e, probably, of his
power and penetration and sense of the absurd, was ever so ready to
comply with the two demands which a witty prelate proposed to put into
the examination in the Consecration Service of Bishops: "Wilt thou
answer thy letters?" "Wilt thou suffer fools gladly?" But courteous,
affable, easy as he was, he was a keen trier of character; he gauged,
and men felt that he gauged, their motives, their reality and soundness
of purpose; he let them see, if they at all came into his intimacy,
that if _they_ were not, _he_, at any rate, was in the deepest earnest.
And at an early period, in a memorable sermon,[62] the vivid impression
of which at the time still haunts the recollection of some who heard it,
he gave warning to his friends and to those whom his influence touched,
that no child's play lay before them; that they were making, it might be
without knowing it, the "Ventures of Faith." But feeling that he had
much to say, and that a university was a place for the circulation and
discussion of ideas, he let himself be seen and known and felt, both
publicly and in private. He had his breakfast parties and his evening
gatherings. His conversation ranged widely, marked by its peculiar
stamp--entire ease, unstudied perfection of apt and clean-cut words,
unexpected glimpses of a sure and piercing judgment. At times, at more
private meetings, the violin, which he knew how to touch, came into
play.

He had great gifts for leadership. But as a party chief he was also
deficient in some of the qualities which make a successful one. His
doctrine of the Church had the disadvantage of an apparently
intermediate and ambiguous position, refusing the broad, intelligible
watchwords and reasonings of popular religionism. It was not without
clearness and strength; but such a position naturally often leads to
what seem over-subtle modes of argument, seemingly over-subtle because
deeper and more original than the common ones; and he seemed sometimes
to want sobriety in his use of dialectic weapons, which he wielded with
such force and effect. Over-subtlety in the leader of a party tends to
perplex friends and give a handle to opponents. And with all his
confidence in his cause, and also in his power and his call to use it,
he had a curious shyness and self-distrust as to his own way of doing
what he had to do; he was afraid of "wilfulness," of too great reliance
on intellect. He had long been accustomed to observe and judge hims