been brought into contact hardly at all.[43] Newman
and one of the Wilberforces came to dine at Cuddesdon one day, and, on a
later occasion, he and another fellow of Oriel were at a dinner with Mr.
Gladstone at the table of his friend Philip Pusey. Two or three of his
sermons are mentioned. One of them (March 7, 1831) contained 'much
singular, not to say objectionable matter, if one may so speak of so
good a man.' Of another,--'heard Newman preach a good sermon on those
who made excuse' (Sept. 25, 1831). Of the generality of university
sermons, he accepted the observation of his friend Anstice,--'Depend
upon it, such sermons as those can never convert a single person.' On
some Sundays he hears two of these discourses in the morning and
afternoon, and a third sermon in the evening, for though he became the
most copious of all speakers, Mr. Gladstone was ever the most generous
of listeners. It was at St. Ebb's that he found really congenial
ministrations--an ecclesiastical centre described by him fifty years
later--under Mr. Bulteel, a man of some note in his day; here the flame
was at white heat, and a score or two of young men felt its
attractions.[44] He always remembered among the wonderful sights of his
life, St. Mary's 'crammed in all parts by all orders, when Mr. Bulteel,
an outlying calvinist, preached his accusatory sermon (some of it too
true) against the university.' In the summer of 1830, Mr. Gladstone
notes, 'Poor Bulteel has lost his church for preaching in the open air.
Pity that he should have acted so, and pity that it should be found
necessary to make such an example of a man of God.' The preacher was
impenitent, for from a window Mr. Gladstone again heard him conduct a
service for a large congregation who listened attentively to a sermon
that was interesting, but evinced some soreness of spirit. A 'most
painful' discourse from a Mr. Crowther so moves Mr. Gladstone that he
sits down to write to the preacher, 'earnestly expostulating with him on
the character and the doctrines of the sermon,' and after re-writing his
letter, he delivers it with his own hand at the door of the displeasing
divine. The effect was not other than salutary, for a little later he
was 'happy to hear two sermons of good principles from Mr. Crowther.' To
his father, October 27, 1830:--'Dr. Chalmers has been passing through
Oxford, and I went to hear him preach on Sunday evening, though it was
at the baptist chapel.... I need hardly s