, in support of Lord
Beaconsfield's ministry, in utter indifference or in utter ignorance as
to what support of Lord Beaconsfield's ministry meant. The Conservative
party was conventionally supposed to be the Church party; and so men
calling themselves Christians, calling themselves clergymen, rushed,
with the cry of "Church" in their mouths, to do all that in them lay for
the sworn allies of Antichrist.

A constituency which could return a supporter of Lord Beaconsfield in
1878 is hopelessly Tory--hopelessly that is, till a new generation shall
have supplanted the existing one. It is Conservative, not in the sense
of acting on any intelligible Conservative principle, but in the sense
of supporting anything that calls itself Conservative, be its principles
what they may. No measure could be less really Conservative, none could
more be opposed to the feelings and traditions of a large part of the
clergy, than the Public Worship Act. A large part of the clergy grumbled
at it; some voted for the Liberals in 1880 on the strength of it; but it
did not arouse a discontent so strong or so general as seriously to
deprive the so-called Conservative party of clerical support. It was
perhaps unreasonable to expect much change in the older class of
electors, clerical or lay; but the results of the two elections, of
Oxford in 1878 and of Cambridge in 1882, are disappointing in another
way. The Universities, and therewith the University constituencies, have
largely increased within the last few years. The number of electors at
Oxford is far greater than it was in the days of Mr. Gladstone's
elections; at Cambridge the increase must be greater still since any
earlier election at which a poll was taken. And it was certainly hoped
that the increase would have been altogether favourable to the Liberal
side. Among the new electors there was a large lay element, a certain
Nonconformist element; even among the clergy a party was known to be
growing who had found the way to reconcile strict Churchmanship with
Liberal politics, and whose Christianity was not of the kind which is
satisfied to walk hand-in-hand with the Turk. In these different ways it
was only reasonable to expect that the result of an University election
was now likely to be, if not the actual return of a Liberal member, yet
at least a poll which should show that the Conservative majority was
largely diminished. Instead of this, both at Oxford in 1878 and at
Cambridge in 1882