Such foolishness, affecting dignity, only made more to talk of.  If the men who ruled the University had wished to disgust and alienate the Masters of Arts, and especially the younger ones who were coming forward into power and influence, they could not have done better.  The chronic jealousy and distrust of the time were deepened.  And all this was aggravated by what went on in private.  A system of espionage, whisperings, backbitings, and miserable tittle-tattle, sometimes of the most slanderous or the most ridiculous kind, was set going all over Oxford.  Never in Oxford, before or since, were busybodies more truculent or more unscrupulous.  Difficulties arose between Heads of Colleges and their tutors.  Candidates for fellowships were closely examined as to their opinions and their associates.  Men applying for testimonials were cross-questioned on No. 90, as to the infallibility of general councils, purgatory, the worship of images, the Ora pro nobis and the intercession of the saints:  the real critical questions upon which men’s minds were working being absolutely uncomprehended and ignored.  It was a miserable state of misunderstanding and distrust, and none of the University leaders had the temper and the manliness to endeavour with justice and knowledge to get to the bottom of it.  It was enough to suppose that a Popish Conspiracy was being carried on.

FOOTNOTES: 

[101] Pp. 243, 253.

[102] Garbett, 921.  Williams, 623.

[103] The numbers were 334 to 219.

[104] Christian Remembrancer, vol. ix. p. 175.

[105] Ibid. pp. 177-179.

[106] Cf. British Critic, No. xlvii. pp. 221-223.

CHAPTER XVII

W.G.  WARD

If only the Oxford authorities could have had patience—­if only they could have known more largely and more truly the deep changes that were at work everywhere, and how things were beginning to look in the eyes of the generation that was coming, perhaps many things might have been different.  Yes, it was true that there was a strong current setting towards Rome.  It was acting on some of the most vigorous of the younger men.  It was acting powerfully on the foremost mind in Oxford.  Whither, if not arrested, it was carrying them was clear, but as yet it was by no means clear at what rate; and time, and thought, and being left alone and dealt with justly, have a great effect on men’s minds.  Extravagance, disproportion, mischievous, dangerous exaggeration, in much that was said and taught—­all this might have settled down, as so many things are in the habit of settling down, into reasonable and practical shapes, after a first burst of crudeness and strain—­as, in fact, it did settle down at last.  For Anglicanism itself was not Roman; friends and foes said it was not, to reproach as well as to defend it.