320 Memoir of Charles Cardale Babington. 



staff will say whether he was idle since 1891; whether no 

 glory has passed away from their earth. The electors have 

 t(} find a candidate worth — to the University, to science, to 

 Cambridge town — double of Charles Cardale Babington. 

 They may search long and far. 



His tolerance was catholic and unfeigned — cherishing, as 

 allies and teachers. Agnostics and Romanists, the Huxleys 

 and the Balls. For why ? Frederick Maurice shall tell : 

 charity is wide, where faith is sure. '^'^ Apology for the Bible f 

 I didn't know it needed an apology." So said blunt George 

 III. ; so thought my friend. Heartily as he revered Truth's 

 champions, in Thirl wall, Julius Hare, Maurice, from the 

 clash of their arguments he stood aloof. To him it was 

 given, not to thread the tangled maze of doubt, but from 

 dawn to sunset of life's day to walk right onward in the 

 light of his two Bihlex — so, on the 6th of May 1835, Edward 

 Stanley bade him call them — God's works and word. Sir 

 Henry Wotton, stunned with the din of polemics, left — with 

 his parting breath'^' — a warning to mankind: "Itch of dis- 

 puting, scab of churches." By this itch Babington's withers 

 were unwrung. One very dear to him, Fenton Hort, plunging 

 into the sea of metaphysics, rose from the bath braced for 

 action. Did he therefore scorn unclouded childlife belief? 

 Nay, he half envied it. Eebukintr credulity — on the side of 

 "Nay," not less than of "Yea" — as "a dangerous disease 

 of the time," he confesses : — 



The vast multitudes of simple Chi'istian people who know no 

 difficulties, and need know none for themselves, are of course not in 

 question here. Fundamental enquiries constitute no part of their 

 duty ; and though the exemption disqualifies them for some among 

 the higher offices of service to their fellows, it leaves them perhaps 

 the more capable of others, according to the Divine allotment of 

 various responsibility. 



What doughtier master of tongue-fence than Schleier- 

 macher ? Yet even Dollinger asks: "When all is said, 

 where is the harvest?" Professor J. Campbell Shairp gives 

 body to a thought, after which manj'^ minds were groping, 

 Cardale Babington's earnestly as any: — 



* His epitaph in Latin : " Here lies the first author of the sentence : 

 Itch, etc. Seek his name elsewhere." The ])assage cited occurs in 

 a panegyric on Charles I. 



