that of Dr. Wellesley, the Principal of New Inn Hall, who was a friend
of Johnson's and had collected most valuable antiquities during his
long stay in Italy. He was the son of the Marquis of Wellesley, a
handsome man, with all the refinement and courtesy of the old English
gentleman. Though not perhaps very useful in the work of the
University, he was most pleasant to live with, and full of information
in his own line of study, the history of art, chiefly of Italian art.

The beautiful services of the Roman Church abroad, and particularly at
Rome, certainly exercised a kind of magic attraction on many of the
friends of Wiseman and Newman, though one wonders that the sunny
grandeur of St. Peter's at Rome should ever have seemed more
impressive than the sombre sublimity and serene magnificence of
Westminster Abbey. Unfortunately, the introduction of a more ornate
service, even of harmless candlesticks and the often very useful
incense, had always a secret meaning. They were used as symbols of
something of which the people had no conception, whereas in the early
Church they had been really natural and useful.

In the midst of all this commotion, and chiefly secret commotion, I
felt a perfect stranger; I saw the bright and dark sides, but I
confess I saw little of what I called religion. Though my own
religious struggles lay behind me, still there were many questions
which pressed for a solution, but for which my friends at Oxford
seemed either indifferent or unprepared. My practical religion was
what I had learnt from my mother; that remained unshaken in all
storms, and in its extreme simplicity and childishness answered all
the purposes for which religion is meant. Then followed, in the
Universities of Leipzig and Berlin, the purely historical and
scientific treatment of religion, which, while it explained many
things and destroyed many things, never interfered with my early ideas
of right and wrong, never disturbed my life with God and in God, and
seemed to satisfy all my religious wants. I never was frightened or
shaken by the critical writings of Strauss or Ewald, of Renan or
Colenso. If what they said had an honest ring, I was delighted, for I
felt quite certain that they could never deprive me of the little I
really wanted. That little could never be little enough; it was like a
stronghold with no fortifications, no trenches, and no walls around
it. Suppose it was proved to me that, on geological evidence, the
ear