writer who signed himself Rusticus, and whose name was Mr. F.D.  Maurice, defended subscription on the ground that the Articles were signed, not as tests and confessions of faith, but as “conditions of thought,” the expressly stated conditions, such as there must be in all teaching, under which the learners are willing to learn and the teacher to teach:  and he developed his view at great length, with great wealth of original thought and illustration and much eloquence, but with that fatal want of clearness which, as so often afterwards, came from his struggles to embrace in one large view what appeared opposite aspects of a difficult subject.  The other was the pamphlet, already referred to, by Dr. Hampden:  and of which the importance arose, not from its conclusions, but from its reasons.  Its ground was the distinction which he had argued out at great length in his Bampton Lectures—­the distinction between the “Divine facts” of revelation, and all human interpretations of them and inferences from them.  “Divine facts,” he maintained, were of course binding on all Christians, and in matter of fact were accepted by all who called themselves Christians, including Unitarians.  Human interpretations and inferences—­and all Church formularies were such—­were binding on no one but those who had reason to think them true; and therefore least of all on undergraduates who could not have examined them.  The distinction, when first put forward, seemed to mean much; at a later time it was explained to mean very little.  But at present its value as a ground of argument against the old system of the University was thought much of by its author and his friends.  A warning note was at once given that its significance was perceived and appreciated.  Mr. Newman, in acknowledging a presentation copy, added words which foreshadowed much that was to follow.  “While I respect,” he wrote, “the tone of piety which the pamphlet displays, I dare not trust myself to put on paper my feelings about the principles contained in it; tending, as they do, in my opinion, to make ship-wreck of Christian faith.  I also lament that, by its appearance, the first step has been taken towards interrupting that peace and mutual good understanding which has prevailed so long in this place, and which, if once seriously disturbed, will be succeeded by discussions the more intractable, because justified in the minds of those who resist innovation by a feeling of imperative duty.”  “Since that time,” he goes on in the Apologia, where he quotes this letter, “Phaeton has got into the chariot of the sun."[55] But they were early days then; and when the Heads of Houses, who the year before had joined with the great body of the University in a declaration against the threatened legislation, were persuaded to propose to the Oxford Convocation the abolition of subscription at matriculation in May 1835, this proposal was rejected by a majority of five to one.