health. Could Dr. Pusey see his way to releasing him from the
vow? The Doctor decided that a little sacred music would not be
amiss. Ward was all gratitude, and that night a party was
arranged in a friend's rooms. The concert began with the solemn
harmonies of Handel, which were followed by the holy strains of
the '0h Salutaris' of Cherubini. Then came the elevation and the
pomp of 'Possenti Numi' from the Magic Flute. But, alas! there
lies much danger in Mozart. The page was turned and there was the
delicious duet between Papageno and Papagena. Flesh and blood
could not resist that; then song followed song, the music waxed
faster and lighter, until, at last Ward burst into the
intoxicating merriment of the Largo al Factotum. When it was
over, a faint but persistent knocking made itself heard upon the
wall; and it was only then that the company remembered that the
rooms next door were Dr. Pusey's.

The same entrain which carried Ward away when he sat down to a
piano possessed him whenever he embarked on a religious
discussion. 'The thing that was utterly abhorrent to him,' said
one of his friends, 'was to stop short.' Given the premises, he
would follow out their implications with the mercilessness of a
medieval monk, and when he had reached the last limits of
argument, be ready to maintain whatever propositions he might
find there with his dying breath. He had the extreme innocence of
a child and a mathematician. Captivated by the glittering eye of
Newman, he swallowed whole the supernatural conception of the
universe which Newman had evolved, accepted it as a fundamental
premise, and 'began at once to deduce from it whatsoever there
might be to be deduced.' His very first deductions included
irrefutable proofs of (I) God's particular providence for