We find (he exclaims), oh, most joyful, most wonderful, most unexpected sight! we find the whole cycle of Roman doctrine gradually possessing numbers of English Churchmen....  Three years have passed since I said plainly that in subscribing the Articles I renounce no Roman doctrine; yet I retain my fellowship which I hold on the tenure of subscription, and have received no ecclesiastical censure in any shape.[121]

There was much to learn from the book; much that might bring home to the most loyal Churchman a sense of shortcomings, a burning desire for improvement; much that might give every one a great deal to think about, on some of the deepest problems of the intellectual and religious life.  But it could not be expected that such a challenge, in such sentences as these, should remain unnoticed.

The book came out in the Long Vacation, and it was not till the University met in October that signs of storm began to appear.  But before it broke an incident occurred which inflamed men’s tempers.  Dr. Wynter’s reign as Vice-Chancellor had come to a close, and the next person, according to the usual custom of succession, was Dr. Symons, Warden of Wadham.  Dr. Symons had never concealed his strong hostility to the movement, and he had been one of Dr. Pusey’s judges.  The prospect of a partisan Vice-Chancellor, certainly very determined, and supposed not to be over-scrupulous, was alarming.  The consent of Convocation to the Chancellor’s nomination of his substitute had always been given in words, though no instance of its having been refused was known, at least in recent times.  But a great jealousy about the rights of Convocation had been growing up under the late autocratic policy of the Heads, and there was a disposition to assert, and even to stretch these rights, a disposition not confined to the party of the movement.  It was proposed to challenge Dr. Symons’s nomination.  Great doubts were felt and expressed about the wisdom of the proposal; but at length opposition was resolved upon.  The step was a warning to the Heads, who had been provoking enough; but there was not enough to warrant such a violent departure from usage, and it was the act of exasperation rather than of wisdom.  The blame for it must be shared between the few who fiercely urged it, and the many who disapproved and acquiesced.  On the day of nomination, the scrutiny was allowed, salva auctoritate Cancellarii; but Dr. Symons’s opponents were completely defeated by 883 to 183.  It counted, not unreasonably, as a “Puseyite defeat.”

The attempt and its result made it certain that in the attack that was sure to come on Mr. Ward’s book, he would meet with no mercy.  As soon as term began the Board of Heads of Houses took up the matter; they were earnestly exhorted to it by a letter of Archbishop Whately’s, which was read at the Board.  But they wanted no pressing, nor is it astonishing that they could not understand the claim