In other directions, meanwhile, difficulties had beset the Government. The proposed appointment of a Broad Churchman of advanced views, in the person of Dr. Hampden, Regius Professor at Oxford, to the vacant see of Hereford filled the High Church party with indignant dismay. Dr. Newman, with the courage and self-sacrifice which were characteristic of the man, had refused by this time to hold any longer an untenable position, and, in spite of his brilliant prospects in the English Church, had yielded to conscience and submitted to Rome. Dr. Pusey, however, remained, and under his skilful leadership the Oxford Movement grew strong, and threw its spell in particular over devout women, whose aesthetic instincts it satisfied, and whose aspirations after a semi-conventual life it met.[17] Lord John had many of the characteristics of the plain Englishman. He understood zealous Protestants, and, as his rejected scheme for aiding the priests in Ireland itself shows, he was also able to apprehend the position of earnest Roman Catholics. He had, however, not so learnt his Catechism or his Prayer Book as to understand that the Reformation, if not a crime, was at least a blunder, and therefore, like other plain Englishmen, he was not prepared to admit the pretensions and assumptions of a new race of nondescript priests. Thirteen prelates took the unusual course of requesting the Prime Minister to reconsider his decision, but Lord John's reply was at once courteous and emphatic. 'I cannot sacrifice the reputation of Dr. Hampden, the rights of the Crown, and what I believe to be the true interests of the Church, to a feeling which I believe to have been founded on misapprehension and fomented by prejudice.' Although Dr. Pusey did not hesitate to declare that the affair was 'a matter of life and death,'[18] ecclesiastical protest availed nothing, and Dr. Hampden was in due time consecrated. Neither agrarian outrages in Ireland nor clerical agitation in England hindered, in the session of 1848, the passing of measures of social improvement. The Public Health Act, which was based on the representations of Sir Edwin Chadwick and Dr. Southwood Smith, grappled with the sanitary question in cities and towns, and thus improved in a variety of directions the social life of the people. It had hitherto been the fashion of Whigs and Tories alike to neglect practical measures of this kind, even though they were so closely linked to the health and welfare of the community. FOOTNOTES: [15] _The Croker Papers_, vol. iii. ch. xxiv. p. 53. [16] Judge O'Connor Morris, in his interesting retrospect, _Memories and Thoughts of a Life_, just published, whilst severely criticising the Whig attitude towards Ireland, admits that Russell's Irish policy was not only 'well-meant,' but in the main successful. [17] The first Anglican Sisterhood was founded by Dr. Pusey in London in the spring of 1845. [18] _Life of E. B. Pusey, D.D._, by H. P. Liddon, D.D., vol. iii. p. 160.