go
to Barchester. There were wheels within wheels in this affair.
For some time past Mr. Arabin had been engaged in a tremendous
controversy with no less a person than Mr. Slope, respecting the
apostolic succession. These two gentlemen had never seen each
other, but they had been extremely bitter in print. Mr. Slope had
endeavoured to strengthen his cause by calling Mr. Arabin an owl, and
Mr. Arabin had retaliated by hinting that Mr. Slope was an infidel.
This battle had been commenced in the columns of "The Jupiter,"
a powerful newspaper, the manager of which was very friendly to
Mr. Slope's view of the case. The matter, however, had become
too tedious for the readers of "The Jupiter," and a little note
had therefore been appended to one of Mr. Slope's most telling
rejoinders, in which it had been stated that no further letters from
the reverend gentlemen could be inserted except as advertisements.

Other methods of publication were, however, found, less expensive
than advertisements in "The Jupiter," and the war went on merrily. Mr.
Slope declared that the main part of the consecration of a clergyman
was the self-devotion of the inner man to the duties of the ministry.
Mr. Arabin contended that a man was not consecrated at all, had,
indeed, no single attribute of a clergyman, unless he became so
through the imposition of some bishop's hands, who had become a
bishop through the imposition of other hands, and so on in a direct
line to one of the apostles. Each had repeatedly hung the other on
the horns of a dilemma, but neither seemed to be a whit the worse for
the hanging; and so the war went on merrily.

Whether or no the near neighbourhood of the foe may have acted in any
way as an inducement to Mr. Arabin to accept the living of St. Ewold,
we will not pretend to say; but it had at any rate been settled in
Dr. Gwynne's library, at Lazarus, that he would accept it, and that he
would lend his assistance towards driving the enemy out of Barchester,
or, at any rate, silencing him while he remained there. Mr. Arabin
intended to keep his rooms at Oxford and to have the assistance of a
curate at St. Ewold, but he promised to give as much time as possible
to the neighbourhood of Barchester, and from so great a man Dr. Grantly
was quite satisfied with such a promise. It was no small part of the
satisfaction derivable from such an arrangement that Bishop Proudie
would be forced to institute into a living immediately under hi