It is very hard to imagine, much less to realize, how these lukewarm expressions of assent and dissent turned, in a few months, into a tempest of opposition. Perhaps the following guess would nearly account for it. We may conclude from the letter of Lady Spencer to Dr. Blomfield (given in his life, page 70), on his being appointed to the see of Chester, that she and Lord Spencer knew something about the making of bishops and the mode of their _translation_. If she took such an interest in a stranger, but a friend, it is not wonderful that she should take a similar, if not a greater, interest in seeing a mitre on the head of her own son. Lord Liverpool had not yet retired from the head of the ministry, {138} and if his politics and Lord Spencer's were sufficiently of accord to promote the man whom the Earl patronized, they would be able to do a like service to the Earl's own son in due course. Extreme Low Church views would never do for the Episcopal Bench in those days, though many were raised to that dignity with little High Church views. Whether Mr. Spencer's opinions clouded this bright future, or that the noble family would feel it a disgrace to have a son so methodistical, or whether real anxiety for his spiritual welfare, or an endeavour to prevent a future that the Bishop's ken seemed to have forecasted, troubled his parents, it is difficult to say. At all events, Mr. Spencer's religious notions caused a great commotion in the family, whilst those who abetted and encouraged him went on preaching their sermons and reading their services in their position, with one exception, and nobody seemed to mind them. Lady Spencer took her son to London, in the beginning of the year 1826, to have his new notions rectified by Dr. Blomfield. This good doctor immediately prescribed for his patient, for he did not need much feeling of his spiritual pulse after their correspondence. The interview is thus described:-- "Jan. 24.--My mother allowed me her carriage after breakfast, to go and see the Bishop of Chester. I did not find him at home, and so came directly back again. He was so good as to call on me afterwards, and sat talking with me a considerable time. His conversation was most pleasing to me, though I could see that we did not fully agree in our view of Christian doctrine (_sic_). He desired me to read Sumner's 'Apostolical Preaching,' which I sent out for and began doing before dinner."