e death of his son, became a hermitage, he relapsed into
patristic and medieval conceptions of Christianity, enforcing them from
the pulpit and in his published works. He now virtually accepted the
famous dictum of Hugo of St. Victor--that one is first to find what is
to be believed, and then to search the Scriptures for proofs of it. His
devotion to the main features of the older interpretation was seen at
its strongest in his utterances regarding the book of Daniel. Just as
Cardinal Bellarmine had insisted that the doctrine of the incarnation
depends upon the retention of the Ptolemaic astronomy; just as Danzius
had insisted that the very continuance of religion depends on the
divine origin of the Hebrew punctuation; just as Peter Martyr had made
everything sacred depend on the literal acceptance of Genesis; just as
Bishop Warburton had insisted that Christianity absolutely depends upon
a right interpretation of the prophecies regarding Antichrist; just
as John Wesley had insisted that the truth of the Bible depends on the
reality of witchcraft; just as, at a later period, Bishop Wilberforce
insisted that the doctrine of the Incarnation depends on the "Mosaic"
statements regarding the origin of man; and just as Canon Liddon
insisted that Christianity itself depends on a literal belief in Noah's
flood, in the transformation of Lot's wife, and in the sojourn of Jonah
in the whale: so did Pusey then virtually insist that Christianity must
stand or fall with the early date of the book of Daniel. Happily, though
the Ptolemaic astronomy, and witchcraft, and the Genesis creation myths,
and the Adam, Noah, Lot, and Jonah legends, and the divine origin of
the Hebrew punctuation, and the prophecies regarding Antichrist, and the
early date of the book of Daniel have now been relegated to the limbo of
ontworn beliefs, Christianity has but come forth the stronger.

Nothing seemed less likely than that such a vast intrenched camp as that
of which Oxford was the centre could be carried by an effort proceeding
from a few isolated German and Dutch scholars. Yet it was the unexpected
which occurred; and it is instructive to note that, even at the
period when the champions of the older thought were to all appearance
impregnably intrenched in England, a way had been opened into their
citadel, and that the most effective agents in preparing it were really
the very men in the universities and cathedral chapters who had most
distinguished th