so I understood him."

"After all," said Charles sadly, "it's not so much more than that other
Dean, I forget his name, said at St. Mary's before the Vacation; it's
part of the same system. Oh, it was after you went down, or just at the
end of term: you don't go to sermons; I'm inclined not to go either. I
can't enter upon the Dean's argument; it's not worth while. Well," he
added, standing up and stretching himself, "I am tired with the day, yet
it has not been a fatiguing one either; but London is so bustling a
place."

"You wish me to say good-night," said Sheffield. Charles did not deny
the charge; and the friends parted.

CHAPTER XV.

There could not have been a lecture more unfavourable for Charles's
peace of mind than that in which he found himself this term placed; yet,
so blind are we to the future, he hailed it with great satisfaction, as
if it was to bring him an answer to the perplexities into which
Sheffield, Bateman, Freeborn, White, Willis, Mr. Morley, Dr. Brownside,
Mr. Vincent, and the general state of Oxford, had all, in one way or
other, conspired to throw him. He had shown such abilities in the former
part of the year, and was reading so diligently, that his tutors put him
prematurely into the lecture upon the Articles. It was a capital lecture
so far as this, that the tutor who gave it had got up his subject
completely. He knew the whole history of the Articles, how they grew
into their present shape, with what fortunes, what had been added, and
when, and what omitted. With this, of course, was joined an explanation
of the text, as deduced, as far as could be, from the historical account
thus given. Not only the British, but the foreign Reformers were
introduced; and nothing was wanting, at least in the intention of the
lecturer, for fortifying the young inquirer in the doctrine and
discipline of the Church of England.

It did not produce this effect on Reding. Whether he had expected too
much, or whatever was the cause, so it was that he did but feel more
vividly the sentiment of the old father in the comedy, after consulting
the lawyers, "_Incertior sum multo quam ante_." He saw that the
profession of faith contained in the Articles was but a patchwork of
bits of orthodoxy, Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Zuinglism; and this too
on no principle; that it was but the work of accident, if there be such
a thing as accident; that it had come down in the particular shape in
which the English