s older colleague. In one point, however, they
differed greatly. Stanley was a keen fighter. He threw himself into
the forefront of ecclesiastical controversies, and was never seen to
greater advantage than when leading a small minority, defying
inveterate prejudice, defending an unpopular cause. Milman could
seldom be tempted to follow his example. He pleaded old age and
declining strength, but, in truth, though he never flinched from the
avowal of his own opinions, he had a deep and increasing distaste for
religious controversies and Church politics. He was rarely seen in
Convocation, and he always regarded its revival as a misfortune. He
proposed, however, in it a petition for the discontinuance of the use
of the State services commemorating the martyrdom of Charles I., the
restoration of Charles II., the discovery of the gunpowder plot, and
the Revolution of 1688; and Parliament soon after adopted his view. He
also sat on the Royal Commission in 1864 for considering the subject
of clerical subscription. He took on this occasion a characteristic
line, advocating a complete abolition of the subscription of the
Articles, and desiring that the sole test of membership of the Church
should be the acceptance of the Liturgy and the Creeds. In 1865 he
received an invitation, which greatly gratified him, to preach before
the University of Oxford the annual sermon on Hebrew prophecy. The
sermon was delivered in the pulpit of St. Mary's, where many years
before he had been so vehemently condemned for views on the same
subject, no one of which, as he truly said, he had either recanted or
modified. His sermon was afterwards printed, and would form a worthy
chapter of his 'History of the Jews.' In the Colenso controversy he
had no great sympathy with either side. Many of Bishop Colenso's
arguments appeared to him crude or exaggerated, and he dissented from
many of his conclusions, but he considered that he had been treated
with gross injustice and intolerance, and he accordingly subscribed to
his defence fund. For the rest, he confined his ecclesiastical life as
much as possible to his own cathedral, where he presided over the
State funeral of the Duke of Wellington, and where he introduced the
custom of throwing open the nave to evening services. His last and
unfinished work was his 'Annals of St. Paul's,' investigating its
history and portraying with his old learning and with much of his old
felicity the lives of his predecessors