ing how to express himself in fluent English, exclaimed in
a loud voice, "I know it by the Holy Ghost." Here the conversation
naturally stopped, and poor Ewald was allowed to finish his dinner in
peace. He had been Professor at Bonn, when Pusey came there as a young
man to study Hebrew after he had been appointed Canon of Christ Church
and Professor of Hebrew, and he expressed to me a wish to see Dr.
Pusey. I told him it would not be easy to arrange a meeting,
considering how strongly opposed Dr. Pusey was to Ewald's opinions.
Personally I always found Pusey tolerant, and his kindness to me was a
surprise to all my young friends. But the fact was, we moved on
different planes, and though he knew my religious opinions well, they
only excited a smile, and he often said with a sigh, "I know you are a
German." His own idea was that he was placed at Oxford in order to
save the younger generation from seeing the abyss into which he
himself had looked with terror. He had read more heresy, he used to
say, than anybody, and he wished no one to pass through the trials
and agonies through which he had passed, chiefly, I should think,
during his stay at a German university. The historical element was
wanting in him, nay, like Hegel, he sometimes seemed to lay stress on
the unhistorical character of Christianity. My idea, on the contrary,
was that Christianity was a true historical event, prepared by many
events that had gone before and alone made it possible and real. Even
the abyss, if there were such an abyss, was, as it seemed to me, meant
to be there on our passage through life, and was to be faced with a
brave heart.

But to return to my first experiences of the theological atmosphere of
Oxford, I confess I felt puzzled to see men, whose learning and
character I sincerely admired, absorbed in subjects which to my mind
seemed simply childish. I expected I should hear from them some new
views on the date of the gospels, the meaning of revelation, the
historical value of revelation, or the early history of the Church.
No, of all this not a word. Nothing but discussions on vestments, on
private confession, on candles on the altar, whether they were wanted
or not, on the altar being made of stone or of wood, of consecrated
wine being mixed with water, of the priest turning his back on the
congregation, &c. I could not understand how these men, so high above
the ordinary level of men in all other respects, could put aside the
funda