e. It seems as if London, like a lover of the weed,
were pacified by its own smoke. I saw two huge wagons turn from opposite
quarters into a narrow lane. The drivers kept their horses moving till
the heads of the leaders touched; then they sat still and looked at each
other. Both were determined that it was a point of honor to stay where
they were. After a few words of rather substantial English had passed
between them, both subsided into a dogged equanimity. A crowd gathered
instantly, but with as little tumult as ants make; it regarded the
occurrence as a milder form of pugilism, and watched the result with
interest. A policeman passed blandly from one wagon to the other,
represented the necessities of the public traffic, hoped they would
settle it shortly, urged the matter as an intimate friend of the
parties, till at length the man who was conscious that he turned into
the lane the last gathered up his reins and backed out of it. It was a
little index of the popular disposition; and I expected that as soon as
the country became convinced that it had driven rashly into our civil
strait, it would deliberately back out of it. And this it is now slowly
engaged in doing.

The two great parties of the Church and Liberalism are blocking each
other in the same manner; but in this case Liberalism has turned into
the great thoroughfare of the world's movement, and finds the Church,
like a disabled omnibus, disputing the passage by simply lying across
it. Dr. Temple and one hundred liberal Fellows of Oxford sent up to
Parliament a petition which prayed for the abolition of the subscription
test. At Oxford two subscriptions are required as a qualification for
academic degrees: one to the Thirty-Nine Articles, and one to the third
article of the thirty-sixth Canon. Liberal clergymen and members of the
Church of England find this test odious, because it constrains the
conscience to accept ancient formulas of belief without the benefit of
private interpretation. The conservatives desire to maintain the test,
thinking that it will be a barrier to the tide of private interpretation
which is just now mounting so high. The petitioners perceive that no
test can prevent a man from having his own thoughts; that it is
therefore obsolete; that it drives out of the Church the best
men,--those, namely, who think with independent vigor, and whose
activity would put a new soul into the old Establishment. When this
petition came up for debate i