ason. To say that his object was ever to raise a
laugh would be most untrue. He hated such common and unnecessary
evidence of satisfaction on the part of his hearers. A joke that
required to be laughed at was, with him, not worth uttering. He
could appreciate by a keener sense than that of his ears the success
of his wit, and would see in the eyes of his auditors whether or no
he was understood and appreciated.

He had been a religious lad before he left school. That is, he had
addicted himself to a party in religion, and having done so had
received that benefit which most men do who become partisans in such
a cause. We are much too apt to look at schism in our church as an
unmitigated evil. Moderate schism, if there may be such a thing, at
any rate calls attention to the subject, draws in supporters who
would otherwise have been inattentive to the matter, and teaches
men to think upon religion. How great an amount of good of this
description has followed that movement in the Church of England which
commenced with the publication of Froude's Remains!

As a boy young Arabin took up the cudgels on the side of the
Tractarians, and at Oxford he sat for a while at the feet of the
great Newman. To this cause he lent all his faculties. For it he
concocted verses, for it he made speeches, for it he scintillated
the brightest sparks of his quiet wit. For it he ate and drank and
dressed and had his being. In due process of time he took his degree
and wrote himself B.A., but he did not do so with any remarkable
amount of academical eclat. He had occupied himself too much
with High Church matters and the polemics, politics, and outward
demonstrations usually concurrent with High Churchmanship to devote
himself with sufficient vigour to the acquisition of a double first.
He was not a double first, nor even a first class man, but he
revenged himself on the university by putting firsts and double
firsts out of fashion for the year and laughing down a species of
pedantry which, at the age of twenty-three, leaves no room in a man's
mind for graver subjects than conic sections or Greek accents.

Greek accents, however, and conic sections were esteemed necessaries
at Balliol, and there was no admittance there for Mr. Arabin within
the list of its fellows. Lazarus, however, the richest and most
comfortable abode of Oxford dons, opened its bosom to the young
champion of a church militant. Mr. Arabin was ordained, and became
a fellow soo