Dr. Liddon, who was at this time a Senior Student of Christ Church, and resident in the college (he became Ireland Professor of Exegesis four years later, and a Canon of St. Paul's in the same year), {42} was wont to say that Bute was far too busy, during his undergraduate career, in "reconsidering and reconstructing his religious position," to give more than a secondary place to his regular academic studies. His reading, which, undistracted by any of the ordinary dissipations of university life, he pursued with unflagging ardour, sitting at his books often far into the night, ranged over the whole field of comparative religion. Every form of ancient faith, Judaism, Buddhism, Islamism, the beliefs of old Egypt, Greece and Rome, as well as the creeds and worship of Eastern and Western Christendom, were the subject of his studies and his thoughts; and the more he read and pondered, the more clear became his conviction that in the Roman Church alone could his mind, his heart, and his imagination find rest and satisfaction. No external influence of any kind helped to bring him to that conclusion. In the conduct of his studies and the arrangement of his reading he freely sought and obtained the advice and assistance of tutors and professors, both belonging to the House and outside it. But from no Roman Catholic source did he ask or receive counsel or direction at this time; and he once said that during the first year of his Oxford course he was not even aware of the existence of a Roman Catholic church in the university city. Two or three Catholic undergraduates were in residence at Christ Church in his time, but he was not intimate with any of them. He was fond of taking long walks, then, as always, almost the only form of bodily exercise he favoured, though he was a good swimmer and fencer; and it was in company with his most intimate friend, Adam Hay Gordon, that he once, after a visit to Wantage (the associations {43} of which with King Alfred greatly interested him), penetrated to the ancient Catholic chapel of East Hendred, not far distant. He was greatly moved at learning that this venerable sanctuary was one of the very few in England in which, it was said, the lamp before the tabernacle had never been extinguished, and Mass had been celebrated all through the darkest days of penal times; and he knelt so long in prayer before the altar that he had twice to be reminded by his companion of the long walk home they had in prospect. This pilgrimage--Bute always considered it as such, and spoke of it with emotion long years afterwards--took place in the autumn of 1866; and before he left Oxford for the Christmas vacation of that year he had made up his mind to seek admission without delay into the Catholic fold, and (as he hoped) to make his first communion as a Catholic before the Easter festival of the following year. [Sidenote: 1866, Decision taken]