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leant, to whom he looked for advice and support with absolute confidence. . . The other tutors all felt there was in Tait a manliness and sense and a weight of character to which they could not but defer. The undergraduates all respected and liked him. They felt there was no getting round him. His shrewdness, his dry and not unkindly humour, were too much for them; and if any one, more forward than the rest, tried to cross swords with him, he had in his calm presence of mind an impregnable defence."

His attitude to the Tractarian movement was defined in 1838 in a letter about the Glasgow professorship: "There is a party in this University who have become somewhat famous of late (vide the last Edinburgh Review), persons who hold extremely High Church doctrines about episcopal authority, and who regard the Kirk of Scotland as the synagogue of Baal. With these it would be peculiarly hard if I were at all identified on the present occasion, as I have spent my breath and influence for a long time back in protesting against their (what I conceive to be) most dangerous and superstitious opinions." And Principal Shairp wrote: "His Scotch nature and education, his Whig principles, and, I may add, the evangelical

views he had imbibed, were wholly antipathetic to this movement; so entirely antipathetic that I do not think he ever, from first to last, caught a glimpse of the irresistible attraction it had for younger and more ardent natures, or of the charm which encircled the leaders of it, especially the character of John Henry Newman. To his downright common sense the whole movement seemed nonsense, or at least the madness of incipient Popery. Evening by evening, in Balliol common-room, he held strenuous debate with Ward, who was a champion of the new opinions. To Tait's stout reassertion of the old Protestant fundamentals, momentum was added by his high personal character and the respect in which he was universally held."

Tait's view was accurate. "There was about this time a considerable accession to the ranks of the party of men with directly Romish sympathies. . . . Mr. Ward's party commenced its action with a new and startling programme.

Rome was directly looked on by them as in many respects the practical model; the Reformation was a deadly sin; restoration to the Papal communion the ideal-even if unattainable-aim" (Ward and the Oxford Movement).

In February 1841 the celebrated Tract XC. was published by Newman, with the view of enabling his followers to hold the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England in a Romeward sense. A calm and strong protest was issued by Tait, in conjunction with three other tutors-Churton of Brasenose, Wilson of St. John's, and Griffiths of Wadham. The result was that the Hebdomadal Board resolved" that modes of interpretation, such as are suggested in the said tract, evading rather than explaining the sense of the Thirty-nine Articles, and reconciling subscription to them with the adoption of errors which they were designed to counteract, defeat the object, and are inconsistent with the due observance of the abovementioned statutes." The Bishop of Oxford recommended that the series should be discontinued, and the Tracts came to an end.

This is Tait's view of Newman's character : "I have always regarded him as having a strange duality of mind: on the one side is a wonderfully strong and subtle reasoning faculty, on the other a blind faith, raised almost entirely by his emotions. It seems to me that in all matters of belief he first acts on his emotions, and then he brings the subtlety of his reason

to bear, till he has ingeniously persuaded himself that he is logically right. The result is a condition in which he is practically unable to distinguish between truth and falsehood."

Arnold of Rugby died on Sunday, June 12th, 1842. Ten days later Tait, impelled by Lake (afterwards Dean of Durham) and Stanley, declared himself a candidate for the vacant headmastership. "O Lord," he wrote in his diary, "I have this day taken a step which may lead to much good or much evil. Thou suffer me to succeed only if it be to the good of my own soul and to Thy glory."

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He heard of his election-out of eighteen candidates, Dr. Vaughan being the closest competitor on July 29th. "This day my election at Rugby has dissolved my connection with Balliol. O Lord, when I look back on the seven and a half years that have passed since I was elected Fellow, what mercies have I to thank Thee for! Yet how little have I improved! God be merciful to me, a miserable sinner! ... When entering on this new situation, let no worldly thoughts deceive me. The sudden death of him whom I succeed should be enough to prevent this. Grant me, Lord, to live each day as I would wish to die. Let me view this

event not as success, but as the opening up of a fresh field of labour in Thy vineyard. Now I may look forward to dedicate my whole life to one object-the grand work of Christian education. Let me never forget that the first requisite for this is to be a true Christian myself. Give me a holy heart; give me boldness and firmness in Thy service; give me unfailing perseverance; banish all indolence; give me freedom from worldly ambition. O Lord, I have much labour before me-much to do of a secular character: grant that this may never draw me from regular habits of devotion, without which the Christian life cannot be preserved within me.'

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Of his eight years at Rugby, Dean Bradley says: His sermons were very earnest and devout. No one could sneer at them; no one did, I think. They were sometimes really impressive. More than this I can hardly say. But I feel sure that he exercised a great deal of religious influence on the school. . . . He was very hospitable, and fond of society; and I often dined there, and met various people from the outer world. I remember Cotton summing up his position by applying to him Tertullus' words to Felix: Seeing that by

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