The damsel Isabel is still at
Paris, whither yours truly is journeying to carry the child home to
our parents."
"I suppose Robert is still at Oxford?" said Lady Esmondet.
"No, at Rome; by the way, you and Vaura will see him; he is incumbent
of St. Augustine's."
"How strange it will be to see my old playmate (sad, wound up in
himself kind of boy he was) doing clergyman's duty," said Vaura.
"You should have heard," said Douglas, eagerly, "the pitched battles
he and I fought at vacation over the vexed question of High and Low
Church. I just went for him; and anyone overhearing would have thought
me an itinerant pedlar of theology--in the vulgar tongue, street
preacher--scorning all form as Papal; one would have thought me
encased in Gladstonian armour of Disestablishment, to have heard my
harangue. Poor Bob; in vain he expatiated on the glories of the
ancient fathers; in vain he took all the saints out for an airing; in
vain he talked of the ritual coming to us from the Jews of old; in
vain he asserted that Ritualism had brought life and vigour into a
slumbering church; in vain he talked of the old fox-hunting clergy; in
vain he talked of what a glorious thing for our church to give in a
little, and Rome to give in less; of how union would be strength, and
of the brave front we would show to all Christendom; of all we could
do in stamping out infidelity and rationalism; in fact, he was
sanguine of taking in everybody; all dissenters were to join us _en
masse_.
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