d Necessitarian follower of Mr. J.S. Mill. But
moral influences of a higher kind prevailed. And he became, in the most
thoroughgoing yet independent fashion, a disciple of Mr. Newman. He
brought to his new side a fresh power of controversial writing; but his
chief influence was a social one, from his bright and attractive
conversation, his bold and startling candour, his frank, not to say
reckless, fearlessness of consequences, his unrivalled skill in logical
fence, his unfailing good-humour and love of fun, in which his personal
clumsiness set off the vivacity and nimbleness of his joyous moods. "He
was," says Mr. Mozley, "a great musical critic, knew all the operas, and
was an admirable buffo singer."--No one could doubt that, having
started, Mr. Ward would go far and probably go fast.

Mr. Ward was well known in Oxford, and his language might have warned
the Heads that if there was a drift towards Rome, it came from something
much more serious than a hankering after a sentimental ritual or
mediaeval legends. In Mr. Ward's writings in the _British Critic_, as in
his conversation--and he wrote much and at great length--three ideas
were manifestly at the bottom of his attraction to Rome. One was that
Rome did, and, he believed, nothing else did, keep up the continuous
recognition of the supernatural element in religion, that consciousness
of an ever-present power not of this world which is so prominent a
feature in the New Testament, and which is spoken of there as a
permanent and characteristic element in the Gospel dispensation. The
Roman view of the nature and offices of the Church, of man's relations
to the unseen world, of devotion, of the Eucharist and of the Sacraments
in general, assumed and put forward this supernatural aspect; other
systems ignored it or made it mean nothing, unless in secret to the
individual and converted soul. In the next place he revolted--no weaker
word can be used--from the popular exhibition in England, more or less
Lutheran and Calvinistic, of the doctrine of justification. The
ostentatious separation of justification from morality, with all its
theological refinements and fictions, seemed to him profoundly
unscriptural, profoundly unreal and hollow, or else profoundly immoral.
In conscience and moral honesty and strict obedience he saw the only
safe and trustworthy guidance in regard to the choice and formation of
religious opinions; it was a principle on which all his philosophy was