rent liturgies and subscribing different articles,--his favourite
pattern for the church of England. Pusey at first rather liked the idea
of a bishop to represent the ancient British church in the city of the
Holy Sepulchre; but Newman and Hope, with a keener instinct for their
position, distrusted the whole design in root and branch as a betrayal
of the church, and Pusey soon came to their mind. With caustic scorn
Newman asked how the anglican church, without ceasing to be a church,
could become an associate and protector of nestorians, jacobites,
monophysites, and all the heretics one could hear of, and even form a
sort of league with the mussulman against the Greek orthodox and the
Latin catholics. Mr. Gladstone could not be drawn to go these lengths.
Nobody could be more of a logician than Mr. Gladstone when he liked, no
logician could wield a more trenchant blade; but nobody ever knew better
in complex circumstance the perils of the logical short cut. Hence,
according to his general manner in all dubious cases, he moved slowly,
and laboured to remove practical grounds for objection. Ashley describes
him (October 16) at a dinner at Bunsen's rejoicing in the bishopric, and
proposing the health of the new prelate, and this gave Ashley pleasure,
for 'Gladstone is a good man and a clever man and an industrious
man.'[184] While resolute against any plan for what Hope called
gathering up the scraps of Christendom and making a new church out of
them, and resolute against what he himself called the inauguration of an
experimental or fancy church, Mr. Gladstone declared himself ready 'to
brave misconstruction for the sake of union with any Christian men,
provided the terms of union were not contrary to sound principles.' With
a strenuous patience that was thoroughly characteristic, he set to work
to bring the details of the scheme into an order conformable to his own
views, and he even became a trustee of the endowment fund. Two bishops
in succession filled the see, but in the fulness of time most men agreed
with Newman, who 'never heard of any either good or harm that bishopric
had ever done,' except what it had done for him. To him it gave a final
shake, and brought him on to the beginning of the end.[185]

In the summer of 1842 Mr. Gladstone received confidences that amazed
him. Here is a passage from his diary:--

_July 31, 1842._--Walk with R. Williams to converse on the subject
of our recent letters. I made i