fessor Birks, "his brows crowned with myrtle," going in
procession to the Temple of Aphrodite; the Duke of Somerset "running
into the strong tower" of Deism, and thinking himself "safe" there from
further questionings. This method of illustration threw an air of comedy
over the theme which it illustrated; and, if the criticism failed to
disturb faith in Biblical theology, the critic had only himself to
thank.

Another element in the satisfaction with which dignitaries and clergymen
came to regard him was the fact that he was so definitely a supporter of
the Church of England. To the principle of Established Churches, as part
of the wider principle of extending everywhere the scope of the State,
he was always friendly; but he felt the difficulty of maintaining them
where, as in Scotland, they had nothing to show except "a religious
service which is perhaps the most dismal performance ever invented by
man," and a theology shared by all the non-established bodies round
about. No such difficulty appeared in the case of the Church of England,
with its historic claim, its seemly worship, its distinctive doctrine;
so of that Church as by law established he was the consistent defender.
Towards ugliness, hideousness, rawness, whether manifested in life or in
letters, he was always implacable; and this sentiment no doubt accounts
for much of his hostility to Dissent. Margate was, in his eyes, a
"brick-and-mortar image of English Protestantism, representing it in all
its prose, all its uncomeliness--let me add, all its salubrity." When
criticising the proposal to let Dissenters bury their dead with their
own rites in the National Church-yards, he likened the dissenting
Service to a reading from Eliza Cook, and the Church's Service to a
reading from Milton, and protested against the Liberal attempt to
"import Eliza Cook into a public rite." He even was bold enough to cite
his friend Mr. John Morley as secretly sharing this repugnance to Eliza
Cook in a public rite. "_Scio, rex Agrippa, quia credis._ He is keeping
company with his Festus Chamberlain and his Drusilla Collings, and
cannot openly avow the truth; but in his heart he consents to it."

For the beauty, the poetry, the winningness of Catholic worship and
Catholic life Arnold had the keenest admiration. "The need for beauty is
a real and ever rapidly growing need in man; Puritanism cannot satisfy
it, Catholicism and the Church of England can." He dwelt with delighted
intere