The Church, then, as historically descended and legally established, ought to be maintained, honoured, and frequented; and, so far, his practice accorded with his belief. He had indeed no more sympathy with hysterical devotions than with fanatical faiths. He saw with amused eye the gestures and behaviour of the "Energumens" during the celebration of Holy Communion in a Ritualistic church--"the floor of the church strewn with what seem to be the dying and the dead, progress to the altar almost barred by forms suddenly dropping as if they were shot in battle, the delighted adoption of vehement rites, till yesterday unknown, adopted and practised now with all that absence of tact, measure, and correct perception in things of form and manner, all that slowness to see when they are making themselves ridiculous, which belongs to the people of our English race." This was a perfectly just criticism on the nascent ritualism of thirty years ago. Time and study have pruned this devotional exuberance, but he rightly described what he saw. With such performances he had no sympathy; but he loved what he had been accustomed to--the grave and reverend method of worship which was traditional in our cathedrals and college chapels. He communicated by preference at an early service. He revelled in the architecture of our great churches, and enjoyed, though he did not understand, their fine music. And he added one or two little mannerisms of his own, which were clearly intended to mark his love of ecclesiastical proprieties. Thus the present writer remembers that he used, with great solemnity and deliberation, to turn to the east at the Creed in Harrow School Chapel, where the clergy neglected to do so. It was the traditional mode of the Church of England, and that was enough for him. Again, we all know that he described the Athanasian Creed as "Learned science with a strong dash of temper"; yet I remember him saying, with an air of stately admiration, after Service on Ascension Day, "I always like to hear the Athanasian Creed sung. BUT ONE GOD sounds so magnificently, with that full swell of the organ. It seems to come with the whole authority of the Church." Then again the list of his favourite writers on religious subjects shows exactly the same taste and temper as was shown by his devotional practices--St. Augustine, that "glorious father of the Catholic Church"; "the nameless author of the _Imitatio_"; Bishop Thomas Wilson, whose _Maxims_ and _Sacra_ he so constantly quoted; Isaac Barrow, whose sermons he used to read to his family on Sunday evenings; Cardinal Newman, to whom he had listened so delightedly in undergraduate days.[58]