by all of you.
" Much as I deplore the determination of yourself and the
other ladies to separate yourselves from us, and unable as I am
to justify that step, I feel it my duty to be ready at all times to
give you personally any advice or assistance in my power, and I
trust I shall never forget what you have done during so many
years in the diocese of London."
Two other letters from the Bishop must be quoted, as
showing his readiness to afford such indirect help as
might be possible, even to a community whose usages he
was unable officially to sanction : —
The Bishop of London to the Rev. A. H. Mackonochie.
"Fulham Palace, S.W., Aug. \6th, 1867.
"My dear Mr. Mackonochie, — I take the first moment
that I can command, in the midst of the work of closing the

464 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xvi.
session, to write to you on a subject brought before me within
the last few days. I have been told that the division of the East
Grinstead Sisters who are established at Ash Grove, Hackney,
are at present in much perplexity from the secession to the
Church of Rome of Mr. Tuke, who has been their clerical adviser
for some time, and that they are anxious to avail themselves of
your assistance and advice.
"I have carefully inquired into the circumstances, and am
most anxious that everything possible and right should be done
to prevent these ladies from being unsettled in their allegiance to
the Church of England by what has happened, and that they
should have whatever assistance and advice you are able to give
them consistently with your maintenance of what you believe to
be right. " My own views as to Sisterhoods in the Church of England
have been clearly expressed in my Charge of December last, and
I could earnestly desire that these ladies would conform to what
I have thus sketched out. I have reason to believe, indepen
dently of other matters in which they dissent from the model I
approve, that they have a custom in reference to the reservation
of the Elements in the Holy Communion which I am certain
that you disapprove of, and also that in the private Oratory there
are signs of a devotion to the Blessed Virgin, going far beyond
what the Church of England approves as due to her who is
blessed amongst women. It would be useless for me to request
any clergyman, whose sentiments are quite at variance with their
own, to endeavour to influence these ladies. I understand that
they have confidence in you and are more likely to listen to you
than to any one else. Their practice of the reservation of the
Elements in the Holy Communion alone must prevent me, and
I should suppose must prevent any Bishop of the Church of
England, from becoming Visitor of their Institution. I trust they
may be induced to give it up.
" Meanwhile, I hear from undoubted testimony how great is
their self-denial in nursing the sick, and in exposing themselves
to many dangers for Christ's sake. I cannot therefore withhold
the expression of my sympathy with their ceaseless labours for
the poor and the afflicted. I pray God to guide them to a sober
view of their duties as members of the Church of England, and
I should rejoice to hear that they can bring their Sisterhood in
all things to the model which I approve.

1863-67] DECLINES A VISITORSHIP 465
" If by kindly advice and guidance and such help as you can
afford, you can be of use to them at this crisis, and afterwards in
the midst of their self-denying labours, I shall be well pleased.
You know how many points in your own system of doctrine and
worship I disapprove ; but I have full confidence in your consci
entious desire, according to your own views, to uphold the Church
of England as against the slavery of the Church of Rome ; and
I think it is right you should give what assistance you can to
these ladies, and especially endeavour to save them from following
the example of Mr. Tuke, and taking a step which. I fear could
never be retraced, and would be found most injurious to their
souls' health. — Believe me to be, my dear Mr. Mackonochie,
yours sincerely, A. C. London."
To the Superior of another Sisterhood, the members
of which felt themselves unable to meet his wishes, he
wrote : —
" My decision is to decline the office of Visitor. . . . Let me
however say that I decline from no lack of sympathy with your
self-denying labours. Indeed, I do feel that, giving yourselves to
such a work in such a district, you deserve all sympathy and
encouragement from those who are interested in the welfare of
the poor and the advancement of Christ's kingdom. I do
earnestly trust that the Lord may bless your labours to the
rescuing of many from sin and misery. At any time my counsel
is at your service as completely as if I were Visitor. But I am
not prepared to take upon myself an office which would assign to
me a greater nominal responsibility than I could properly incur,
without much real power of guiding your movements. ... At
any time I shall be very glad to hear from you."
Again and again, both as Bishop and Archbishop, he
was applied to by Sisters who had taken a permanent
vow, from which they asked him to dispense them. He
considered each such application upon its merits, and
(at all events when Archbishop) took a different course
according to the circumstances of the case. On the first
such request which came before him, very soon after his
vol. 1. 2 G

466 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xvi.
consecration to the See of London, he wrote the following
memorandum : —
" My opinion is asked on the case of a young lady who at
the age of eighteen had a vow of celibacy administered to her by
a clergyman of the Church of England. . . . She is now desirous
of being released from the vow, on the plea : first, that it was
presumptuous, and therefore sinful to take such a vow ; secondly,
that when she took it she was mistaken in supposing that to lead
a life of celibacy was her vocation ; thirdly, that she now feels
that she will, by God's grace, be as holy and pure when married
as she is now, and as able to do God's work in the world.
" My judgment is : —
" i. That the law of England is very jealous in respect of the
administration of oaths. That any clergyman administering such
a vow as is described above was highly culpable. That he who
administers an oath not allowed by law is guilty of an illegal act
and may be liable to be indicted. That the law holds oaths
administered illegally to be void.
" 2. That the whole spirit of the teaching of the Church of
England condemns such vows. That whereas the Thirty-Ninth
Article, while maintaining that oaths required by the magistrate,
' in a cause of faith and charity,' may lawfully be taken, ' if all be
done according to the Prophet's teaching, in justice, judgment,
and truth,' has yet expressly declared that ' vain and rash swearing
is forbidden Christian men by our Lord Jesus Christ and James
His Apostle.'
" I hold this decision of the Church to include in its condem
nation such rash vows as that now under discussion,- and I
pronounce the taking of such a vow to have been a sinful act.
" 3. I decide that the young lady in question is at liberty to
marry, if, opening her heart to God in prayer, she is convinced
in her conscience of the sinfulness of the rash vow, and is pre
pared to enter upon the holy state of matrimony in a prayerful
spirit of dependence upon God, feeling humbled at the thought
of the great difficulty in which her presumption has involved
her." The letters which have been recorded above contain
more than one reference to what the Bishop said about
Sisterhoods in his Diocesan Charge of 1866, and it may

1863-67] CHARGE OF 1866 467
therefore be well, before passing from the subject, to quote
a few sentences from that Charge. In urging upon the
clergy the duty of multiplying and extending their paro
chial and pastoral agencies, —
" The wants of our people," he said, " are so many and so
complicated, that if we are wise we shall ever be devising or
borrowing fresh plans of usefulness. It will be with our spiritual
as with that old secular warfare, in which the masters of the
world rose to their pre-eminence by never being too wise or
proud to learn from any quarter."
Bidding his hearers " not be too prejudiced to learn
either from Rome," or from foreign Protestants, he went
on to say : —
"Time was, and not long ago, when Roman Catholics were
supposed to have a monopoly of Sisters of Mercy : when Pro
testants all held that women might work as true Sisters of Mercy
(and, thank God, they can), one by one, from their own homes,
visiting amongst the poor and desolate in their own neighbour
hood ; but that the system of our Church forbade any organisa
tion for a combined effort to use the services of women. The
fearful emergency of the Crimean War dispelled this theory.
Other efforts were doubtless being made before, but that melan
choly time changed public opinion. The heroic spirit who stood
forth to guide, and those no less brave who seconded her efforts,
told the world that English Churchwomen were ready to combine,
where combination was needed, for any great Christian work;
and our hospitals will probably always henceforward bear more
and more, the better they are administered, the impress of that
great example.
"Now I should be false to all good feeling if I did not
publicly testify to the great help which London received during
the late appalling sickness from the self-denying efforts of
Christian women — some acting alone, on the impulse of their
own individual generous nature, some living in communities, of
which it is the common bond to be ready, for Christ's sake, to
tend the poor, at whatever risk. Our cholera hospitals, the
crowded streets and squalid homes of our East End parishes,

468 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xvi.
were cheered and blessed by the presence of many true Sisters of
Mercy of the Church of England, without whom it is certain that
in those desolate regions the suffering would have been far
worse than it was. ... No doubt those Christian women who
work in communities are still viewed by the great majority of the
clergy with considerable suspicion. Would to God they would
abstain from all practices which make these suspicions reasonable.
. . . The time has, I think, come when the clergy generally and
the heads of the Church must enter fully into the question how
the help of Christian women living in community, and holding
themselves ready to act amongst the sick and poor, is to be best
arranged. We have amongst us a large body earnestly desirous
of giving themselves to such work. I for one, seeing the vastness
of the flock committed to me- — knowing by experience how they
can alleviate the sufferings of the poor — have not the heart, if I
had the will, to discourage the zeal, which it is ours not to extin
guish but to direct. God knows we need their help, if they will
give it in the way which our Church approves.
" The rules which I have myself laid down as most necessary
in my dealings with such communities have been the follow
ing :— " To point out that the first of all duties are those which we
owe to our family. Family ties are imposed direct by God. If
family duties are overlooked, God's blessing can never be ex
pected on any efforts which we make for His Church. Every
community, therefore, of Sisters or Deaconesses ought to consist
of persons who have fully satisfied all family obligations.
"Again, all who enter such communities must be at full
liberty to leave them so soon as the leadings of God's providence
point to another sphere of Christian duty. Hence all vows of
continuing in the community, actually taken or mentally implied,
are wrong. " Again, the rules of the community must be simple and care
fully guarded, so as to check all imperiousness in the higher, and
all unworthy and unchristian servile submission in the lower,
members. " Again, great care must be taken to guard against morbid
religious feelings and opinions, which all experience shows such
communities have a tendency to foster. There must be no en
couragement to a self-righteous estimate of the life embraced, as
if it were more perfect than that of the family. Each life has its

1863-67] CHARGE OF 1866 469
own privileges and its own trials. The only way to live as a
Christian in that sphere which God from time to time assigns us
is to do our work humbly as in His sight. And, indeed, the
highest life, if we may venture to compare the privileges which
God assigns, is that of the truly Christian head of a family. Care
must be taken also that the worship of the community shall not
encourage exaggerated views of doctrine, such as every narrow
clique is prone to adopt ; and that tendency must be steadily
resisted which women often show to hang unduly on the guidance
of some priestly adviser, to be making confession to him, and to
become in fact his slaves.
"I cannot but hope that the great difficulties which con
fessedly beset the proper regulation of such communities may be
grappled with. I am sure it is the part of us, the clergy, to make
the attempt, that we may secure the assistance of Sisters or
Deaconesses in work which in many of our parishes it is scarcely
possible to accomplish without their aid. And I cannot but
trust also that, as time goes on, many of these excellent women,
who at present adhere somewhat tenaciously to their own
peculiarities, will be ready to drop them — learning in their labour
of love the infinite value of that simpler and purer Christianity
which alone sustains souls on the deathbeds to which they so
often minister — becoming willing to sacrifice their own opinions,
from a growing truer devotion to our Reformed Church, and
prizing as they ought that larger field of usefulness which formal
hearty recognition, under proper rules by the clergy and authori
ties of the Church, would at once open to them. . . .
" Certainly, brethren, we in London have need of every help.
We stand in the forefront of the battle. To us is committed the
most important position in that National Church which God has
chosen, that He may delegate to it the most difficult of His
works — to resist the barbarism which, in the overflowing popula
tion of a vast people, is apt to spring up side by side with the
highest refinement; while in its labours amongst all classes,
battling against worldliness and infidelity and superstition, it
does what it can to guide the religious thought of a great and
intelligent nation, and to advance thereby the Christian civilisa
tion of the world." 1
The reference above made to the cholera epidemic of
1 Charge of 1866, pp. 83-89.

470 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xvi.
1866 demands a somewhat fuller notice. The Bishop,
who had been seriously ill in spring, was preparing in
July, when he was again unwell, to leave London for his
autumn holiday. Suddenly it became known, almost
without warning, that Asiatic cholera in a virulent form
had appeared in East London. It had been raging at
Alexandria, whence a ship's crew had brought it to
Southampton. From Southampton, in a manner after
wards traced, it was conveyed to Woodford, in Essex,
and thence down the valley of the Lea into East London.
In a few days there were many hundreds of cases in
Bethnal Green alone. The Bishop, ill as he was, decided
immediately that he must remain in London, and take
the lead in whatever measures were necessary to inspire
confidence and to organise relief.1 He has himself, in his
Memoir of Mrs. Tait, given a reminiscence of those
stirring days of anxiety and even peril : —
"The state of things in the East of London," he says,
" became very bad indeed. The whole district which had any
connexion with the river Lea was infected. I summoned a meet
ing of the clergy of Bethnal Green, Stepney, and Spitalfields, and
we endeavoured to make arrangements which might aid the
sanitary authorities. From that time my dear wife accompanied
me regularly in the visits which I made to the infected districts.
... I can see her now standing in one of the large wards of the
hospital for Wapping and St. George's-in-the-East, quietly soothing
the sufferers, while one poor little girl seemed to be seized with
the last agonies, and the Rev. C. F. Lowder, who attended us,
stepped quietly to the bed of the poor patient, and gave her such
help as, by God's blessing, resulted in her final recovery. I can
see her in the well-ordered hospital extemporised by Miss Sellon,
near Shoreditch, encouraging the sisters who had ventured their
lives from the pure air of Ascot into that infected district ; and
in the Middlesex Hospital, where other well-known ladies had
undertaken to assist the permanent staff. I remember the real .
1 A letter from him in the Times elicited £3000 within twenty-four hours.
The total amount subscribed was about ^70,000.

1863-67] CHOLERA EPIDEMIC OF 1866 471
danger to which I thought she was exposed near Ratcliff High
way, when, unexpectedly, she was summoned to try and guide
the somewhat irregular efforts of the clergymen of the parish to
distribute relief amongst a miscellaneous crowd of those whose
families were suffering from the plague. I remember also how,
when the evil began to abate, she helped Miss Twining, by her
support and advice, in the temporary building secured for con
valescents on a spot south of the Thames.
" This visitation of the cholera led to the crowning labour of
her life. Mrs. Gladstone, Miss Marsh, and herself — the ' three
Catharines,' as some newspaper called them — had each of them
her spirit stirred to undertake the charge of some of those many
orphans whom the cholera left destitute ; and institutions, still
vigorously at work, were the result. Mrs. Gladstone, I believe,
undertook to provide for the boys. My wife hired a house at
Fulham for the girls, and, by the aid of Mr. and Mrs. Lancaster,
and the sisters of their ' Home,' soon established St. Peter's
Orphanage, which has continued growing ever since. It cannot
be -doubted that the ever-present thought of her own children,
whom she had lost, was an incentive to her care for these destitute
little girls."1
The Orphanage, which at first contained thirty girls,
remained at Fulham for about five years. In 1871 it was
transferred to the Isle of Thanet, where a large building,
capable of holding eighty children, was, by Mrs. Tait's
exertions, erected in the parish of St. Peter's, upon a site
given by the Archbishop. The ' St. Peter's Orphan and
Convalescent Homes,' now established upon a secure and
permanent basis, owe their origin to the Cholera Visitation
of 1866. The epidemic over, he left London in September for
his sorely needed holiday. But the strain had been too
great. On September 24, while walking with his brother
upon North Berwick sands, he suddenly fell down in great
pain. He was carried to his bed. The ancient mischief
in the region of the heart had returned, and with it other
1 Catharine and Craufurd Tait, pp. 47-8.

472 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xvi.
internal complications, and for some weeks his life again
hung in the balance. Early in November he was able to
be moved to Edinburgh, and soon afterwards to Brighton,
but he was greatly shattered, and not a few of his friends
were convinced that his active days were over. It was
the year of his third Diocesan Visitation, and he had
already, when his illness began, been busy upon his Charge.
He was now able to complete it for publication, but the
doctors peremptorily refused to allow him to deliver it in
person, and would not even consent to his being present at
the visitation. The Charge was read for him in St. Paul's
Cathedral by his Chancellor, Dr. Twiss. Elaborated as it
was in the quiet of his sick-room, it is perhaps, in style and
diction, the most careful of all his public utterances, and
its publication evoked such letters as the following : —
Dean Stanley wrote : —
" I do thank you in every sense for your Charge. In my
humble opinion it is quite the best that you have delivered. I do
not agree with all of it, but I am sure that even the parts with
which I do not agree will do good, and the whole result ought
indeed to be a sursum corda."
Dean Hook wrote from Chichester : —
" It does one good to read such words of wisdom in this day
of rebuke and blasphemy. If any of your spiritual children were
inclined to follow the example of the sons of Sophocles, you have,
like Sophocles, convinced the world that under the depression of
illness, your mind is, I should say, even more vigorous than
before. You have never written more powerfully. I have parti
cularly to thank you for what you have said of sisterhoods. It
has settled my mind upon the subject. . . . You occupy so very
important and peculiar a position at the present time, that you are
in duty bound to take warning from your predecessor, and to let
others do those details of work which they can do as well as their
Principal, reserving yourself for that which pertains to your char
acter as a man as well as of a bishop. Mrs. Tait will give her
sanction to this sermon, however unbecoming it may be on the

1863-67] HIS LAST LONDON CHARGE 473
part of a Presbyter when writing to a Bishop. You will value
what I say the more when I add that, highly as I esteem your
judgment, and delighting as I do in the straightforward, down
right, honest, English manliness of your character, I do by no
means concur in all your opinions, though if I lived in London,
I should back you as my Bishop and merge all differences.
" Oh ! as the end approaches how consolatory is the thought that
the future to which we look forward is not in the Church militant,
but in the Church triumphant. And oh, the blessedness of know
ing that the great Captain of our Salvation judges us, not by what
we had power to do, but by what we had grace to intend ! "
Similarly Dr. Lightfoot wrote : —
" Independently of personal attachment, I feel very strongly
that your life is of the first importance to the Church of England
at the present crisis, and that it is therefore a duty you owe to the
Church, as well as to your family and friends, to spare yourself as
much as possible. For once I believe in the sacred principle of
delegation." From one of the foremost and most representative of
his London clergy, a man from whom he had prominently
differed in some matters, came the following : —
" I shall never forget the wonderful kindness with which you
have always treated me, nor the confidence which has been at
once so encouraging and so stimulating. You cannot know to
what a great extent your clergy love and value you, and how many
prayers are offered up for you that you may speedily recover your
health, and for many years yet glorify God and bless them in your
laborious but grand diocese."
Not till the middle of January (1867) was he allowed
to return to Fulham and to active work, and his attacks,
though in a milder form, recurred at intervals throughout
the year. It is impossible to give full value to the persis
tent vigour of his London work, unless we remember how
often he was battling, even on his busiest days, with such
ill-health and bodily pain as would have daunted and dis
heartened any less determined man.

CHAPTER XVII.
THE LONDON EPISCOPATE — {continued).
DEFINITENESS OF BELIEF— DIOCESAN CHARGES — SUBSCRIPTION
TO FORMULARIES. 1863-67.
AN endeavour has been made in the preceding chapters
to describe the Bishop's relation to the two dangers —
Rationalism on the one side, and Superstition on the other
— which were supposed, thirty years ago, to be threaten
ing the life of the Church of England. It is possible that
some reader of these chapters, unfamiliar otherwise with
the facts, may have been led to picture to himself the
Bishop of London as a strong but unattractive man,
reserved and cautious in his opinions and policy, just and
considerate no doubt, as should become a Christian
gentleman, but eager to repress in other men the en
thusiasm of which he had himself no trace, and tolerant
of the religious opinions of all sorts of people, mainly
because he had no very precise or definite opinions of
his own. If such a picture of Bishop Tait should present itself
to any, the fault must lie with his biographer. It may
safely be said that no one of those who knew him personally
either then or afterwards, would, from such a description,
recognise the man whom he remembers. It is true that
throughout his public years he was at a frequent disadvan-

1863-67I REVIEW OF LONDON EPISCOPATE 475
tage when compared with the picturesque figures by whom
he was surrounded. In every battle the popular gaze
will fix itself upon the fiery champions at the front, rather
than on the generals in the background ; — and, upon the
one side, the impetuous pioneers of reform, and, upon the
other, the immoveable defenders of the ancient ways,
must always have a vivid and peculiar interest of their
own. The names of Pusey and Maurice and Selwyn, of
Charles Lowder and Arthur Stanley, of Shaftesbury and
Wilberforce, of Walter Hook and Thomas Carter, will
continue no doubt for years to come to awaken the
plaudits they deserve, not from their partisans only, but
from the Church at large. They, and others like them,
were champions in various battles, and upon various sides,
and each of them in turn stood at one time or other in
active opposition to Bishop Tait. And yet most of them,
as their own words show, felt at times, amid the strife of
tongues, the advantage to the Church, in anxious days, of
the presence, at the centre of affairs, of the calm, strong
man who differed sometimes from them all, and who was
able, not once or twice, by weighty and well-timed words,
to arrest the storm which his more impetuous friends had
raised. " Jamque faces et saxa volant (furor arma ministrat) ;
Turn, pietate gravem ac meritis si forte virum quem
Conspexere, silent, arrectisque auribus adstant ;
Ille regit dictis animos et pectora mulcet. "
It is difficult to estimate what might have been the
evil consequences to the Church had the occupant of
Fulham and of Lambeth, in those years of flux and
change, been an intolerant or one-sided man. But if
Archibald Tait, as Bishop and Archbishop, had a singular
tolerance, and even sympathy, for those whose views and
action differed widely from his own, it was certainly from
no cold-blooded disregard of the religious questions in

476 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xvii.
dispute. If he refused to join his brethren, for example,
in inhibiting Bishop Colenso, and retained his friendship
for the writers of Essays and Reviews, he was not for
that reason a whit the less emphatic in enunciating his
own positive opinions upon the Divine authority of Holy
Scripture. It would certainly have been easier for him, in
the heat of a conflict which cost him so much, and which
exposed him, as we have seen, to a double fire, to have
avoided any special utterance of a doctrinal sort upon the
difficult subject which was setting men at variance. Such
silence would have been easy to defend. But he took the
opposite line. Besides referring to the subject at full
length in two Diocesan Charges, he published in those
years three separate volumes of sermons dealing specially
with the question of the Inspiration of Holy Scripture.
In the preface to the first of these, which contained a
reprint of addresses delivered at Oxford fifteen years
before, he makes this reference to the personal experiences
of his life : —

" It may seem unlikely in these changing days that what was
written for 1846 can be suitable for 1861. Most men change
or greatly modify their opinions and sentiments in fifteen years.
The rude test of experiment is continually making shipwreck of
many skilfully constructed theories ; and even he whose views of
religion and society are from the bent of his mind most practical,
continually finds, as life goes on, that there is something unreal
in his opinions, which requires, if not to be given up, at least to
be carefully revised and altered. The trials of life greatly affect
our mental vision : rightly used, they make us more sympathising,
more considerate, more tolerant ; but they also more deeply con
vince us of the priceless value of truths which have been our
soul's only stay in terrible emergencies. Few mortals pass any
great length of time without sickness and sorrow, and if a man has
looked death in the face, or, while well in his own bodily health,
has been stunned in mind by seeing fond hopes vanish, he will
naturally cling with a firmer tenacity to the great religious truths

1863-67] DEFINITENESS 477
which bore him up when all else failed, and will be more jealous
of any attempts to tamper with these truths, than he was when he
defended them in earlier life on grounds of mere speculative
orthodoxy, having not yet learned to prize and love them through
— what must be to each practically the surest test — their tried
value to his own spirit. ... It would not, therefore, have been
surprising if the author of the following discourses had found, in
1861, that he could neither himself indorse what he had written
fifteen years ago, nor, if it did still retain its hold on his convic
tions, look upon it as applicable to the circumstances of a greatly
changed age. He has not, however, met with this difficulty.
Re-perusing what he then put forth, he finds it to be as true an
exponent as ever of his real sentiments, and he thinks that, by
God's blessing, the statements he long ago deliberately published
may tend to quiet men's hearts even now. . . . Men need to be
told now, as much as they ever did, that controversy, to be
Christian, must be conducted in a Christian spirit of forbearing
love. . . . Men need to be told now, as much as ever, that the
truths of a living Christian faith cannot be made to find their way
into reluctant minds through mere protest and negation. ... To
warn us against what is not true is very different from giving us
the truth. The Holy Spirit of God can indeed alone mould the
convictions, but the human advocate of truth will not do his part
in upholding it, unless he tries to clothe it in the living form of
an embodied and intelligible teaching, capable of warming the
sympathies and attracting the affections, at the same time that it
appeals, as the case may be, either to the understanding or the
highest reason." x
Such a "living form of embodied and intelligible
teaching " the Bishop endeavours throughout the volume
to supply, and the twenty-five sermons it contains are,
whatever else they be, neither ambiguous, nor timorous,
nor vague. From very various quarters he received
thanks for what were described as his " outspoken words
of reassurance, hopefulness, and faith," and especially for
the pains he had taken to face and not evade the exact
points in dispute.
1 Dangers and Safeguards of Modem Theology; Introduction, pp. 1-3.

478 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xvii.
" I have been fortunate enough," wrote Mr. Gladstone, " to
hear some of the sermons, and I have read with cordial admira
tion the powerful arguments and exhortations contained in others."
"I thank you very much," wrote Professor Lightfoot, "for
distinguishing what is essential and what is non-essential in
Scripture. If the public mind were once impressed with that
distinction, I should not fear the effect of such books as Bishop
Colenso's. But I fear the great mass of religious people in
England have it yet to learn."
In regard to the accusation already referred to, of
a studied indefiniteness in the Bishop's expression of
his own religious opinions, such an episode as the
following may be of interest. An important benefice in
Crown Patronage was vacant. The Bishop was not
directly concerned in the matter, but a leading member
of the Government asked his advice about a clergyman
whose name was under consideration, and quite a volumi
nous theological correspondence ensued. The Bishop's
final letter was as follows : —
" My dear  , — ... I have carefully read the sermons
in question. It appears to me that, carried away by his desire
to .protest against certain statements derogatory to the perfect
justice and infinite mercy of Almighty God, he has in these
sermons lost sight of what I believe to be a most important truth.
I believe that the sacrifice of Christ, consummated in His death,
removed certain mysterious obstacles which stood in the way of
man's pardon ; and this sacrifice was designed by infinite love as
the instrument whereby God and man were again to be brought
together after the disruption caused by the Fall. I dare not
explain the mysterious effect of the Sacrifice of Christ simply by
its reconciling the soul to God through the powerful motives
called up by so wonderful an exhibition of infinite love and of
infinite sympathy with the human race. I believe the Atone
ment to have had effects in altering the abstract relation between
an offended God and fallen man, besides its power of drawing the
soul of man back to that holiness and faithful waiting upon God
from which it had fallen. Whether Mr. A. holds this or not, I

1863-67] DISLIKE OF INDEFINITENESS 479
cannot distinctly ascertain. You seemed to think, in what you
said to me, that his teaching confounds man's justification with
his sanctification. If there be any tendency towards this in the
teaching of the sermons, I believe its evil effect is quite guarded
against by the strong statements Mr. A. has made respecting the
absolute freedom' of the pardon won by Christ's Cross. There
seems to me to be nothing in his teaching to imply our being
only so far forth justified as we are by the power of the Cross
sanctified. I do not therefore apprehend that in his practical
application of the doctrine of free pardon through the blood of
Christ, there would be any difference between him and others
who more distinctly set forth what I believe to be implied in the
doctrine of Christ's sacrifice being a ' ransom ' and a ' propitiation.'
" On the whole, if I had resolved on other grounds to appoint
Mr. A. to a post such as you have mentioned, from con
ceiving him to be, as he certainly is, a self-denying, laborious,
conscientious, able clergyman, of deeply religious mind, I should
not be deterred from fulfilling my intention by these sermons,
though I should myself have stated many things of which they
treat very differently. — Believe me to be, my dear  , yours
very truly, A. C. London."
It was, however, in his Visitation Charges that he ex
pressed himself most effectively upon such subjects.
Both as Bishop and Archbishop he used his recurring
Visitations as opportunities for speaking his mind upon
the larger questions of the day. It was necessary, he
said, for the Bishop of London to do so,
"for the Metropolis stands in the forefront of the Church's
battle, and we have to grapple personally with difficulties the
very rumour of which alarms our brethren in quieter places." 1
And again : —
"London, above all other dioceses, must be indissolubly
connected with the whole national Church. We do not ignore
those powerful elements of the softening influences of country
life, not found amongst ourselves ; nor the effect of the position,
so different from ours, in which the country clergy stand to their
1 Charge of 1862, p. 2.

480 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xvii.
flocks; nor the vast power of University life, moulding the
thoughts of our rising youth. But still, London is the centre :
to London flows yearly, in a steady tide, a large body of persons
of all classes from every country ; from London the stream of
influence, however unobserved, sets in irresistibly, through news
papers, books, letters, the converse of friends, to hall, parsonage^
farmhouse, and cottage in the remotest country districts. If we
in London are faithless, all England suffers. If London could
but become the really Christian centre of the nation, how would
our national Christianity grow ! " J
With the sense of this responsibility upon his shoulders
he set himself in his three London Charges to make a
solid contribution to the discussion of whatever questions
were stirring the National Church. An account has
already been given of the purport and effect of his
primary Charge in 1858. It was a trumpet call to larger
efforts of an aggressive sort against the sin and misery
of London. The Charges of 1862 and 1866 had reference
rather to the ecclesiastical questions of the hour : the
scare of Ritualism on the one side, and Rationalism on
the other ; the desire for corporate union with those out
side the Church of England ; the history and character
of the Church's Courts ; and the promotion of clerical
efficiency and preaching power. It would be impossible
to quote largely from these Charges, but a few typical
extracts may perhaps be given, with special reference to
the strength and definiteness of his contention for the
Faith. In the Charge of 1862, he refers at length to
"the difficulties that spring from that unrestrained spirit of
free inquiry, which claims the right to sift and test all theories,
and bows to no authority, however venerable, which cannot make
good by argument its claim on our allegiance."
" As to free inquiry," he says, " what shall we do with it ?
Shall we frown upon it, denounce it, try to stifle it ? This will
do no good even if it be right. But after all we are Protestants.
1 Charge of 1866, pp. 2, 3.

1863-67] ATTITUDE TOWARDS FREE INQUIRY 481
We have been accustomed to speak a good deal of the right and
duty of private judgment. It was by the exercise of this right
and the discharge of this duty that our fathers freed their and
our souls from Rome's time-honoured falsehoods. Are we to be
scared from those great principles which opened the closed door
of truth in the sixteenth century, because some men, using our
instruments of investigation, arrive at false and dangerous con
clusions ? As well might Luther have turned against the Refor
mation because of the eccentricities of the Anabaptists, or our
own divines have thought it best to make common cause with
the Jesuits because of the spread of Unitarianism. Am I con
vinced of the heavenly origin of those great truths for which the
Church of England has been appointed by the Lord Jesus as
the chief witness upon earth ? And shall I, from a craven fear
lest these truths be shaken, disparage the use of that great
instrument of reason which God has given to man for the
investigation and defence of truth? If I am wise I will not
ask my people to give to the Church's teaching an unreason
ing and stolid assent. I will set myself to work, as being
conscious of the value of that priceless gift of reason, to dis
cipline myself, and help others, that we may use it as God directs.
. . . For example, am I the pastor of a parish, and do I
know that some intelligent and promising young man of my
flock is distressing the old-fashioned piety of his parents by giving
utterance to speculations which sound to them like blasphemy ?
How shall I deal with him? ... He has been, say, to the
University, and has heard questions freely discussed there, of
which he never dreamed in childhood ; questions as to the nature
and limits of inspiration, as to the difficulties which stand in the
way of an unquestioning assent to the perfect historical accuracy
of the Bible narrative ; questions as to the possibility of reconciling
a belief in miraculous interpositions with the maintenance of
unchanging laws; questions as to how far the discoveries of
modern science agree with the teaching of the sacred books ; or
(after the general truth of the Bible scheme is admitted), intricate
metaphysical questions still may be raised as to the particular
mode in which the life and death of Christ avail for man's
salvation, and how far the exact truth on this momentous subject
is expressed in the Church's formularies. A man need neither
be conceited, nor shallow, nor rash, nor irreverent, to have had
his thoughts exercised on any one of these subjects. . . . You
vol. 1, 2 H

482 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xvii.
must be able to say to him whom you would influence : — I know
what these perplexities mean. I can point the way to solve them.
Let us talk of those things quietly and reverently together, in
voking the Divine blessing, and by the Divine guidance we shall
certainly emerge into the light. We believe with the Church of
all ages that the Bible is the Word of God ; that through it God
speaks to each separate soul, and through it also God's voice is
heard century after century proclaiming truth aloud to a world
wandering in error. We believe that the eternal Son of God
visited, in human guise, the earth He had created; that His
advent was heralded and His presence attested by many miracles,
and that when the men He came to save slew Him, His power
over death, as the Prince of Life, was shown by His rising, the
greatest of all miracles. We believe that through His death the
barrier was thrown down, which, as the effect of sin once entering
into our nature, kept God and man asunder — that thus God was
reconciled to man once for all — as, through the spectacle of His
death and rising again set forth to human souls age after age,
they are one by one reconciled to God." x
And similarly, in 1 866 : —
" The Church of England," he says, " does allow amongst its
f1 heople great diversity of opinion in non-essentials. This is a
necessary characteristic of a Protestant branch of the Church
Catholic. Sects of all kinds, whether Protestant or so-called
Catholic, are narrow and unwarrantably dogmatic — venturing to
define where God's word has not defined ; eager to exclude from
their pale all who will not allow their minds to be forced into one
groove. Such the Church of England has never been through
any continuous period of its history, though at certain epochs
vigorous efforts have been made— and, for a time, even success
fully — to narrow it to the dimensions of a sect. . . . But then
it is urged, and truly, that there must be limits to this variety, or
the Church will lose all unity. It may be well that Arnold and
Keble and Daniel Wilson, trained in one university, lived and
died, with all their many peculiar' differences, ministers of one
Church. But how far is this liberty to go ? The answer is plain.
It can go no further than is consistent with a common belief in
the essentials of the Church's faith, and these are plainly stated
1 Charge of 1862, pp. 6-n

1863-67] LIBERTY HAS ITS LIMITATIONS 483
in the formularies as in the Bible. The mind that repudiates
these essentials may hesitate for a time (and God forbid that any
rash upbraidings should add fresh pain to the anxieties of doubt,
or precipitate by unkindness a separation which we deplore) ; but^
still, if the mind repudiates these plainly-written essentials, it can
find no lasting peace in the English Church. Is it true that there
are men who even desire to act as Christ's ministers amongst
us, without believing in the resurrection of Jesus Christ ? I can
scarcely credit the assertion. The Church of England, from the
beginning to the end of its formularies, proclaims with St. Paul
that if Christ be not risen, our preaching and faith is vain, there
is no Gospel. For those who do not believe in the resurrection
of Christ we have no place, as we have none for those who do
not believe in Christ's divinity, nor in the divinity of the Third
Person of the blessed Trinity. The essentials of" the Christian
faith are incorporated in our formularies from the Bible and the
Apostles' Creed — explained and enlarged on, but not added to :
the liberty of thought which is consistent with loyalty to our
Church is therefore hedged in by these essentials.
" And then, on the other hand, since the Church of England
is not only Catholic as holding the old faith, but also Protestant,
there are essentials, not of the Christian faith, but of our charter
as reformed from Roman error, which it is equally vain for any
man to hope that he can with a safe conscience ignore. ' The
Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this realm of England '
(Art. xxxvii.). ' The sacrifices of masses, in the which it was com
monly said that the Priest did offer Christ for the quick and the
dead to have remission of pain or guilt, were blasphemous fables
and dangerous deceits ' (Art. xxxi.). ' The body of Christ is
given, taken, and received in the [Lord's] Supper only after an
heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the
body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is faith ' (Art.
xxvm.). These and such like solemn protests against Rome,
giving their colour to the whole body of our Articles, close on
this side the liberty of all who would be loyal to our Church."1
Like many other Churchmen in those days, Bishop
Tait's personal experience of the loss of dear and trusted
friends led him to have a special dislike and fear of any
1 Charge of 1866, pp. 6-9.

484 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xvii.
Rome ward leanings. The question of some possible cor
porate Reunion of the Roman, the Anglican, and the
Eastern Churches had become prominent in 1865, by
means of a published correspondence between Cardinal
Patrizi, as representing the Roman Church, and a body
of clergy of the Church of England, said to bt 198 in
number. The Cardinal had somewhat contemptuously
declined to reciprocate the friendly " feeling of good-will "
which was expressed by his Anglican correspondents, and
Archbishop Manning, in a Pastoral Letter published early
in 1866, had dealt with the subject at full length, and
rejected in a tone of uncompromising sternness the ad
vances which had been made.1
Bishop Tait referred thus to the matter in his Charge: —
'' We do not forget how desirable it is that Christendom
should be one and at peace with itself. We long and pray for
this peace and union ; but we want no hollow peace, still less a
peace which shall be purchased by sacrificing our liberty and
God's truth. Thus we feel ashamed when told of members of
our noble Reformed Church going, cap in hand, to seek for
some slight recognition from that old usurping power — so unlike
the gentle, truth-loving Church of the Apostles, of which it
vaunts itself the sole representative — which slew Latimer and
Ridley and Cranmer and Hooper in the old time, because they
would not surrender God's truth, and which certainly values the
pure Gospel now at as low a rate as of old. And we feel some
satisfaction in learning how these advances were coldly rejected
by the old haughty spirit which they seek in vain to propitiate.
" It pains me also deeply to find men labouring, as I noted
above, to show that the Church of the Reformation has, after all,
by some felicitous accident, escaped from being reformed ; that,
if we could only see it, there is nothing really Protestant in the
Thirty-nine Articles, and nothing really Romish in the Decrees
of Trent. If this were so, language must be a still more uncer
tain vehicle of men's thoughts than all acknowledge it to be.
" But, indeed, there is no sign that this mode of making peace
1 The Reunion of Christendom : A Pastoral Letter. 1866.

1863-67] THE REUNION OF CHRISTENDOM 485
with Rome is possible. Rome is too wise, and I think I may
say for at least ninety-nine out of every hundred of English
Churchmen, that they are too wise also. Archbishop Laud's
saying holds true still : that there can be no thought of union
with Rome till she becomes other than she is.
"... And then as to schemes of union with the Oriental
Churches : I am sure I wish they could come to anything. It
would be satisfactory indeed to see the Churches of the early
centuries, the venerable Patriarchates, the nurseries of great
Fathers, returning to the vigour and earnestness of their youth,
and prizing that Gospel which it is the great privilege of some of
them to possess, written in the beautiful clearness of their own
ancient tongue. When we think what blessings the West has
received from the East, both of secular and religious civilisa
tion, no educated European but will desire to repay part of the
debt, and concur in any schemes by which the Christian East
may be benefited.
" But when we come to projects of reuniting Christendom,
we are not to be hurried on by mere feelings of romance. Of
course we are not such children as to suppose that the real unity
of Christendom is to be secured by the clergy in Rome, Con
stantinople, and London wearing similarly coloured stoles. We
must ask calmly, but very seriously, how far these Churches are
exerting themselves to escape from that idolatrous worship of the
Lord's mother which for centuries has made Christianity in those
regions despicable in the eyes both of Jews and Mahometans.
We must ask, also, what 'symptoms they are showing of a return
ing desire to teach the people out of the Holy Scriptures. There
can be no union on our part which overlooks the deadly sin of
idolatry and the concealment of the Scriptures." 1
A subsequent Chapter will show that in later years,
when he was in frequent intercourse, as Primate, with the
Oriental Churches, he was led to modify this rather hope
less view of their relation to ourselves, and that he came
to entertain for some of their Bishops a genuine and
sympathetic friendship, which found repeated expression
in his public utterances.2
1 Charge of 1866, pp. 55-61.
2 See, e.g. The Church of the Future, pp. 5-8.

486 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xvii
While his Charges were thus concerned with the larger
questions of the hour, they were characterised also by
careful and detailed suggestions as to practical ways of
meeting some of the difficulties of London parishes. One
point on which he was fond of dwelling in those years, as
a means of giving greater effectiveness to parish work, was
the week-day opening of churches, both for short services
and for private prayer. The custom was far less common
then than it is now, and it is probable that his repeated
exhortations did not a little to promote the change. In
his private journal, when abroad, in the autumn of 1861,
he writes : —
"Brussels, August 23, 1861. — How little hope there is of
Romanism reforming itself ! . . . I wish indeed we Protestants
could have its outward helps to religion in use among us — short
services on week-days well attended ; churches used as houses of
prayer by the poor. And why should we not? Our friends
who revived daily services some twenty years ago committed a
mistake — unless perhaps they could not do otherwise with the
then feeling of the Bishops — when they established the long daily
service at inconvenient hours. What we want are short litanies
and hymns and expositions, to catch people as they go to and
from their work. How good it would be if we could have the
outward appearance and outward helps Of religion which Romish
countries afford, and a pure reasonable ' Gospel ' service, and
real religious life promoted by them ! Well, there is good hope
for these things in England, and I may perhaps, God willing, do
somewhat to stir the clergy in these matters."
He did " do somewhat " in his public Charge of the
following year (p. 72), when he spoke as follows : —
" And why should not our churches be open habitually, to
give the poor a quiet place for private prayer ? How great is the
disadvantage under which they labour, deprived of the power of
retirement, exposed to ridicule or other interruptions in their
crowded lodgings ! . . . There is everything to encourage us in
beginning from this point a renewed effort."
Another subject on which he laid great stress was the

1863-67] ON CLERICAL SUBSCRIPTION 487
need of helping the younger clergy to attain a better style
of preaching. He used frequently to say that young men.
in their first years in Holy Orders, were almost forced into
acquiring a dull and unimpressive style, which never left
them. " One thing I would specially deprecate," he said in his Charge
of 1862, "namely, the setting of a young curate to preach every
Sunday at some ill-frequented afternoon service, the very sight of
the congregation at which is enough to chill him into awkward
ness. It is cruelty to him to undertake, as his chief duty, what
is either the most useless or the most difficult part of our parochial
work ; . . . and certainly if we set our curates to learn how to
preach , by addressing empty benches, they will probably learn
their work so badly as to be likely to preach to empty benches
as long as they live." 1
One question dealt with in his London Charges de
mands a somewhat fuller notice. It used to be said, both
by friends and foes, and probably with truth, that it was
due to the words of Bishop Tait in charging his clergy
from the pulpit of St. Paul's that a change was peaceably
effected in the form and manner of clerical subscription to
the Church's formularies ; and the story, now almost for
gotten, ought therefore to be told.
It will be remembered how keenly he had contended
in his earlier days for perfect honesty and straightforward
ness in the matter of subscription, of whatever kind.
First as a candidate for the Greek Professorship at Glas
gow, secondly as one of the four tutors who protested
against Tract XC, and thirdly as a member of the Oxford
University Commission, he had given proof of his strong
opinion upon this subject. The subscription difficulty
now reappeared in another form. An earnest appeal was
made for some relaxation of the law requiring from all
clergy at their Ordination certain tests and subscriptions
1 Page 87.

488 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xvii.
to the Church's formularies. The formal subscription, it
was urged, had become both harassing and ineffectual, and
if its total abolition was undesirable, it might at least, said
the reformers, be redrafted and curtailed.
But the proposal, as was to be expected, met with
strenuous opposition. August 24, 1862, was the bicen
tenary of the ' Black Bartholomew's Day,' when Charles
II. 's Act of Uniformity became law. The occasion was
naturally seized by Nonconformists and their friends, and
by many of the liberal clergy, to call attention to the whole
subject of exclusive and protective tests, and, as usual in
such controversies, the language used by the hot pro
moters of reform served to aggravate the indignation and
alarm of their Conservative opponents. In the House of
Lords Lord Ebury became the mouthpiece of those who
desired to modify the form of clerical subscription, but the
Bill he introduced was withdrawn for further consideration
upon the urgent appeal of Bishop Tait, who, to the wrath
of some of his Episcopal colleagues, and especially of
Bishop Wilberforce, expressed his general concurrence in
Lord Ebury's endeavour to simplify and reduce the for
midable array of compulsory clerical declarations.1 Though
custom had made men familiar with the burden, it was
certainly ' formidable ' enough when plainly stated. Every
man ordained to an ordinary curacy had to make seven —
or, as some expressed it, ten — distinct declarations of
assent, or promises of obedience ; while an incumbent, on
institution to a benefice, added four more, making, as it
was sometimes put, fourteen separate subscriptions.2
Many of these were of course mere repetitions, but they
were none the less burdensome and cumbrous.
1 Hansard, May 27, 1862, p. 18.
2 For a precise list of these and their history see Report of the Royal
Commission of 1864-5, P- 9-

1863-67] LORD EBURY'S PROPOSAL 489
A few months after the House of Lords debate, Bishop
Tait delivered in St. Paul's Cathedral his second Diocesan
Charge, and referred, as was indeed inevitable, to the pre
vailing agitation.
" As to the declarations which the law of the land requires to .
to be made at ordination," he said, " I should be ready myself,
even now, in spite of all temporary alarm as to unsound opinions,
to relax rather than to tighten the bond. I hold that in this
question of guarding the threshold of the ministry, as elsewhere
in dealing with the difficulties of an inquisitive age, the generous
confiding policy is the best and the most Christian. ... If
there be reason for the revision of the terms of subscription, the
subject certainly demands most grave consideration, and I doubt
not will — I trust, soon — receive it, both from the Bishops and
from other members of the Legislature." J
It was on^he strength of the support thus given that
Lord Ebury, on the very opening day of the Parliament
of 1863, reintroduced, in a somewhat different shape, his
dreaded Bill. He proposed to limit the clerical declaration
for the future to a simple promise " to conform to the
liturgy of the Church of England as it is now by law
established." With an historical sentiment unusual in Acts
of Parliament, his Bill provided that the relaxation should
begin to operate "upon the next ensuing Feast of St.
Bartholomew." When the Bill came up for second read
ing, its rejection was moved by Archbishop Longley, who
objected in the strongest terms to any interference with
the detailed and definite promise of " unfeigned assent and
consent to all and everything contained and prescribed in
and by the Book of Common Prayer." Bishop Tait, on
the other hand, approved Lord Ebury's proposal.

" He had," he said, " carefully and anxiously pondered th
question, and it was only common honesty to avow the conclu
sion to which he had been led — that the declaration which the
1 Charge of 1862, pp. 25 and 47.

490 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xvii.
noble lord wished to expunge was unnecessary, and, being un
necessary, was more or less mischievous. It gave him consider
able pain to differ in a matter of this kind from the most
Reverend Primate and from others of his Episcopal brethren,
but there was no difference of principle. They were all equally
anxious to maintain that eternal truth of which the Bible was the
depository : they were all equally anxious to maintain that form
of sacred words in which that eternal truth had been handed
down by the Church. . . . But it was inevitable for persons of
different ages, and moving in different circumstances, that to
some more than to others were different forms of opinion and
feeling presented, and if it had been his lot to be thrown more
than his brethren in the way of those who felt the difficulties in
question, he thought himself bound, for the information of public
opinion and for the information of their lordships, to state what
was the result of his own observation in the matter."
After describing various forms in which the difficulties
had arisen, he continued : —
"There was no doubt therefore that with respect even to
clergymen of mature years these words caused scruples and
uneasiness of mind ; and with regard to young men who were
called to minister in holy things, they ought to be very cautious
how they trifled with their consciences. He knew the unwilling
ness on the part of young men of the highest abilities to bind
themselves more than was absolutely necessary. This might or
might not be a healthy state of things, but it was eminently desir
able to tell such men exactly what was required of them, and the
form of words should be such as to stand in no need of casuistry
to explain their meaning. Of course the great mass were not
troubled with any such scruples, but the most earnest men
were often the most troubled, and if any such persons were pre
vented from approaching or remaining in the ministry of the
Church, that of itself constituted a strong argument for the
reconsideration or removal of the words. He was glad to think
that in such a matter as this they were able to quote the au
thority of Burnet and of his great master, Leighton, — that by ex
punging these words they would be acting in the spirit of Tillot-
son, Seeker, and Porteous. These were men of calm minds, who
* entered very considerately into the people's scruples and feelings;

1863-67] CORRESPONDENCE ON SUBSCRIPTION 491
and he believed the longer we lived the more we should become
sensible that the Church of England owed a great debt of
gratitude to the moderation and piety with which these men pre
sided over her counsels. ... He would add his own deep and
solemn conviction that if the Church of England was to live in
the affections of this great country, and hold the place which it
ought to hold in Christendom, it must ever be distinguished by
that spirit of comprehensive love which enabled it to be really the
National Church, and to secure the esteem even of those who
were separated from its pale." 1
Most of the Bishops, however, and a large majority of
the lay Peers, took an opposite line, and the bill was rejected—
by 90 votes against 50. 2 Then a pamphlet war began, and
the question was fiercely debated in Convocation. Arthur
Stanley published a copious and brilliant " Letter to the
Bishop of London " upon one side, and Professor Ogilvie
replied upon the other. Many of the London clergy were
indignant at their Diocesan's readiness, as was said, to
" tamper with the time-hallowed safeguards of the
Church," and an address was forwarded to Bishop Tait
by his two Archdeacons, in which 446 of the clergy of
the diocese 'recorded their solemn "judgment that the
attempts now made to abolish subscription are fraught
with present danger and future evil to the Church, and
as such are to be deprecated and opposed."
A curious, it may be almost said an amusing, corre
spondence followed. The Bishop, on receipt of this some
what warlike document, asked his Archdeacons, " in order
that he might better understand their address," to send
him a copy of the printed circular letter, not enclosed to
him in the first instance, in which the signatures of the
clergy had been invited. This letter had been rendered
necessary by the reluctance of some of the clergy to sign
1 Hansard, May 19, 1863, pp. 1935-38.
2 The two Archbishops and eleven Bishops voted in the majority ; four
Bishops (London, St. David's, Llandaff, and Derry) in the minority.

492 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xvii.
so strong a remonstrance. With the gloss contained in
the explanatory letter, the address came to mean very
little. The Bishop drafted a reply, and half- maliciously
showed it when in proof to one of his Archdeacons, who
at once besought him not to publish it. The Bishop how
ever insisted, and this "Address," the "Explanatory
Letter," and the " Episcopal Reply," appeared together in
pamphlet form. The following sentences contain the
gist of the Bishop's reply : —
"Fulham Palace, nth fuly 1863.
" My dear Archdeacons, — I have with great care perused
the important Address on the subject of Subscription which you
presented to me on the 9th of the month. I have also carefully
considered the printed explanation which you were kind enough
to forward to me this morning, . . . without which explanation
indeed I should have found it difficult to understand the full
scope and real intention of the Address.
" In this document of explanation sent round by the pro
moters of the Address to all the Clergy of the Diocese, with the
request that they would append their names, it is stated, as I
interpret the words : —
" 1st. That those who sign the Address are not to be under
stood as being unprepared to accept any future revision of the
existing clerical subscriptions if undertaken by the Church
itself. " 2d. That what is protested against in the first paragraph of
the Address is, some supposed intention of abolishing all sub
scriptions to the Church's formularies by an Act of Parliament.
"3d. That those who sign the Address record their con
viction that the Church must have some doctrinal standards.
"It is a great satisfaction to me to feel that not only can I,
as might be expected, cordially assent to the principles thus
enunciated, but that there can scarcely be any amongst us who,
when they fully consider the subject, will not find themselves to
be in these points of the same opinion with the subscribers to
the Address.
" There are some, perhaps, who believe that all the existing
clerical subscriptions ought to be maintained under all circum-

1863-67] "SUBSCRIPTION" IN CONVOCATION 493
stances and at all hazards. I agree, however, with those who
have prepared the Address, that it is better to leave their main
tenance or alteration an open question.
"... The subscribers to the Address declare, as I under
stand them, that in their opinion it is hopeless to expect that
in these difficult times any improvement can be made in our
present declarations. Here the subscribers are no doubt aware
that many of their brethren take a different view. For my
self, personally, I have stated in the House of Lords that on
one point at least I agree with those who are more hopeful.
... I am reminded, my dear Archdeacons, by words which you
have used in your letter to me, that it is our duty to ' banish
and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to
God's word.' It cannot be doubted that all of us, Bishops and
Clergy, have much cause in these days to ponder the full mean
ing of these words in our Ordination vow. The hearts of all
good men in England have of late been made very anxious lest
the authority of Christ's truth should be shaken amongst our
people. ... I will only say that as our Church has come out of
dangerous crises in the past history unscathed and strengthened,
so I have full confidence that by God's blessing we are safe now.
Are the times dangerous? Every age has had its peculiar trial.
I am far from thinking that our state is worse than that of our
fathers. Indeed we ought thankfully to acknowledge that we
have much better ground for confidence than they. Are there
differences of opinion amongst us as to what is best for the
Church ? My experience now for seven years of the Clergy of
this Diocese convinces me that, amidst their natural differences
of opinion, there never was a time when they were more heartily
and zealously agreed to do their Master's work, or more re
verentially alive to the promised blessings of His aid."
It was not to be expected that Convocation would
acquiesce quietly in the proposal for this sort of reform.
Vehement speeches were made in favour of leaving things
alone. " The effect of relaxing subscription," it was said, " must be
disastrous. The faith of the people in the honesty of the clergy
will be disturbed. The laity will think the clergy read prayers

494 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xvii.
in which they do not believe, and the moment that occurs all
honest and right-minded men will, if they have any sense of
Christian morality, leave the Church." "These subscriptions,"
said Archdeacon Wordsworth, " are a protection to the conscience
against the arbitrary, the tyrannical usurpation of the popedom of
private judgment installed in the 17,000 pulpits of the Church of
England." *
A Committee of the Lower House made a report
upon the matter,2 but it was felt that the laymen who
were interested ought also to have a voice in any changes
which might be proposed, and the Government consented,
on the solicitation of Bishop Tait and others, to the
appointment of a Royal Commission 3 to inquire into the
whole subject of Clerical Subscription and to report
whether any changeswere desirable. It was a Commis
sion of no less than twenty-seven members, eleven of
whom were laymen, and, strange to say, notwithstanding
the heat of the previous controversy, the Commissioners
were able to agree upon a unanimous recommendation
that the relief which had been asked for should be granted,
and the subscription reduced to a simpler and much less
stringent form. Their unanimity took the Church and
the country by surprise, but it made the issue very easy.
On May 19, 1865, Lord Granville introduced a Govern
ment Bill to give legislative effect to the proposals, and,
though debated at some length in the House of Commons,
it became law before the close of the session.4 In lieu
of expressing in several successive sets of words his " un
feigned assent and consent to all and everything " within
1 Chronicle of Convocation, 1863, pp. 1211, 1359.
2 Ibid., 1864, p. 1433.
3 Among the Commissioners were the four Archbishop's, the Bishops of
London, Winchester, St. David's, and Oxford ; Lords Stanhope, Harrowby,
Lyttelton, Cranworth, and Ebury; the Dean of Ely, and the Rev. H.
Venn. 1 28 and 29 Victoria, cap. 122.

1863-67] THE CHANGE EFFECTED 495
the covers of the Prayer Book, and to an acknowledg
ment that " all and every one of the Articles, being in
number nine and thirty, besides the Ratification, are
agreeable to the Word of God," a clergyman has now on
his ordination to declare once for all as follows :—
" I assent to the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion and to the
Book of Common Prayer, and of Ordering of Bishops, Priests,
and Deacons ; I believe the doctrine of the Church of England
as therein set forth to be agreeable to the Word of God ; and in
public prayer and administration of the Sacraments I will use the
form in the said book prescribed and none other, except so far
as shall be ordered by lawful authority."
To give legal effect to the new subscription it was
necessary to make certain changes, not in Acts of Parlia
ment only, but in the Canons ; and Convocation obtained
leave from the Crown to formulate the alterations. Long
debates took place upon the constitutional questions thus
raised, but although the English Church Union petitioned
against the change, there was practically no difference of
opinion in either House upon that subject, and the neces
sary alterations were unanimously carried.
Seldom has there been a more conspicuous example
of the advantage of grasping the irritating nettle with
firmness and determination. The controversy is now
long over, and it is difficult to understand either the
vehemence of opposition to the suggested change, or the
wrathful surprise excited when Bishop Tait declared him
self to be in favour of the relaxation.

CHAPTER XVIII.
THE LONDON EPISCOPATE — (continued).
MEMORANDA AND CORRESPONDENCE— FATHER IGNATIUS — REV. F.
D. MAURICE— THE SPEAKER'S COMMENTARY — ARCHDEACON
WORDSWORTH— RELIGIOUS EDUCATION — PURCHASE OF STONE-
HOUSE — OFFER OF THE PRIMACY.
1863-67.
It was the Bishop's occasional habit, as has been already
said, to jot down in a disjointed form — usually when he
was on a holiday — a few sheets of memoranda about the
general progress of whatever work he had in hand. Such
memoranda are the following, which, with four years' in
terval between them, show how the work described in the
foregoing Chapters presented itself to his own view : —
" Llanfairfechan, Sept. 12, 1863. — These times of rest
are indispensable for enabling me to see on calm reflection what
is necessary for my Episcopal work. This week will see the
close of seven years since Lord Palmerston's letter arrived at
Hallsteads offering me the Bishopric of London. And really it
has taken pretty nearly those seven years to get fairly into the
whole work of this complicated Diocese. I therefore can have
no regret that it was not interrupted by my going to York. Now,
if God spares my life a little longer, I may hope to see schemes
matured, and by God's grace bearing fruit. My main object has
been to endeavour so to present the Church of England, as that,
fully maintaining the truth of Christ, it shall become more and
more rooted in the affections of the people. For this purpose my
attention has been specially directed to those who seemed in
danger of being alienated from the Church : (1.) The middle
^ciass, whom the High Church development seemed fast alienat-
496

1863-67] MEMORANDA BY THE BISHOP 497
ing. To say nothing of the danger of false doctrine, and the
substitution of sacerdotalism in the place of the simple real
Christianity, it has appeared to me that, on grounds of policy,
the growth of this party must be steadily guided and gently
restrained, lest it alienate from our Churches the vast body of the
religious in the middle class. I am free to confess that late
experience has convinced me of the very great influence which
the clergy of this school gain over the young men who form
their choirs, etc. And I gladly recognise their self-denying zeal ;
but still, looking to the faults of their religious system, and the
horror in which it is held by the great body of religious persons,
in the middle class especially, I feel convinced that its prevalence
would end in the denationalising of the Church of England.
As one element amongst several, it no doubt does good, and
some of the best people in the world belong to this school ; but
it must be restrained, otherwise its faults will prevail over the
good within it.
" (2.) Still more, the poor. To them especially the Gospel
requires to be preached in London. The great efforts of Bishop
Blomfield to build Churches and found new parishes have done
much. But somehow there was something wanting in the work
as he left it. Incomplete of course it must be in its extent as
long as the population grows at its present alarming rate; but
there seemed to me something wanting too in the spirit of these
efforts. Hence it appeared to be my chief call during the earlier
part of my Episcopate, by preaching myself to the poor wherever
they could be found, and stirring up a missionary spirit amongst
the clergy, to endeavour to bring life into the existing machinery,
and add an expansive power to all our Church movements. I
think by God's blessing a good deal has been done in this way,
and the example has spread in the kingdom. The preaching
under the dome of St. Paul's is an outward symbol of what is
wanted. The Diocesan Home Mission has been the centre of
this work, as the Diocesan Church Building Society is the centre
of the more regular and ' business ' operations of the Church in
the London Diocese. When Palmerston wished to withdraw me
to the Archdiocese of York last year, I felt the danger of the
Diocesan Home Mission perishing, perhaps more than any other
consideration, as an inducement to remain where I am.
" (3.) And then, besides, I have felt and tried to meet the
great danger of the more thoughtful and inquisitive spirits being
vol. 1. 2 '

498 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xviii.
alienated from the Church — I mean the great body of the reading
public, especially young men. Circumstances have always made
me alive to this danger, and from the first I have striven to do
what I could to avert it. The vast body of thoughtful and some
what religious persons in the upper classes, who are influenced
neither by the Record nor the Guardian — after all, if these are
alienated from the Church, its nationality is surely gone. I have
always thought it was a special part of my mission to endeavour
to prevent the alienation of these, and have done what I could
all along in this direction."
And again, a few years later : —
"20th fanuary 1867. — Now to look back along the years.
The first part of my Episcopate was marked by my taking more
share than I have done lately in direct missionary work in the
diocese — preaching continually in the east of London, often
preaching where necessary in the open air. I think this was
'wise. It gave the impetus to the clergy and encouraged them to
break through the old routine rules which cramped their energy,
and to put an end to that fear, which was at one time real, that
the Church of England might die of its dignity. I helped, I
think, to let it be understood that its true dignity consisted in its
doing in every proper way, after Christ's example, Christ's work.
I may consider this period of my work as marked by the estab
lishment of the Diocesan Home Mission— a great movement,
raising up what is indispensable as supplementary to the parochial
system in such a place as London. But our efforts were long
difficult to bring to pass. It was a good idea to send missionary
clergy from the bishop to all sorts of work in London which the
parochial clergy could not undertake — the care of navvies, the
densely peopled lanes of huge parishes, etc. All that we were
able to do at first was to impress on the public mind that this
was a legitimate Church of England work. I bore my own
part in such work, preaching, for example, to the half gypsy
population of the Potteries, Kensington, in the open air almost
by moonlight, to the omnibus men in their yard at Islington by
^ight, to the people assembled by Covent Garden Market on a
Sunday afternoon in summer, and once to a great assemblage
in the quadrangle here at Fulham, while our church was closed.
I was not neglectful, I hope, of my other work, preaching steadily

1863-67] HIS BREADTH OF SYMPATHY 499
at St. James's, Piccadilly, in the spring, and in the various
churches in the diocese; attending the House of Lords and
speaking on all fit occasions ; and I did my best in Convocation.
My first Visitation and Charge belongs to this period (1858).
My second Visitation and Charge (1862) marks a second stage.
The endeavour to evangelise this vast metropolis soon showed
that an organisation far more systematic than anything hitherto
tried was necessary. Hence, from my second Charge, 'and the
instigation of the Diocesan Church Building Society, sprang the
Bishop of London's Fund. Had I accepted Lord Palmerston's
offer of York in 1862, I could not have brought this work to pass,
and any one coming fresh to the diocese would have found a
difficulty in organising it. What I personally have been able to
do in it is, I think, especially by the impression of fairness, to
keep people of very dissimilar opinions working together. To
those who have thus worked, I, and the Church of England, owe
the deepest debt of gratitude. Their exertions have enabled
a thorough system of organisation to be matured. And now my
two great illnesses of this year seem to point to that sort of work
which a Bishop can do in old age, if his life is spared and his
intellect preserved. To be sure I am only fifty-five, but at
present, for my health's sake, I must act as if I was old, quietly
directing rather than actively interfering."
In the following letter he sets forth in more detail the
comprehensive principle of action alluded to above. An
earnest and influential layman, who had actively co
operated in inaugurating the ' Bishop of London's Fund,'
wrote, after a short experience, to announce his withdrawal
from the Council on account of the Bishop's readiness to
avail himself of the sympathy and help of every sort of
fellow-labourer. The Bishop replied : —
" I assure you that we are truly sorry to lose you from the
Council. Of course you must act according to your conscientious
convictions, however mistaken they may be. . . . You think, I
gather, that those in authority ought to have taken steps to clear
the Church of persons who do not agree with you, or, rather,
with the section of the Church with which you find yourself in
harmony. Now I grant that the National Church must partake

Soo LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xviii.
of the fallible condition in which all outward institutions find
themselves. It must more or less always be like the net cast
into the sea and filled with fishes bad and good. But this
characteristic belongs to all Churches, established and un-estab-
lished. I know that you would not hold a hypocritical profession
of the great Gospel doctrines to be of any value without a
renewed heart and a godly life, but I know not how any outward
body, however small and merely sectional, can free itself from the
admixture of bad characters with the good. There are hypocrites
everywhere. The National Church, then, like all other churches
and denominations, must be contented in this imperfect state of
things to be imperfect. But then, perhaps, you think that the
authorities of the Church regard some things as not evil which
you regard as evil. I know they must, and usually do, take an
enlarged and comprehensive view such as many individual
Christians without their responsibility do not take. I know also
that they must take a more enlarged and comprehensive view of
the differences amongst Christians than many ministers of small
bodies take, or than Roman Catholics may take who think
that the human intellect and feelings can be forced into a narrow
groove. I grant also that the whole spirit of the formularies of
the Church of England is on the side of this comprehensive
charitable view of the comparative unimportance of lesser differ
ences, while men adhere to the grand essentials of the faith ; and
I grant that we are also convinced that these essentials may be
held with the power of a saving faith by High Churchmen, Low
Churchmen, and Broad Churchmen. There is a point beyond
which we believe that diversity of opinion must destroy unity ;
and where there is denial of the great Christian doctrines, there
we hold that men cannot with any propriety continue in our
Communion, whether they be expelled from it or leave it of their
/own accord. But till we see this point reached, we are great
believers in the power of the unity of the Faith held even amongst
great diversities of opinion ; also we consider it a sacred duty not
to push men to extreme conclusions, however logically deducible
from their premisses. We do not' separate even from a very
strong Calvinist, because we think that logically he ought to be a
believer in the doctrine of a necessity destroying freedom of will,
\and therefore destroying also the distinction between right and
wrong ; nor from a man who holds very high views of the Sacra
ments, because logically he ought to be a Roman Catholic.

1863-67] SUGGESTED BROTHERHOODS 501
Provided men do not carry out their peculiar doctrines to these
logical consequences, we rejoice that they should be able to act
with us in the spirit of the Gospel with the love of the Lord
Jesus Christ in their hearts. This is the principle on which the
Church of England is comprehensive, and in the truest sense
catholic, as a real representative of the Church of Christ.
" I have written at length, not with a hope of altering your
opinion, but that you may understand our principles. I have
long thought that each man will best serve God by acting as in
God's sight on his own strong convictions, and I rejoice and trust
that there are many ways in which you will still be able to co
operate with us, even though you cannot follow the course which
we believe to be right, doing what we can in the midst of weak
ness and fallibility for the souls for which Christ died, and leaving
results to God."
At a time when the possibility or advantage of reviv
ing some system of lay Brotherhoods in the Church of
England is under general discussion, it is not without
interest to notice that such a proposal was definitely
made in the Diocese of London so long ago as 1861.
A thoughtful lay Churchman wrote to the Bishop of
London upon the subject, enclosing for his consideration
a series of extracts from the opinions which he had
privately elicited from London clergymen of all schools.
These written opinions were couched for the most part in
general terms, and the names of the writers were not
given. It might have been supposed that in face of the
almost universal dislike at that period to any suggestion
of the kind, the Bishop would at once have announced
his disapproval of such a plan. His answer, however,
was as follows : — "17^ October 1861.
" My dear Sir, — I beg to acknowledge your letter of the
15th, accompanied by extracts from various letters written by
clergy of the diocese on the subject of your proposed plan for a
better organisation of voluntary lay assistance in aid of the efforts

502 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xviii.
of the parochial clergy. I feel greatly indebted to you for the
trouble you have taken, as well as for all your other efforts for the
good of our poor parishes in London. It is difficult to estimate
the amount of weight which belongs to the various communica
tions you have received, without knowing how far the writers have
been themselves successful under God's blessing in the manage
ment of their parishes ; and this, of course, the confidential
nature of their letters, and the consequent suppression of their
names, prevents me from knowing.
" I was last night, e.g., in a very poor parish in the East of
London, containing a very large population, where I met between
ioo and 200 of the laity, all actively engaged, under the superin
tendence of the clergyman, in the work of his parish. The
opinion of a clergyman who has experience of such a parish would
be peculiarly valuable.
" I have carefully examined the extracts you have sent to me,
and have been much struck with the suggestions made as to the
importance of maintaining the integrity of parochial organisation.
I confess I agree also in the difficulties expressed as to the forma
tion of any body which should bear the name and have the
organisation of an 'Order,' in the sense usually attributed to that
word. . . . You rightly interpret my wishes in saying that I do
not desire myself to suggest such a combined movement in my
diocese. But you are right also in adding that I am ready to
recognise any well-considered plan which receives the sanction of
a considerable body of the clergy. . . . — Again thanking you for
the trouble you are taking, I am, my dear Sir, yours faithfully,
"A. C. London."
It is impossible in this connection to omit all reference
to a subject which brought upon the Bishop for many
years an amount of correspondence out of all proportion
to its actual importance. The Rev. J. L. Lyne, who was
ordained Deacon in the Diocese of Exeter in i860, and
who soon afterwards took the name of ' Father Ignatius,'
came after some years to London, where his powers as a
religious speaker, together with the peculiarities of his
doctrine and dress, attracted great attention. At least
one London clergyman was for a short time associated

1863-67] "FATHER IGNATIUS" 503
with the so-called 'Order of St. Benedict,' under Mr.
Lyne's governance. A small monastic house was estab
lished, first at Norwich, and then at Laleham, near
Staines ; and the extraordinary behaviour of its inmates
brought upon the Bishop a series of appeals, both from
High and Low Churchmen, that he would inhibit Mr.
Lyne from officiating or preaching in the diocese. The
Bishop however declined to do so, and Mr. Lyne preached
in more than one London church, drawing immense con
gregations, especially to his week-day addresses in St.
Edmund's, Lombard Street, when the street was blocked
by the crowds who vainly tried to get into the church.
The Bishop remonstrated again and again with him for
the extravagance of his proceedings, and repeatedly de
clined to admit him to Priest's Orders, or to give him any
general licence. In one of his letters to Mr. Lyne the
Bishop says : —
" Independently of the rules I have mentioned [as to the need
of a University degree and other certificates] there are further
difficulties in your case. I have always intimated that, consider
ing the strange things which you did, and the book of devotion
which you issued in the Diocese of Norwich, I could not entertain
the idea of your being accepted as a candidate in my diocese till
I was satisfied that you had publicly retracted the book in ques
tion, and were resolved not again to encourage the practices
which disturbed the Diocese of Norwich. ... I have no reason
to suppose that if you were in Priest's Orders to-morrow you
would not follow the same course which you pursued at Norwich,
and indeed reports have reached me as to what is going on in a
house under your direction [at Laleham], that make me very
anxious as to what you are doing in my own diocese. From
these considerations-^I mention no others — you will see that it
is impossible for me to accede to the request contained in
your letter. I must urge upon you the duty of conforming to
the rules of the Church in which God's providence has placed
you. That God has given you powers whereby you are able
greatly to influence those whom you address in your pastoral

504 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xviii.
character I am assured by many. Let me earnestly beg you to
be contented with such means of influence, and to give up the
attempt to engraft on the Church of England parts of the Roman
system which are disapproved by the whole body of our Church
governors. I am greatly interested in what I hear of your zeal
and of the earnestness of your preaching, but you must suffer me
to remind you, as set over you in the Lord, that the course which
you pursued at Norwich, and which I fear you are anxious to
pursue again, seemed to have so much self-will in it that it can
not be expected to be followed by God's blessing. It is my
earnest prayer that God may guide you aright, develop by His
Holy Spirit all that is good in you, and restrain and regulate all
that is amiss."

To those who remonstrated with him for not taking
sterner measures, the Bishop answered : —
" Mr. Lyne is only in Deacon's Orders, and the opinion of
myself, as well as of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop
of Norwich, respecting him is shown by the refusal to admit him to
Priest's Orders. It must be now above ten years since he was
ordained Deacon, I believe by the Bishop of Exeter, and from
that time to this he has never been able to persuade any Bishop
that he was a fit person to be intrusted with the responsibilities
of the Priesthood. He has not received any licence, or written
permission of any kind, from me to officiate in my diocese.
When requested, first by Mr. D  , and afterwards by Mr.
H  , to allow him to officiate, after making inquiries respect
ing the style and substance of his sermons, I have not as yet been
convinced that it was my duty to interfere and put a stop to his
preaching. It has appeared to me better to allow him, on the
responsibility of the Incumbents who have applied to me, to
exercise his gift under such control over the doctrine to which
he gives utterance as the general law of the Church of England
imposes. The alternative would be to remove from him all
restraint, and send him forth to exercise greater influence over
the young and inexperienced without any check. I am quite
aware that it may become my duty to do so, but I have never
been able as yet to find, from any of the complaints made to me
as to his sermons, that I ought to take this step. The general
impression conveyed to me respecting his sermons has been that

1863-67] THE BISHOP AT LAST INHIBITS 505
they are confined to earnest appeals to the conscience, especially
of the unconverted, and fervid expositions of the love of Christ
for souls. Whether they would assume another character if all
restraint were removed, I am not able as yet to decide. But it
will easily be understood that I am unwilling to run the risk,
without necessity, of turning the eccentric, and I hope passing,
excitement of certain persons who attach themselves at present to
the peculiarities of his system into a life-long slavery to the
Church of Rome. ... In the whole treatment of this case, feel
ing that the responsibility, which is great, rests entirely with me,
I must, while thanking Mr.  and his friends for any informa
tion they are able to communicate, request them to rest contented
with the assurance that I am quite alive to the gravity of the
circumstances which have been brought under my notice."
It would be for every reason undesirable to enter into
the particulars of the controversies that ensued. Enough
to say that at length, owing in part to the action taken by
Mr. Lyne in respect to a lady whom he proposed to
" solemnly excommunicate from our Holy Congregation,"
the Bishop found it necessary to issue the inhibition which
had long been asked for. Such importance as the matter
may have consists in the evidence of the Bishop's patient
and considerate treatment of a problem which created at
the time a very wide-spread controversy and excitement.
The following letter has reference to the Bishop's views
upon the subject of Confession. A clergyman holding a
Continental chaplaincy had been requested by a young lady
to receive her to confession, " as she had not had an oppor
tunity of going to confession for some months past." The
clergyman informed the Bishop that he had declined to
receive her : —
" I told her," he wrote, " that I was not conscious of pos
sessing authority from my Church to comply with her request,
as I considered that our Church only contemplated private con
fession in the case of extreme sickness, or of a conscience troubled
with the sense of some special sin. But as I did not gather from

506 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xviii.
her that she came under either of the above heads, I said I must
decline doing that which I believed would be a transgression of
the discipline of our Church."
He asked the Bishop, however, to direct him, as he
might see fit. The Bishop replied as follows : —
The Bishop of London to the Rev.  .
"London House, March 1864.
" My dear Mr.  , — I am afraid it would not be possible for
me to undertake to give any positive advice as to the particular
case which you have brought before me, since the dealing with
individual consciences must necessarily be left to the responsi
bility of each clergyman.
" There are, however, undoubtedly cases in which the Church
directs her ministers to invite those who are in spiritual distress
to unburden their consciences. ... I do not think that it is
intended to restrict the benefit of ' absolution together with ghostly
counsel and advice ' to cases of consciences troubled with great
and marked sin, since some of the sins specified as disqualifying
for the reception of the Holy Communion are such as require
spiritual discernment to detect them, and may manifest them
selves in the conscience rather by a feeling of general disquietude
than by the apprehension of a particular fault. Great care is,
however, needed to prevent the use of the privilege given by the
Church to her weaker members from acquiring a merely supersti
tious value, a tendency to the increase of weakness rather than the
recovery of strength, which is the danger when confession grows
into a system, and when a person is in any way induced to lean
unduly upon the minister instead of being raised by the minister's
assistance to a trust in God's mercy through Christ.
" I think that, bearing these general principles in-view, you
will not err in receiving the person who has applied to you to
such consolation as confession and absolution may confer. — I
remain, yours very truly, A. C. London."
The following letter to a young clergyman, from whom
the Bishop had received several pamphlets, explains it
self—

1863-67] PRAYERS FOR THE DEPARTED 507
" My dear Sir,— Some little time ago I received ' from the
author' your pamphlet called  . Probably with my many
engagements it might have remained unread, had not my atten
tion been within the last few days pointedly called to its con
tents. I regret for your sake that you should have written it.
I regret also that any necessity should have arisen for calling my
attention to it. ... As I have been asked to read the pamphlet
I have done so, and I should not be acting consistently with the
respect and regard which I entertain for you if I did not address
to you a few words of advice. These will I trust be as kindly
received by you as they are kindly intended by me.
" The style of your pamphlet is, as you appear to acknow
ledge, somewhat rhetorical ; and this makes it difficult to ascer
tain what the exact doctrinal statements are on which you wish
to insist. I gather, however, from the pamphlet two things : —
" I. That you are not satisfied with that reverent silence which
the Church of England, following the example of Holy Scrip
ture, has observed respecting the state of the souls departed,
while they are waiting between death and judgment; that you
consider what you call ' the duty of prayers for the dead ' to be
' one of the duties most incumbent on the Christian heart and
mind.' Indeed you seem almost to sayjhat that man can scarcely
be called a Christian who differs from you in this matter. Now
it must, I think,1 strike every one that if this view of yours were
correct, the formularies of the Church of England would be a
very poor production, and very unfaithful to the truth, from the
way in which they have treated this subject. You have shown by
a few very strained interpretations that our Prayer Book might
possibly in some prayers, by a perverse ingenuity, be understood
as praying for the dead. But your reasoning on this point will, I
think, satisfy no candid person. I can scarcely conceive that they
fully satisfy yourself. If the view you take of this doctrine be
correct, it follows as a necessary consequence that you are right
in circulating amongst your people a form of prayer for the dead,
and equally that the Church of England has been very unfaithful
in providing no such form. Our Prayer Book has indeed pointed
out, in the prayer for the Church Militant, how we may keep
alive the thought of our fellowship with those who have gone to
the unseen world by 'blessing God's Holy Name for all His
servants departed this life in His faith and fear.' You will act
rightly in directing the minds of your people to the full meaning

508 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xviii.
of these important words. It is granted also that the Church of
England, preserving the reverent silence I have spoken of above,
and never venturing beyond Holy Scripture, has left great liberty
to the feelings and imagination of our people in all matters con
nected with the mysterious subject of the condition of the dead.
But it is one thing to feel ourselves at liberty to form uncertain
conjectures, and quite another for a clergyman to avail himself
of the authority of his office to supply his people with forms of
prayer for the souls of their departed relatives, and to teach
them (as I understand you to mean) that they are bound as a
solemn duty, ' to ask God for the prayers of the blessed saints
departed.' Let me earnestly press upon you that you will commit
a grave error if, imitating and exaggerating the private opinions of
any individual teachers whom you esteem, you go thus far beyond
the boundaries which your Church has marked. I fear you will
not conciliate those whose longings you wish to satisfy ; for cer
tainly, if they are clear-sighted, you will never convince them
that you have with you the authority of your Church. Rather,
by encouraging the state of mind which yearns on this mysterious
subject for explicit teaching beyond what God has been pleased
to give, you will minister to feelings that have led many to be de
luded by a Church which has no scruple in speaking dogmatic
ally where God is silent.
" II. I gather further from your pamphlet that you hold
some exaggerated view of our blessed Lord's presence in
the Holy Communion, from which you think it follows as
a necessary inference that our Church's rule — 'there shall
be no communion except four, or three at the least (even in
our smallest parishes), communicate with the priest ' — needs to
be 'extirpated, as greatly objectionable in mind and intention.'
Indeed, I gather that you almost feel yourself called upon to act
in direct contradiction to this rule, lest by obeying the law of
your Church you should injure your people's souls, who may, you
seem to think, derive a much greater blessing from being present
while you communicate without communicating themselves, than
is attainable either through hearing the Word of God preached,
or joining in the prayers. Now I will not undertake to say
whether there is that really sound logical connection which you
suppose between your speculative belief on the subject of the
Holy Eucharist and this practical violation of the Church's law ;
but I do very earnestly beg you to pause before you proceed in

1863-67] A LETTER OF CAUTION 509
practice to the lengths which you indicate. If you are convinced
of the necessary connection between your peculiar doctrine of the
Eucharist, whatever it may prove to be when stripped of its
rhetorical disguise, and this practical conclusion, I beg you, ask
ing God's good guidance, to reconsider, and if possible modify,
your view of the doctrine, rather than deliberately set at naught
the commands of the Church of which you are a minister — com
mands not only given in our formularies, in laws which you might
possibly suppose had fallen into desuetude, but enjoined also by
the living authorities to whom you owe personal obedience.
" These are the two points which seem the most important
for me to bring before you. I would urge them on your attention,
not only with the authority which belongs to my office, but with
all the respect and regard of one who feels much interested in
your work, and who is anxious for your own as well as for your
people's welfare. I trust God may guide you, when revising your
pamphlet, greatly to alter both its statements and its general tone.
Indeed, I feel convinced you will do well to leave speculations,
with which I cannot think your habit of mind fits you to deal
satisfactorily, and apply yourself with increasing diligence to the
great work of ministering to your people in the form and in the
spirit which your Church enjoins. Believe me, I have good
reason for a conviction, grounded on what I have seen and heard
of you, that if you do not listen to this warning, you will be yield
ing to the temptation of that peculiar weakness in your character
through which those who do not wish you well would rejoice to
see you fall. In your present sphere you have great and difficult
duties. I believe you are labouring to fulfil them heartily and
prayerfully. Do not be misled by any fancy that you have a peculiar
mission to bring back the Church of England to what she was be
fore the Reformation. I cannot doubt, from many passages in
your pamphlet, that you love and honour our Church. Depend
upon it, under your peculiar circumstances, with your peculiar
feelings and temperament, your wisdom as a minister of Christ is,
avoiding notoriety, to serve Him faithfully and reverently in that
course which authority prescribes to you, and which has been
traced by the long list of our most honoured Divines. — Believe
me to be, my dear Sir, your faithful brother and servant,
"A.C.London."
To a clergyman holding a curacy in his diocese who

510 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xviii.
had suddenly joined the Church of Rome, he wrote as
follows : — " London House, S. W.
"Rev. and Dear Sir, — I heard on Saturday from Mr.
C  that you had ceased to officiate as his curate, and the
lamentable cause. From what he tells me, I feel that in this
matter you have acted, either with sad precipitation or with want
of straightforwardness, as you ministered in the Church of England
within a very short time of your avowing yourself a convert to
Romanism. The vows of God which were upon you ought to
have made you act differently. Your ecclesiastical superiors were
entitled to be informed of the state in which you found your
mind, and it is right I should tell you that, quite independently
of the fatal errors to which you have given yourself, you cannot
expect God's blessing on a step taken in a manner so unworthy
of its seriousness, and of the position which you occupied as
trusted with grave responsibility by Mr. C  and myself. I
pray that God may open your eyes to make you see the impro
priety of your conduct in this respect, as well as the dangerous
errors to which you expose your soul. Had you opened your
mind to me, as you were in duty bound, I should have done my
best to direct you ; and if I had failed to satisfy your conscience,
you would then at least have felt that you had taken the right
course in consulting me. — Believe me, Rev. and dear Sir, your
faithful servant, A. C. London."
The facts to which the following letters refer have
been made public in the biography of Frederick Maurice.1
It was not easy for ordinary men to understand the
delicate sensitiveness which made him think it right, as he
explained in the printed letter prepared for publication, to
resign his incumbency, lest the strong opposition which
he wished to offer to some of the theories of Bishop Colenso
and the Essayists should be supposed to be dictated by a
craven fear lest he should sacrifice his emoluments if he
announced his liberal opinions.
1 Vol. ii. pp. 426-434.

1863-67] THE REV. F. D. MAURICE 511
The Rev. F. D. Maurice to the Bishop of London.
" Private. " 5 Russell Square, Oct. 13, 1862.
" My dear Lord, — A fortnight ago I had determined to
write to your Lordship on the subject of this letter : fearing that
the diocese was about to be deprived of your services,1 and
wishing, even at the risk of troubling you at such a time, to com
municate my intentions to one who has treated me with so much
kindness rather than to any successor. As that calamity has,
by your Lordship's decision, been- averted from London, I venture,
though not without regret and hesitation, to disturb you in your
retreat with business chiefly, though not altogether, personal.
" I will not exhaust your Lordship's eyesight and patience
with pages of manuscript describing processes and conflicts of
mind. You will suppose I must have passed through these if
you are kind enough to read the proof which I enclose of a letter
shortly to go forth to my congregation. The first part of it
relates to circumstances which your Lordship will understand
better than most of its readers. I did not wish to dwell upon
them more than I could help. The duty of acting as I have
acted, when I must have been identified with statements which
I utterly dislike and repudiate, seemed to me imperative. The
other reason I have assigned for my act may commend itself less
to your Lordship's approval. At least I trust you will see that I
have parted with no conviction which I expressed, and violated
no pledge which I gave, when you kindly granted me institution.
" I have to thank your Lordship for many undeserved acts of
kindness during the time that I have been allowed to claim you
as my spiritual father. I hope you will not consider me un
worthy, hereafter, to do any ministerial work in your diocese to
which my brother clergymen may invite me. At all events I
shall not forget the benefits I have received from you in these
last years. I could not, of course, send forth my letter without
communicating it first to your Lordship and to Mr. Cowper. I
wish that it should appear not much after the appearance of the
book, already advertised, of the Bishop of Natal, and somewhat
before the next hearing of the causes of Williams and Wilson in
the Court of Arches. — Believe me, my dear Lord, very gratefully
and respectfully yours, F. D. Maurice."
1 See page 270.

512 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xviii.
The Bishop of London to the Rev. F. D. Maurice.
" Private and confidential. "Cromer, 14th Oct. 1862.
" My dear Mr. Maurice, — I have read with great sorrow
your letter received this morning, and should be glad indeed if
the decision were one in which you were likely to be shaken.
" Two points I ought to press upon you —
" 1 st. That I think many men of ardent spirit who look up
to you and share your opinions will, rightly or wrongly, find it
difficult to avoid following your example. They will certainly be
liable to be pressed as to why they do not adopt the same course
as you, and to have unworthy motives attributed to them.
" 2d. That you seem to me somewhat hasty in regarding Dr.
Lushington's judgment, which will probably be appealed against
to a higher Court, as a decision of authority in the Church of
England, before it has been confirmed.
" I am sure that in reference to a step so important to others
far more than to yourself, you have earnestly sought, and will
still further seek, the Divine guidance, and to that guidance I can
only commend you.
" Be assured that nothing is abated of that deep respect
with which I regard your Christian character, and that (as indeed
the whole of this letter implies) much as I should myself differ
from you in many statements, I am not aware of anything in
your opinions, so far as I know them, which should disqualify
you from officiating whether you resign or retain your charge. —
Ever yours sincerely, A. C. London."
The Bishop wrote by the same post to Arthur Stanley,
begging him to call upon Mr. Maurice without delay and
to endeavour to dissuade him from the proposed step.
The answer was as follows : —
Canon A. P. Stanley to the Bishop of Loudon.
"6 Grosvenor Crescent, Oct. 17, 1862.
" My dear Bishop, — . . . Maurice's affair is very lament
able: the more so as it is so certain to be misunderstood. I

i863-£8] CORRESPONDENCE WITH MR. MAURICE 513
have been to see him to-day, but I find (and all his family and
his friends say) that, in spite of all their arguments, his decision
is irrevocable. The condemnation of his view of the Atonement,
and the judgment on Heath in the Privy Council was the first
cause of his uneasiness. The condemnation of Wilson's hope
of a final restoration by Dr. Lushington was the second. And a
taunt from Colenso gave the finishing stroke. His notion is that,
like St. Paul (the comparison is mine, not his) he will be able to
preach the Gospel better if not suspected of worldly motives.
He felt very much the kindness of your letter. You ask what
more you can do. Nothing, it seems to me, except this — which,
if you can do, would be of great importance, both as a support to
him, and as preventing the disastrous consequences which are
likely to flow from his step, viz., to allow him, or to take means
yourself, to publish your letter. This may, indeed, be rendered
impossible by the necessity of observing a dead silence on all
that relates to the questions which may be coming before the
Privy Council. But for this objection (of the force of which I
cannot judge) I see no harm and much good that would ensue
from its publication. — Yours affectionately, " A. P. Stanley."

The Bishop of London to the Rev. F. D. Maurice.
"Cromer, October 24, 1862.
" My dear Mr. Maurice, — Since I wrote to you on receiv
ing the first intimation of your intention to resign St. Peter's,
Vere Street, I have thought often of the subject. It has not
been till to-day that what had at first escaped my attention has
distinctly occurred to me, viz., that (unless your position in your
chapel is different from what I suppose it to be), if your purpose
is to be carried into effect, I must legally be more a party to it
than I should wish to be, as the resignation cannot release you
without my accepting it. In, intimating your intention to resign,
you expressed your hope that I would not hereafter consider you
unworthy of doing any ministerial work in my diocese to which
any brother clergyman might invite you. In answer, assuring
you that nothing is abated of that deep respect with which I
regard your Christian character, I added that, much as I should
myself differ from you in many statements, I am not aware of
VOL. 1, 2 x

S14 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xviii.
anything in your opinions, so far as I know them, which should
disqualify you from officiating, whether you resign or retain your
charge. I expressed also my conviction that the step you medi
tate might be very injurious to others. I feel indeed that it is
fraught with very momentous consequences to the whole Church,
which may greatly suffer thereby.
"Under these circumstances it is only due to you that I
should at once state to you that, in the event of your adhering to
your present intention, I may be obliged to consider very care
fully whether I shall be justified in accepting your resignation out
of deference to your private feeling, or whether I ought on public
grounds to refuse to accept it.
" It is of course possible that further explanation on your part
may make me view the matter differently ; but as it at present
stands, I feel that, if you continue in your resolve, I shall be
called by you to consent to what I think a very undesirable step.
My former letter was private and confidential, but I do not know
why this need be so, if in consulting your friends or otherwise
you wish to make use of it. I earnestly pray that we may both
be guided aright from above in this matter. — Believe me to be,
my dear Mr. Maurice, yours most truly,
"A. C. London."

The Rev. F. D. Maurice to the Bishop of London.
" 5 Russell Square, W.C,
Oct. 25, 1862.
" My dear Lord, — I thank your Lordship most gratefully for
your very kind letter, and for the generous permission which you
give me to make it known as a reason for changing the resolution
which I have formed, certainly not without the most serious and
painful deliberation.
" I do not wonder that the paper which I first sent to your
Lordship should have left you in doubt whether I sufficiently
understood my own purpose, or, at all events, could make it in
telligible to others. The one which I enclose, and which is al
ready printed with a view to circulation among my flock, will, I
trust, be more satisfactory to you. It will remove, I am almost
sure, the impression that my act is meant to be, or is likely to be,

1 863-68] CORRESPONDENCE WITH MR. MAURICE 515
an example to other clergymen. My earnest hope and strong
conviction is that many who would have been utterly shaken by
the publication of the book of the Bishop of Natal will feel that
they have a ground to stand upon, in the Old Testament and in
the Creeds of the Church, which they had supposed was unten
able. I do not mean that the expression of my belief will, in
itself, have that effect ; but that expression, accompanied by an
act which will be some evidence of its sincerity, may lead them to
reflect, and may fix them in the Church far more firmly than they
are fixed now.
" I know that my kind and dear friend Stanley has a great
dread of the effect which my retirement from Vere St. may pro
duce, though, at the same time, he has given me some good
reasons for thinking that the effect will be very slight. I cannot,
as I have told him, approve in the least of his suggestion that I
should announce my intention, and then suspend it, to see what
the Courts will do. Such a proceeding would, it seems to me,
be ignominious, and yet presumptuous ; involving a kind of feeble
threat which the Courts and every Churchman would feel, from a
person in my position, to be ridiculous. It would also destroy the
whole effect of the testimony which I desire to bear on the subject
of Bishop Colenso's book, and which, from our past relations with
each other, I could not bear, if I had had the slightest personal
interest in disclaiming him.
" But, most of all should I be unwilling to mix your Lord
ship's name in my proceedings, or to let the clergy of your diocese
suppose that you had committed yourself to me more than you have
already committed yourself, by granting me a licence and by not
withdrawing it. I know how much discredit I might bring upon
you by such an association with me, as would be implied in the
act of your Lordship's desiring me not to resign.
" Forgive me, my dear Lord, if I commit what I hope will be
a solitary act of disobedience to your authority by refusing to
accept your generous permission to let your letter be made public,
and if I respectfully ask you to put no hindrance in the way of my
taking a step which I feel in my inmost conscience is right for
myself, and which, I trust in God, will prove to be good for His
Church. — I have the honour to be, my dear Lord, very gratefully
and respectfully yours, F. D. Maurice,"

516 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xviii.
The Rev. F. D. Maurice to the Bishop of London.
" The Athenaeum, Oct. 29, 1862.
" My dear Lord, — I have received from the Bishop of Natal
a strong assurance that the book which he is about to publish is
not the book from which I drew my inferences. He protests
strongly against my right to speak of the forthcoming work till I
have read it. I yield to these remonstrances. I shall be exceed
ingly sorry to do anything which would be unjust or unkind to an
old friend.
" I have, therefore, suspended the issuing of my letter, and
will submit to your Lordship's judgment about the course I
should pursue hereafter. — I have the honour to be, my dear Lord,
your very obliged servant, F. D. Maurice."
The Bishop of London to the Rev. F. D. Maurice.
"Fulham Palace, Oct. 30, 1862.
" My dear Mr. Maurice, — I am most thankful for your note
of yesterday, announcing your attention to suspend the issuing of
your letter to the congregation of St. Peter's, Vere St., and your
willingness to submit to my judgment as to the course you
should pursue hereafter.
" I believe that the best members of the Church of England
will thank God, as I do, for this resolve. — Ever yours sincerely,
" A. C. London."
On the nomination of Arthur Stanley to the Deanery
of Westminster, in the autumn of 1863, Dr. Christopher
Wordsworth, as Canon in residence, published in pamphlet
form a long and vehement protest against the installation
of one whose opinions, especially on the Old Testament,
were, in his view, so unorthodox.1 Dr. Stanley, he said,
1 Remarks on the Proposed Admission of the Rev. Dr. Stanley to the place
of Dean, &c. The pamphlet contains the quotations on which the virtual]
charge of heresy is based. They are such as these — "The history of Israel
is not the history of an inspired book, but of an inspired people. " ' ' Deborah
was enlightened only with a very small portion of that Divine Light which
was to go on ever more brightening to the perfect day." "The Books of
Moses are probably so-called because he is the chief subject of them."

1863-68] DR. WORDSWORTH'S "PROTEST" 517
had caused " much grief and trouble of conscience to many
faithful members of the Church," by his lectures on the
Jewish Church, and he more than implied that the author
of these lectures could not honestly subscribe the articles
and formularies of the Church of England. A copy of
this pamphlet he sent to the Bishop of London with the
following letter :—
The Rev. Dr. Wordsworth to the Bishop of London.
"Cloisters, Westminster, 12 Dec. 1863.
" My dear Lord, — Since the time when your Lordship in
vited me to preach at St. Paul's on the evening of Jan. 10th, I
have published the remarks of which I beg leave to forward you
a copy. " I should be very reluctant, indeed, even to seem to involve
any one, however remotely, in any responsibility for my own acts,
and I therefore feel it due to your Lordship to express my hope that
you would consider yourself entirely at liberty to make any other
arrangement for the sermon on that day at St. Paul's. — I have the
honour to be, my dear Lord, your dutiful servant,
" Christopher Wordsworth."

The Bishop of London to the Rev. Dr. Wordsworth.
" Fulham Palace.
Tuesday, Dec. 15, 1863.
" Dear Dr. Wordsworth, — I received on Saturday morning
your note accompanying your published 'Remarks,' on Dr.
Stanley's admission to the Deanery of Westminster. The pressing
business of the Ordination week has prevented me from answer
ing till now.
"Adverting to my having requested you to preach at St.
Paul's on the 10th of Jan., you say that you would be very reluc
tant even to seem to involve any one, however remotely, in any
responsibility for your acts, and that you therefore feel it due to
me to express your hope that I may consider myself entirely at
liberty to make any other arrangements for the sermon at St.
Paul's on Jan. 10th. As your preaching turn was settled before

518 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xviii.
the publication of your ' Remarks,' no approval of them on my part
can be legitimately inferred, and I do not consider it necessary
now to reconsider the arrangement. But your note seems to
invite me to read your ' Remarks,' and, I suppose, to express some
opinion upon them. I regret, for your own sake, as for the
Church, the publication of this pamphlet, and, since you wish me
to write, I dare not shrink from the disagreeable task of setting
before you what you have done, in the light in which, I believe,
it will appear to many of the best and most attached members of
the Church.
" Of course it is not beeause you disapprove of some of Dr.
Stanley's writings that you have taken the unusual step of publish
ing this protest. You would allow that in a great National
Church like ours, necessarily and rightly including men of very
various sentiments, what is written by eminent and good men of
one school of theology often gives 'grief,' and even trouble of
conscience, to many faithful members of the Church, who have
deeply-rooted convictions on the other side of the question at
issue. I suppose both you and I have often been pained, if we
have not been troubled in conscience, by the published words of
good men, both of the high sacerdotal and of other schools
within our Church — nay, persons even of opinions like your own
often give great pain and trouble by their statements of doctrine.
" It is not therefore in your own disapproval of Dr. Stanley's
writings that you seek the justification of your pamphlet. You
are understood as coming forward publicly to charge your future
Dean with unfaithfulness to the Church in which he has
ministered for twenty years, and in which he has long held
eminent and most influential offices.
"Now, I suppose no one doubts that you have acted con
scientiously, but very many do feel that your conscience is not
well instructed in this matter. What you have done will, I think,
appear to most good men in this light — that, if you have not dis
tinctly stated, you have used words which imply some of the
gravest possible charges against a brother clergyman, that you
have endeavoured to support these charges by extracts from his
writings which, being separated from the context, are greatly dis
torted from their real meaning ; and, as to several of the premisses
which you attribute to Dr. Stanley, you have sought to load them
with conclusions which, even taken as you have given them, they
will not bear. Good men will say that this might perhaps be ex-

1863-68] THE BISHOP'S REPLY 519
pected in some unknown and irresponsible writer attempting to
inflame the passions of the ignorant, but is unworthy of a scholar
and a divine, who must know the difficulty of the subject on
which he is writing, which is indeed none other than the intricate
question as to the line to be drawn between the Divine and
human elements in the Scriptures of truth— a subject which, if it
is to be entered on at all, requires almost above all others to be
treated by theologians with calm exactness, and with a scrupulous
regard to well-weighed and explicit arguments.
"Perhaps, however, it will be even more difficult for those
who wish you well to defend the latter part of your pamphlet.
The words in which you have insinuated, respecting a man of the
highest character, that he cannot consistently or conscientiously
sign the declarations which he has already made repeatedly at
each successive step of his honourable career, and in virtue of
adherence to which the office which he is about to vacate, as well
as that to which he is promoted, is held, — these words are, I
think, sure to be looked upon as unsuitable to the high Christian
character which you have hitherto maintained.
"You will, I trust, my dear Dr. Wordsworth, excuse me for
speaking thus plainly. It is often the misfortune of good men,
highly respected, that when they make a great mistake, they have
no one about them to point out their error. Your note gives me
an opportunity, of which perhaps few but myself could appropri
ately avail themselves, of telling you what is in the minds of a
great body both of your brother clergy and of the laity. You will
not suppose because I speak plainly that I fail in the personal
esteem and respect with which I have ever regarded you. —
Believe me, yours very truly, A. C. London."
In his letters to Dr. Stanley himself the Bishop makes
no allusion whatever to Dr. Wordsworth's pamphlet, but
he takes occasion to impress upon the new Dean some of
his more strictly ecclesiastical responsibilities.
" I hope we may have full time next week," he says, " to talk
over the future, and I daresay you will let me advise you as to
the nature of your new- post. The distinctly clerical, as distin
guished from the literary, life is somewhat new to you. Milman
has much less influence than he ought to have, from ignoring this
distinctly clerical side. The Ecclesiastical Commission, the great

520 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xviii.
Societies of the Church, National Education, the Westminster
Spiritual Aid Fund, besides the continual opportunities of preach
ing — shall we add Convocation ? — these give the mitred Abbot of
Westminster an influence almost as directly episcopal as that
of any Bishop."
The line taken by the Bishop in the Essays and
Reviews controversy, and in his utterances generally, had
the result of bringing upon him quite a flood of corre
spondence with clergy and others whose faith had been un
settled, and who wished to consult " the only Bishop," as
one writer expressed it, " who seems to feel the slightest
respect or sympathy for men in our position." Most of
these letters, entering as they do into detailed theological
inquiry, are unsuited for publication in this book, and the
Bishop's usual course was to invite his correspondent to
talk the matter over with him. A single specimen instance
may perhaps be given. The Bishop had in this case no
previous knowledge of his correspondent, who lived in a
distant part of England, and had been ordained some
twelve years before.
[After a long biographical apologia, the writer states his posi
tion thus : — ] " I thus found at last that my faith in the propitiatory
view of the Atonement had left me, as a natural consequence of
my having ceased to believe in anything miraculous. Upon this
I resigned my living, on the alleged ground that I could no longer
yield an unfeigned assent and consent to all and everything con
tained in the Book of Common Prayer. It seemed to me un
necessary, and in every way undesirable, to publish the extent of
that scepticism which had assuredly brought me no peace or
happiness. . . . [After long vacillation] the urgent and only too
flattering invitations of some of my kind friends among the
Unitarians induced me to re-examine the question of our Saviour's
alleged mere humanity, and this led me to the conclusion that
either Jesus was properly Divine, or the New Testament was an
unworthy text-book for a truthful preacher. Still, though the
moral beauties of Christianity prevented my assenting to the latter

1863-68] CONSULTED IN DIFFICULTIES 521
alternative, I was not then prepared to re-accept the former. ...
I began to question with myself how and to what extent the
Prayer Book, which my friends and I desired (as a matter of
taste) to alter as little as possible, must be dealt with. I soon
found that either the Prayer Book must be wholly re-written, or
we must retain the doctrine of the Trinity, prayers to Christ,
references to miracles, and a belief in the Atonement. I had no
doubt which way the Bible, if appealed to, would decide these
questions; but the miracles recorded in Scripture bore to my
mind a character of a priori incredibility, which prevented (or
disabled) me from referring my difficulties to the arbitrament of
the sacred penmen. I was thus still in my scepticism of a year
ago ; only the option had become more distinctly marked, so that I
must either confirm my disbelief or accept the teachings of ortho
doxy. At this crisis an old recollection of the late Dr. Chalmers'
unbelief, and of its being relieved by his studies preparatory to
writing on the Evidences, induced me to read his volume.
The first few pages just brought back to my mind the missing
link. ... It seems strange to my own mind that so simple a
reflection should avail with me now after several years of growing
scepticism ; but we all read books differently according to the
different states of mind in which we approach them. As has been
said, we find in books what we bring to them. Be that as it may,
however, this volume of Chalmers has, under God's blessing,
been the means of removing my a priori difficulty as to miracles.
That removed, I am open to the overwhelming influence of St.
Paul's unquestionably contemporaneous evidence. Christ's won
drous personality speaks to me through the Gospels. The pre
diction of a seed of Abraham, in whom all the nations should be
blest, convinces me. The Gospels become wholly credible. I
assent alike to the Miraculous Conception, the Resurrection, the
Ascension, and all the other marvels of the Gospel. Difficulties
there are, and I feel them ; but I am satisfied with the substantial
truth of the inspired volume. ... In a word, I have regained
my belief in the Bible ; I retain my old attachment for the Church
of England and the Prayer Book. . . .
"As to the question, what I am to do with my life and
energies, will your Lordship kindly take the trouble to counsel
me ? Shall I best serve God and man by remaining in idleness ?
or by working at some lay occupation ? or by seeking to resume
the functions of a curate in the Church ? If, as seems to me,

523 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xviii.
this last be the line of my duty, under whose auspices and in
what manner may I best begin? If your Lordship has the
patience and sympathy to read thus far, I will only add that any
advice you may be pleased to give me will be much esteemed.
... I ought to add that I have never attached myself to any
Nonconformist body ; but, as I urged my old friends, on leaving
them, to abide in the Church of England, so my family and I
have been worshippers therein throughout the year."

The Bishop of London to the Rev.

"Cromer, Norfolk, gth Oct. 1862.
" My dear Sir, — Your important letter of the 2d has followed
me. It reached me two days ago, and very pressing business has
since so engrossed my attention that I have not been able to sit
down to answer till now.
" First, let me express my thankfulness to God for having so
far guided you. This is a fresh confirmation of the promise, that
they who will do God's will shall know of the doctrine whether it
be of God. And indeed, seeing what our minds are, there is an
unspeakable satisfaction in thinking that He is near and ready to
guide in such great difficulties.
" As I understand your letter, that scepticism which was the
ceal cause of your resigning your functions in the ministry, and
which went much deeper than those amongst whom you min
istered were aware, has passed away, and a peaceful acceptance
of the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel has succeeded to that
great trial of doubt or disbelief.
" You see no reason now why you should not with a good
conscience declare your acceptance of the formularies of our
Church, return to its ministrations, and preach the doctrines,
your belief in which had before given way, but is now happily by
God's guidance re-established. If this be a true account of your
state, I cannot doubt that you will do well to seek to return to
ministerial duty, and I should not hesitate (while adopting of
course all due caution) to sanction your entering on a sphere of
duty in my diocese.
"Two things, however, strike me : —
" 1st. That as it was in the Bishop of  's diocese that you
felt yourself constrained publicly to lay down your ministerial

i863-68] THE BISHOP'S REPLY 523
functions, you ought to slate the whole case to him, that you may
ascertain his views respecting your return to ministerial duty.
Unless there is some good reason to the contrary, it seems
natural to seek to be re-admitted by your former diocesan ; and
at all events, if you were nominated to any sphere in my diocese,
I should think it my duty to refer to him.
" 2d. It would, I grant, be undesirable to provoke any public
discussion of your grounds for abandoning and for re-assuming
your ministerial functions, which grounds, as I have said, I learn
from your letter are not fully understood by those with whom
you have acted in their real depth, and in connection with the
painful private struggles of doubt and disbelief through which
you have passed.
" But I think it is certainly your duty to see that, so far as
you can, any who have by your example been unsettled in their
allegiance to the Church or fortified in their already formed
objections to it, should learn that you have been convinced of
your error and that you now earnestly desire that they should be
guided by your present and not by your former views of truth.
" I would again add further, that under the peculiar circum
stances of your case, I should think that for a time some quiet
sphere of ministering amongst the poor would be better for your
own soul and more conducive to your ultimate usefulness in the
ministry than any prominent post.
" That God by His Holy Spirit may be your guide and stay,
for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, is my hearty prayer. — Believe
me to be, my dear Sir, faithfully yours, A. C. London.
" P.S. — On my return home I shall be ready to see you any
day by appointment."
Several interviews took place, and the clergyman
returned to active ministry in the Church of England.
Among the Bishop's papers is a large amount of corre
spondence about the origin of the 'Speaker's Commentary.'
Valuable as, in some respects, he felt the book to be, and
indefatigable as were the pains taken by its publishers, it
was always to Bishop Tait a source of keen disappoint
ment that so great an enterprise had not been carried out

524 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xviii.
by its learned editors upon somewhat bolder and more
liberal lines. The facts, so far as Bishop Tait was con
cerned, were as follows : — On December 30, 1 862, he re
ceived a letter from the Speaker,1 propounding a plan for
the publication of a first-rate Commentary, to be edited,
at whatever cost, "by the foremost living scholars, with
every appliance of modern culture and research." He had
as yet consulted, he said, no one else. The idea was his
own, and " I would myself," he added, " take a great deal
of trouble about it, in any way in which I could be useful,
and I think I could, undertake to provide funds almost to
any amount for such a work undertaken by good hands."
The Bishop at once communicated with Mr. John Murray,
who threw himself actively into the scheme, and, after
considerable correspondence, it was publicly announced
that the book would be published " under the sanction of
a Committee of ten members," of whom Bishop Tait
was one.2 The general editorship was intrusted to the
Rev. F. C. Cook, and the prospectus added that the Arch
bishop of York, in consultation with the Regius Professors
of Divinity at Oxford and Cambridge, would " advise with
the general editor upon any questions arising during the
progress of the work."
Several months passed, and Bishop Tait learned that
although his name still stood on the published list of the
Committee, the arrangements as to authorship and line of
treatment had been virtually settled without his having
had any opportunity of discussing them. He remon
strated, and the Archbishop of York replied that it had
been decided not to invite him to co-operate more
closely. 1 The Right Hon. J. Evelyn Denison.
2 The Committee' was as follows : — Archbishop of Yor;k, Bishops of
London, Lichfield, Llandaff, and Gloucester ; Lord Lytteltonj The Speaker,
Mr. Spencer Walpole, Professor Jacobson, and Professor Jeremie.

1863-68] THE 'SPEAKER'S COMMENTARY' 525
" I am free to say," he added, "that I thought it better not to
ask you, for you would have wished Stanley to be in the under
taking, and I could not have made the attempt with Stanley's
name upon our scheme. I need not say that in other respects I
value your candour and courage too much to think of slighting
you." Further correspondence ensued, the most important
letter being as follows : —

The Bishop of London to the Speaker of the House of
Commons.
" Llanfairfechan, nr. Bangor,
Sept. ith, 1863.
" My dear Mr. Speaker, — ... I am afraid I have given
you some trouble already, and that this letter will give you more
in the reading of it ; but I must beg you to attribute this to the
right motive, viz., the very earnest desire which I have, that the
great work you have set in motion should be so conducted as to
be a real benefit to the Church. . . . Consulted as I had been
privately all through, it never occurred to me, till the idea was
forced upon me, that there was any intention of arranging every
thing so as to make my adhesion to the scheme a mere formality.
"I do not know whether you can quite understand the
position in which I should be placed unless this matter is cleared
up. " I entirely concur in what the Dean of St. Paul's has said, that
this Commentary, to be of real service to the Church, ought to
be at once free and critical enough to satisfy inquiring minds, yet
so reiigious as not to disturb the more devotional. Ever since
the present unhappy phase of controversy began to disturb the
Church, I have felt most strongly that the only safety lay in the
growth of a liberal yet deeply religious party, and that, in handling
Scripture especially, the greatest care was needed that nothing
should be advanced which would not bear thorough sifting.
Now, in the Aids to Faith — that answer to the Essays and
Reviews which the Archbishop of York edited, and to which Mr.
Cook was a contributor — the chief writer, whom I find intrusted
with a very important share in this Commentary, has, as I under-

526 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xviii.
stand him, advanced opinions, and argued that they are indispens
able to the faith, which are in my judgment dangerous as being
untenable and quite inconsistent with a wise and true criticism of
the Old Testament. I feel no objection (quite the reverse) to the
great learning and goodness of this author being employed in our
work, but I desire that neither he nor any one else shall be
allowed to commit us and the Church to dangerous and unten
able statements. Now I must freely confess that I do not think
the Archbishop of York is awake to this danger. I scarcely
think that if he had been, he would have admitted such passages as
I refer to into the Aids to Faith. ... I should stultify myself
if I quietly acquiesced in such statements coming forth under my
name. I incline to think that the knowledge that I was likely to
overhaul such statements would prevent them from being made ;
or, if they were made at first, I feel confident that in a fair
discussion I could convince any Committee or Board of which
I was a member, that such statements ought to be guarded or
cancelled. But I do not think it would be consistent with my
position, either official or personal, to make objections in a vague
way without an opportunity of discussing them, and to be liable
to have my objections overruled by the arbitrary decision of the
Archbishop of York and my two amiable friends, Drs. Jacobson
and Jeremie. You must remember that the difficulties I appre
hend — to be rightly dealt with — require (ist), That those who
have to deal with them shall from circumstances have been made
fully aware of the force of the difficulties in question, and (2ndly),
That they shall have no dread whatsoever of the clamour of
so-called religious newspapers or any other blind public opinion.
Now I say it with the deepest respect, but you have not at present
any such Board or final appeal, unless (as seems implied in their
very office) the Committee is intrusted with this function in the
last resort. I am sure that Mr. Cook, with all his learning and
judgment, has not strength to deal with such a difficulty as I
suppose, and would naturally leave it alone, and, if by any means
it found its way to the Archbishop of York and his assessors,
unaided, they would let it drop also.
"To. explain more clearly what I mean — this Commentary
must be greatly judged of at the very first by the way in which it
treats the early Chapters of Genesis — including the account of
the Flood — by the notes on the history of Balaam and on the
book of Jonah — and difficulties similar to those contained in

1863-68] THE 'SPEAKER'S COMMENTARY' 527
those passages will be occurring all through the Old Testament.
What I think indispensable is that the questions thus raised
be dealt with in a calm, candid spirit, and that any rash state
ments — which are made in accordance with an unthinking public
opinion, but are sure to alienate and shock the very persons who
most need our instruction and guidance — shall be reviewed and
restrained. "You have been very fortunate in securing the zealous
co-operation of the Archbishop of York and Mr. Cook, but
neither they nor any other two men, even assisted by such able
coadjutors as Drs. Jacobson and Jeremie, can, in the present
state of the Church, command such confidence as this work
ought to secure if it is to fulfil the end you desire. This confi
dence will be largely conciliated by the other names on the
Committee, but I think it would at once cease to be given if it
were thought that those names are simply ornamental. — Believe
me to be, my dear Mr. Speaker, yours very truly, " A. C. London."
It is not necessary to recount all that followed upon
this letter. In deference to the earnest request of the
Speaker, Bishop Tait abandoned his intention of with
drawing his name from the Committee, but he gave strong
expression, in his Diary and elsewhere, to an opinion that
a great opportunity had been missed, and that a more
courageous course on the part of the Editors would have
been justified by the ultimate result.
Little as the Bishop usually concerned himself in the
precise details of a ceremonial or procession, he was a stiff
upholder of the rights of his office in such matters. It fell
to him afterwards, as Archbishop, to settle more than one
doubtful point as to his official privilege,1 and such ques
tions arose occasionally with regard to the Bishop of
London. When Archbishop Longley, on December 12,
1862, was enthroned in Canterbury Cathedral as Primate,
Bishop Tait insisted, with a pertinacity which both surprised
' See e.g. vol, ii. p. 287.

528 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xviii.
and amused his friends, upon the due recognition of his
own position as ' Provincial Dean.' His friend Dean Alford,
in a private letter, invited him to the ceremony. He
replied that he could only attend as Dean of the Province,
and must receive an official invitation with due assign
ment of his part in the proceedings. The programme
was already issued, however, without any mention of
him, and the officials, among whom his letter created
quite a little storm, while they admitted that an error
had been made, fell back upon the haziness of the prece
dents, and begged him to attend informally. This he
declined to do, and wrote to his legal secretary as
follows : — The Bishop of London to Mr. f. B. Lee.
" Fulham Palace, S.W.,
Dec. 8th, 1862.
" My dear Mr. Lee, — The Dean of Canterbury has sent to
me the enclosed, with two papers — one, the printed programme for
Friday; the other, the official record of what took place in 1848.
I have called his attention to an important point which must be
submitted to Dr. Twiss.1 The mistake of the printed programme
appears to be this (as compared with 1848), that it ignores the
Provincial College and its offices as such, classing them all under
the name of ' attendant Bishops ' — a phrase which does not occur
in the precedent of 1848 ; and this becomes really important in
that part of the proceedings in which the Archbishop takes
possession of the Marble Chair. The printed programme states
that the same form is then repeated as when he takes possession
of the Throne. The precedent of 1848 gives a different form,
referring to the Metropolitical dignity, and not that of the See,
and makes the members of the Provincial College officially to
take part in the latter act. A question indeed arises, whether this
part of the ceremony, viz., the second enthroning in the Marble
Chair, ought not to be entirely transacted by the officers of the
Provincial College, and whether the idea of the second enthroning
1 The Bishop's law officer.

1863-68] A QUESTION OF CEREMONIAL 529
is^ not entirely that of taking possession of the Metropolitical
dignity, and whether the part assigned in this second enthroning
to the Archdeacon of Canterbury, does belong to some officer of
the Provincial College, having been given to the Archdeacon in
days when the whole thing was done without ceremonial, no
Bishop being present, and the smallest number of deputies
employed, and, therefore, the Archdeacon appearing in more than
one capacity. It is no easy matter to disentomb a mediaeval
ceremonial without making great mistakes, and it is rather im
portant that when the Bishops of the Province are summoned to
be present on a State occasion, they should not be ignored in
their official capacity. Probably the so-called ' attendant Bishops '
may be a mixture of Bishops from York, the Colonies, and Scotland,
the Provincial College and its officers being quite another matter.
" You will be amused at my new-born zeal in such matters,
but if a thing is to be done, it ought to be done properly. — Ever
yours, A. C. London."
In the end, within a few hours of the ceremonial, the
programme was re-issued in an amended form, and the
Provincial Dean took his anciently appointed place.
The popular dislike in those years of anything ap
proaching to Ritualism led to many irregular attempts
being made, especially in suburban parishes, to open a
rival place of worship, where the old-fashioned doctrine
and ritual should be retained, and the Bishop had many
extremely troublesome quarrels of this kind to deal with,
the dissentients sometimes including the bulk of the former
congregation of the parent church. A single example
of the advice he gave in such cases will be enough. The
letter is written to the vicar of a suburban parish who
had applied to him for counsel : —
The Bishop of London to the Rev.  .
"London House, S.W., 6th March 1865.
" My dear Mr.  , — Much business and the difficulty of
the subject have made me delay longer than I could have wished
my answer to your recent letter.
vol. 1. 2 l

530 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xviii.
"I am sorry to say there are in various parts of England
chapels erected under the name of Free Churches, and registered
as dissenting meeting-houses. They have generally sprung from
certain persons being dissatisfied with the teaching of the
Parochial clergy, and adhering so slightly to the law and order of
the Church of England, that they prefer to separate themselves
from its duly constituted authority rather than worship in their
own parish church, of which they dislike the teaching, or take
the trouble of going, as they usually might do, to some other
neighbouring church, the ritual and teaching of which may be
more consonant with their feelings and convictions. That in a
national church so tolerant as the Church of England is of
diversities of sentiment and teaching in non-essentials, and which,
at the same time, rightly concedes so much individual liberty to
all its members, this state of things should have grown up, is more
to be deplored than wondered at. It requires great discretion in
the clergy, and a very tender care for the feelings of those of their
people who differ from themselves, to check that sort of undisci
plined zeal which often makes good and pious men overlook the
evil consequences likely to flow from the rupture caused in the
parish by the erection of such an irregular place of worship as you
complain of. How far it would have been possible for you by
greater tact to avert the rupture which has ensued, I have not the
means of deciding, but I know that, looking to the contrast and
the not unnatural collision between your own deep convictions
and the equally deep convictions of some of your parishioners,
you have had a very difficult task, and I am bound to say that
you have made various efforts to conciliate those who differ from
you. . . . The result [of all that has passed] has been the erection
of the dissenting chapel in question. I call it a dissenting chapel
because the only way in which it can be legally protected is by its
being registered as a dissenting chapel, and I presume it has been
so registered. My advice to other clergymen who have applied
to me under similar circumstances has usually been not to
trouble themselves as to such chapels. The quiet performance
of their own duty is far more likely to win their people from such
irregularities than' any direct interference. ... It is only
in very exceptional cases that I think it is wise to invoke the
law in order to prevent members of the Church of England from
being deceived by mistaking dissenting ministers and their worship
for the clergy and worship of the Church of England ; and even

1863-68] A LETTER ON IRVINGISM 531
in such a case the law is only invoked to compel registration.
If, therefore, the persons by whom you feel yourself aggrieved
have registered their building as a dissenting meeting-house, your
wise course is to leave them alone as much as possible, merely
using your private influence with those whom you can reach to
point out to them the great irregularity of the course pursued.
No clergyman of this diocese will think of officiating in the build
ing in question.
" If you desire more specific advice, I shall be glad to give it.
I have contented myself with recommending that general course
of quiet forbearance which, I think, is right in itself, and most
likely to keep your people attached to yourself and to the Church.
— Believe me to remain, my dear Mr.  , yours very truly,
" A. C. London."
Irvingism was in those years attracting more attention
than now. In August 1862, the Bishop writes to a
friend : —
"... I have read the greater part of the second volume of
• living's life. He was plainly mad, and so for the time were all
the people who prophesied to him, though one of them— Baxter,
the solicitor — is a shrewd man of business, whom I often see in
London. I was struck, however, this morning, in reading the
2nd Lesson from the Acts, with the thought how completely they
lived as St. Paul and his company, looking for distinct guidance
at every turn. The Apostle had good grounds, and they had not ;
but the frame of mind in both was much the same — a waiting
upon God for guidance at every step. I suppose we all may have
this guidance if we will look for it, but we have no right to look
for it otherwise than in the common indications of God's will.
The scene of Mr. Baxter, a quiet solicitor, going to the Court of
Chancery, and waiting there four hours in expectation of a
message from heaven to deliver to the Chancellor, is painfully
strange. . . ."
Important efforts were made during these years, under
the Bishop's guidance, to promote a better system of
middle-class education in London, and the religious diffi
culty came, as always, to the front. The Bishop's known
sympathy with the liberal school in educational matters

532 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xviii.
led some of his friends to suppose that he would agree
with them in deciding to cut the troublesome knot by
making the education in the proposed schools secular
only, and leaving the religious teaching to be given at
home or elsewhere. The Bishop hastened to assure them
that such was not his view : —

The Bishop of London to the Rev. W. Rogers.
" London House, S.W.,
Aprils, l866-
" My dear Rogers, — I have read an article in the Times of
to-day on your scheme of middle-class education. Some remarks
in this article make it necessary for me to remind you that, when
I consented to connect my name with your scheme, I stated as
distinctly as I could that you must adopt a system of religious
instruction. ... I am as distinctly convinced as I ever was in
my life of the following axioms, which I inherited from Dr.
Arnold, if I did not receive them long before I came under the
influence of his great authority : —
" ist. That a system of mere secular instruction is not
education. " idly. That there can be no real education without religious
teaching, and that such religious teaching must be based on
doctrine, in the highest and purest sense of that word.
" ylly. That when circumstances make people rest satisfied
with a system of mere secular instruction in any educational insti
tution, they consent to act under a great disadvantage, to which
they ought not to subject those whom they would instruct with
out a proved necessity, and without taking other means to fill up
the deficiency.
" 4thly. That it is quite possible to give a sound Christian
education and instruction, based on the great Gospel verities,
which shall include the mass of English children, even those who
do not belong to the Church.
" Now I do not see any necessity for so great a sacrifice as a
purely secular system implies in the case of those for whom you
wish to provide. The large number of Jewish children can well
be provided for by an authorised exemption.

1863-68] EDUCATION MUST BE RELIGIOUS 533
"I understood at our meeting that the intention was to
appoint a clergyman of the Church of England head-master, and
to leave him free to arrange the system with the Council. But
everything which has been published in the newspapers appears
to me to be written with a different view, and I feel that the time
has come when the real state of the case must be put forward. I
do not think it is fair to the public to leave any further doubt on
the subject, and I am sure you would not wish my name to be
used either as approving principles which I disapprove, or to con
ciliate to the scheme persons who are good enough to trust me,
while it is not intended that the views I can alone approve shall
prevail. " I leave it to yourself to determine how this difficulty is to
be met, but met I am sure it must be, or the scheme will fail
from not being honestly brought before the public in its true
colours. What you want is such a system for the middle class
as Rugby has long offered for the higher, with the exceptions
which the fact of your institution being a day school for London
boys necessitates. And I am sure the sooner you make this dis
tinctly known, either by the publication of this letter or otherwise,
the better. . . . — Yours sincerely, A. C. London."
And again, a few weeks later : —
"I have no belief in a system which, whenever education
comes athwart direct religious teaching, as it must do continually,
tries to evade difficulties by an unworthy compromise."
Such extracts as this Chapter has exhibited from the
voluminous and varied correspondence of the Bishop's
London years might easily be multiplied. But a sufficient
picture has probably been presented of what were, during
those twelve years, his public life and policy. It would
be inappropriate, even if it were possible, to depict in like
manner the home-life of London House and Fulham
during his Episcopate. Some glimpses of that remarkable
home-life he has himself given to the world in the Memoirs
of his wife and son. In the spring of 1868 he purchased,
by means of a bequest which had been left him by a

534 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xviii.
distant relative, the small estate of Stonehouse, in the Isle
of Thanet. " This home," he writes, " was intended as a refuge from the
almost overwhelming work and anxieties of the diocese of London.
It had been an established and necessary rule that the Bishop
of London should escape from his labours and out of his diocese
for a considerable vacation every year ; without this alleviation,
no human constitution could stand the pressure of the constant
work. Hitherto we had wandered in our vacations from one
spot to another. It seemed better now, as an opportunity
presented itself, to secure a fixed vacation-hor..e to which our
children and ourselves might always together turn, and where
we might all together carry on our home pursuits without the
interruption of seeking a new residence each season. We had
no thought then in entering on- 1868 that it was to be the last
year of our connection with the See of London, and that the
place in which we settled our private home was in the new
diocese to which I was so soon to be called."1

Diary.
"Stonehouse, Sunday, 1st Novr. {All Saints' Day) 1868. —
Preached at Broadstairs. What events in so short a time!
Tuesday evening I learned from Mr. Hodgson how ill the Arch
bishop of Canterbury was, . . . and by Wednesday (Oct. 28th)
at noon, the flags half-mast high and the tolling bells announced
to the Thanet part of his diocese that he had gone to his rest. . . .
" Stonehouse, Sunday, 8th Novr. — On Tuesday (Nov. 3) I
attended the dear Archbishop's funeral at Addington, returning
here at night. A sad sight, that large family party following his
coffin to the little church. . . . To-day I preached at Ramsgate.
The newspapers and all letters full of speculations as to the
Archbishopric. . . . We are very quiet down here, away from
all the turmoil. God will guide those who have to act for the
Church. . . . With the decease of the second Archbishop with
whom I have served on the Bench, I seem to enter on a third
stage of my Episcopate. Whether it be short or long, O Lord,
grant that it may be spent with a single eye to Thy glory and to
1 Catharine and Craufurd Tait, pp. 60, 61.

1863-68] NOMINATION TO THE PRIMACY 535
the good of souls. The calm of this seaside retreat is very grate
ful. We are having a new honeymoon after twenty-five years of
married life.
" Tuesday, Novr. 17, 1868. — The days passed quietly at Stone
house after the good Archbishop's funeral, and I and Catharine
remained very little if at all anxious. I felt almost certain that
the Archbishop of York would be appointed to Canterbury and
the Bishop of Oxford to York. When friends came down they
introduced a little of the anxiety which, it appeared, was growing
in London, and on Sunday when Henry Selfe and A. came, they
were so much excited that it was impossible not to feel a little of
it. They went away on Wednesday, and we fell again into our
quiet state. . . . On Friday morning (Nov. 13th) Fisher entered
and gave Disraeli's letter into my hand. In the afternoon he
returned to London with my answer."
The letters in question were as follows : —
The Right Hon. B. Disraeli to the Bishop of London.
"Grosvenor Gate, Nov. 12, 1868.
" My dear Lord, — It is my desire, if it meet your own wishes,
to recommend Her Majesty to elevate you to the Primacy.
" I can assure you, in so doing, I feel a responsibility as grave
as any your Lordship can experience if you accept this paramount
trust ; but I believe that I am taking a course which will be the
most serviceable to the Church, especially at this critical moment
in its history. — I have the honour to remain, my dear Lord,
faithfully yours, B. Disraeli."

The Bishop of London to the Right Hon. B. Disraeli.
"Stonehouse, Thanet, 13 Nov. 1868.
" My dear Sir, — I have this morning received your letter of
yesterday. I accept with a deep feeling of responsibility the offer
which you make in terms so kind and considerate, and I pray
that, by the Divine blessing, I may be guided aright in these
difficult days. Grateful for your kindly feeling towards myself, I
remain, my dear Sir, yours very faithfully, A. C. London."

536 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xviii.

Diary.
" On Saturday, Catharine and I went up to London, that I
might be ready for the consecration of the Bishop of Peterborough
in Whitehall Chapel on Sunday. I thought it necessary to send
a line to the Archbishop of York and the Bishops of Oxford and
Ripon, who were to assist at the consecration.
" That [Sunday] was a solemn day. The circumstances were
peculiar indeed. The public did not know of my appointment.
There was a great solemnity in going through that remarkable
service, just as I was closing the Episcopate which began in the
same chapel exactly twelve years before. . . .
" Next morning the Times announced the appointment, and I
had an interview with Disraeli, the details of which were curious.
. . . The servant announced me as Archbishop of Canterbury,
on which I said that was not my mode of announcing myself.
This led him to say that he had hoped to keep the matter secret
till all his appointments were ready. Then he harangued me on
the state of the Church ; spoke of rationalists, explained that those
now so called did not follow Paulus. He spoke at large of his
desire to rally a Church party, which, omitting the extremes of
rationalism and ritualism, should unite all other sections of the
Church ; alluded to his Church appointments as aiming at this —
Champneys, Merivale, Wordsworth, Gregory, Leighton, myself,
Jackson. He promised to support a Church Discipline Bill, but
deprecated its being brought in by Lord Shaftesbury. Remarked
that, whether in office or out, he had a large Church party. . . .
I stated my views shortly, and we separated. I have only seen
him once since. Within a very short time he had resigned
office."

A few extracts may perhaps be given from the letters
of congratulation which he received.
Bishop Thirlwall, of St. David's, wrote : —
" Rejoicing as I do in your elevation to the Primacy, when I
consider how enormously the ordinary cares and anxieties of the
office are increased by the present circumstances of the Church,
I could hardly have treated your appointment as matter for
personal congratulation, if it were not that to be generally recog-

1863-68] LETTERS OF FRIENDS 537
nised as the fittest person to fill such a place at such a juncture is
itself an honour higher than the dignity itself. I believe you are
so recognised by all who do not belong to the party of those
whom it will not be the lightest part of your task to keep within
due bounds ; and this well-earned confidence will be one element
of your strength. I am myself persuaded that the helm could not
have been placed in hands better able to steer our vessel through
the straits in which she is now entangled, and most heartily do I
hope that you will be blessed with a long continuance of health
and vigour for the labour and heat of the day, and that a main
part of the reward of your evening may consist in the prosperity of
your work."
" Looking to the future of the English Church," wrote Pro
fessor Lightfoot, " at a great crisis in her history, I cannot but
feel most deeply thankful for the appointment. . . . Alas ! there
is one sad thought connected with an event which otherwise
would have given unmingled joy : the pleasant associations con
nected with Fulham must now become memories, (is Seivbv r)
(j>i\ox<»pia. But, if I feel this, the wrench to yourself must be
very far greater."
Dean Stanley wrote : —
" It is indeed a solemn, almost an awful, thought to think
that you are in the place where, of all others, you can do most
good to the Church and country — the place which of all others
had most need of you in this most critical juncture. A thousand
thoughts of the past and future rush into my mind. In no
common sense I do indeed trust and pray that grace and strength
may be given to you in the years that — so we cannot help hoping
and believing — may be prolonged, in a sphere, if more arduous,
yet less laborious, than that which you will leave.
The Rev. F. D. Maurice wrote : —
" It can scarcely have satisfied any of us to join in general
addresses of regret at the loss we have suffered, and of thankful
ness for the blessing which has been granted to the Church.
Each of us has had special experience of your care of us, which
cannot be forgotten, and which has done much to teach us what a
' Father in God ' means. I am sure your Grace does not wish for

538 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xviii.
congratulations on the burdens of new responsibility which it has
pleased God to lay upon you. But it may be one of the means
by which He enables you to sustain them, to know how much
clergymen of all opinions, popular and unpopular, have looked
up to you and trusted you. May your Grace be a witness to the
whole Church, as you have been to us in this diocese, that there
is a unity in Christ which no differences can destroy or even
impair." Dean Hook wrote from Chichester : —
" I remember, though you may have forgotten, that when the
late Dean of Carlisle was nominated to the See of London, I took
the liberty of predicting the success of your labours, from my
acquaintance with the peculiar talent you possess for ' ruling
without showing that you rule ' the most unruly of men, the
clergy. My prediction has been fulfilled, for I believe that no
Bishop of London has accomplished so much as you have done.
... In my old age I again assume the character of a prophet,
and I foretell that the historian who shall succeed me will, when
he records your administration of the Province of Canterbury,
have to place the name of Tait among the most distinguished of
the many eminent men who have sat in the throne of Augustine.
I only hope that you will not forget that a Metropolitan is more
than a Diocesan, and that the weight of your character will be
felt throughout the Province. . . I am still devoted to the
Church's cause, and, having three sons and two sons-in-law, I have
the pleasure of knowing that they have inherited my loyalty. . . .
Perhaps they may be doomed to martyrdom, for I think in the
predicted falling-away there will be a persecution of the clergy of
all denominations. ... I am so near the end that I hope it will
not come in my time, for I am terribly sensitive, and should not
like to burn. The burning of a fat man would be awful ! I will
not congratulate you on having incurred fresh responsibilities,
but I may be permitted to congratulate Mrs. Tait on the tribute
paid to her husband's merits with an approbation, I may say, all
but universal. ... If our friend Stanley is appointed to
London, I shall turn Red Republican, and go in for Disestablish
ment."

His old Oxford friend and tutor, Mr. Frederick Oakeley,

1863-68] LAST DAYS AT FULHAM 539
who had now for many years been working as a Roman
Catholic priest in Islington, wrote in terms of the warmest
affection, adding —
" I remember it was what your friends predicted long, long
ago at Balliol, and it is an evidence of our prescience. . . . What
a curious fact it is that one like myself should have been a pupil
of the Bishop of Winchester and the tutor of the Archbishop of
Canterbury." 1 Diary.
"Stonehouse, Novr. 22, 1868. — I have been almost over
whelmed by letters of congratulation and good-will. . . . To-day
I have preached at St. Peter's. I intended to have had the day
quiet for prayer and reading. I do feel, I think, in this great
change, the nearness of the final change, and the nothingness of
earthly honours. Such things come to a man of my age, and in
my state of health, with a very softened feeling. O Lord, keep
me day by day waiting upon Thee, day by day striving simply to
do Thy will, through Jesus Christ. Give me the will and the
power to fulfil the duties of this awful post in quiet dependence
upon Thee.
" 23 November 1868. — We have sent off to-day about 160
letters. This is the anniversary of my consecration in Whitehall
Chapel twelve years ago. . . . How greatly have I been blessed
during these years ! . . . Great has been the assistance I have re
ceived from the laity rallying round me, especially in the matter
of the ' Bishop of London's Fund.' . . . The principle on which
I have gone all these twelve years has been not to repress, and
always, if possible, to encourage every zealous effort to advance
Christ's cause. . . . Amid many mistakes and abundant failures
on my own part, God has watched over the work. Lord, I pray
Thee to grant that in this new post I may be sustained by Thee.
Teach me to live a quieter, a more calm, a holier life. I thank
Thee, O Lord, for the great help I have received from my dear
wife. Spare her to me, I beseech Thee, for Jesus Christ's
sake. . . .
"Fulham, Christmas Day, 1868. — The ordination week
passed, full of work and solemn interest. My last address to the
1 See above, p. 44.

54° LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [ch. xviii.
candidates in this chapel. And now our last Christmas Day.
Preached in Fulham Church, extempore. An excellent sermon
by Fisher in the chapel, which was full of the parish, in the after
noon. Lighted up, it looked beautiful. The Choir of Fulham
Church came, and we had carols and hymns in the hall, and all
our old people, and the orphans who had roused us in early morn
ing by their Christmas hymns. A happy, holy Christmas to end
our Fulham time.
"Fulham, 31^ December, 11.30 p.m. — I have seen the sun
of 1868 go down over the Thames, as I have watched the last sun
of many years back. . . . Year has succeeded year, and time has
healed our wounds, and Craufurd has become a man, and Edith
and Agnes have been added to our family, and much happiness
has, by God's mercy, been ours in this home. And now we have
come to the end of our connection with Fulham, and, before long,
we shall, for the short remainder of our life, be launched on a
new home. O Lord, forgive my many shortcomings for the past;
O strengthen me for the time to come. Yesterday, as my last
act, I published my letter to Mr. Mackonochie.1 I trust it may
do good. Grant, Lord, that all good men may be united in
mutual forbearance, and work each according to his own way in
saving souls, but avoiding foolish contentions from mere obstinacy,
whereby the Church of Christ is rent asunder. O Lord, this year
will close in a few minutes. We shall hear the bells from many
spires announcing its death. Raise us to hopes of a bright im
mortality with Thee for ever. Amen."
1 See above, p. 435.

END OF VOL. I

Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to Her Majesty,
at the Edinburgh University Press.