th or the world could not have been created in six days, what was
that to me? Suppose it was proved to me that Christ could never have
given leave to the unclean spirits to enter into the swine, what was
that to me? Let Colenso and Bishop Wilberforce, let Huxley and
Gladstone fight about such matters; their turbulent waves could never
disturb me, could never even reach me in my safe harbour. I had little
to carry, no learned impedimenta to safeguard my faith. If a man
possesses this one pearl of great price, he may save himself and his
treasure, but neither the tinselled vestments of a Cardinal, nor the
triple tiara that crowns the Head of the Church, will serve as
life-belts in the gales of doubt and controversy. My friends at Oxford
did not know that, though with my one jewel I seemed outwardly poor, I
was really richer and safer than many a Cardinal and many a Doctor of
Divinity. A confession of faith, like a prayer, may be very long, but
the prayer of the Publican may have been more efficient than that of
the Pharisee.

After a time I made an even more painful discovery: I found men, who
were considered quite orthodox, but who really were without any
belief. They spoke to me very freely, because they imagined that as a
German I would think as they did, and that I should not be surprised
if they looked on me as not quite sincere. It was not only honest
doubt that disturbed them. They had done with honest doubt, and they
were satisfied with a kind of Voltairian philosophy, which at last
ended in pure agnosticism. But even that, even professed agnosticism,
I could understand, because it often meant no more than a confession
of ignorance with regard to God, which we all confess, and need not
necessarily amount to the denial of the existence of Deity. But that
Voltairian levity which scoffs at everything connected with religion
was certainly something I did not expect to meet with at Oxford, and
which even now perplexes me. Of course, I should never think of
mentioning names, but it seemed to me necessary to mention the fact,
to complete the curious mosaic of theological and religious thought
that existed at Oxford at the time of my arrival.

CHAPTER IX

A CONFESSION

One confession I have to make, and one for which I can hardly hope for
absolution, whether from my friends or from my enemies. I have never
done anything; I have never been a doer, a canvasser, a wirepuller, a
manager, in the ordinary sense of