1, he arrived in London; on the 6th of
August he wrote, "All is settled;" and on the 7th of November the new
Bishop of Jerusalem was consecrated. Seldom was a more important and more
complicated transaction settled in so short a time. Had the discussions
been prolonged, had time been given to the leaders of the Romanizing party
to recover from their surprise, the bill that had to be passed through
both houses would certainly have been defeated. People have hardly yet
understood the real bearing of that measure, nor appreciated the germ
which it may still contain for the future of the Reformed Church. One man
only seems to have seen clearly what a blow this first attempt at a union
between the Protestant churches of England and Germany was to his own
plans, and to the plans of his friends; and we know now, from Newman's
"Apologia," that the bishopric of Jerusalem drove him to the Church of
Rome. This may have been for the time a great loss to the Church of
England; it marked, at all events, a great crisis in her history.

In spite, however, of his great and unexpected success, there are traces
of weariness in Bunsen's letters of that time, which show that he was
longing for more congenial work. "O, how I hate and detest diplomatic
life!" he wrote to his wife; "and how little true intellectuality is there
in the high society here as soon as you cease to speak of English national
subjects and interests; and the eternal hurricanes, whirling, urging,
rushing, in this monster of a town! Even with you and the children life
would become oppressive under the diplomatic burden. I can pray for our
country life, but I cannot pray for a London life, although I dare not
pray against it, _if it must be_."

Bunsen's observations of character amidst the distractions of his London
season are very interesting and striking, particularly at this distance of
time. He writes:--

"Mr. Gladstone has been invited to become one of the trustees of
the Jerusalem Fund. He is beset with scruples; his heart is with
us, but his mind is entangled in a narrow system. He awaits
salvation from another code, and by wholly different ways from
myself. Yesterday morning I had a letter from him of twenty-four
pages, to which I replied early this morning by eight.

"The Bishop of London constantly rises in my estimation. He has
replied admirably to Mr. Gladstone, closing with the words, 'My
dear sir, my intention is not