In the earliest period of my Oxford residence I fell into uneasy
collision with him concerning Episcopal powers. I had on one occasion
dropt something disrespectful against bishops or a bishop,--something
which, if it had been said about a clergyman, would have passed
unnoticed: but my brother checked and reproved me,--as I thought, very
uninstructively--for "wanting reverence towards Bishops." I knew
not then, and I know not now, why Bishops, _as such_, should be more
reverenced than common clergymen; or Clergymen, _as such_, more than
common men. In the World I expected pomp and vain show and formality
and counterfeits: but of the Church, as Christ's own kingdom, I
demanded reality and could not digest legal fictions. I saw round
me what sort of young men were preparing to be clergymen: I knew the
attractions of family "livings" and fellowships, and of a respectable
position and undefinable hopes of preferment. I farther knew, that
when youths had become clergymen through a great variety of mixed
motives, bishops were selected out of these clergy on avowedly
political grounds; it therefore amazed me how a man of good sense
should be able to set up a duty of religious veneration towards
bishops. I was willing to honour a Lord Bishop as a peer of
Parliament; but his office was to me no guarantee of spiritual
eminence.--To find my brother thus stop my mouth, was a puzzle; and
impeded all free speech towards him. In fact, I very soon left off the
attempt at intimate religious intercourse with him, or asking counsel
as of one who could sympathize. We talked, indeed, a great deal on the
surface of religious matters; and on some questions I was overpowered
and received a temporary bias from his superior knowledge; but as
time went on, and my own intellect ripened, I distinctly felt that his
arguments were too fine-drawn and subtle, often elaborately missing
the moral points and the main points, to rest on some ecclesiastical