In the midst of all this commotion, and chiefly secret commotion, I felt a perfect stranger; I saw the bright and dark sides, but I confess I saw little of what I called religion. Though my own religious struggles lay behind me, still there were many questions which pressed for a solution, but for which my friends at Oxford seemed either indifferent or unprepared. My practical religion was what I had learnt from my mother; that remained unshaken in all storms, and in its extreme simplicity and childishness answered all the purposes for which religion is meant. Then followed, in the Universities of Leipzig and Berlin, the purely historical and scientific treatment of religion, which, while it explained many things and destroyed many things, never interfered with my early ideas of right and wrong, never disturbed my life with God and in God, and seemed to satisfy all my religious wants. I never was frightened or shaken by the critical writings of Strauss or Ewald, of Renan or Colenso. If what they said had an honest ring, I was delighted, for I felt quite certain that they could never deprive me of the little I really wanted. That little could never be little enough; it was like a stronghold with no fortifications, no trenches, and no walls around it. Suppose it was proved to me that, on geological evidence, the earth or the world could not have been created in six days, what was that to me? Suppose it was proved to me that Christ could never have given leave to the unclean spirits to enter into the swine, what was that to me? Let Colenso and Bishop Wilberforce, let Huxley and Gladstone fight about such matters; their turbulent waves could never disturb me, could never even reach me in my safe harbour. I had little to carry, no learned impedimenta to safeguard my faith. If a man possesses this one pearl of great price, he may save himself and his treasure, but neither the tinselled vestments of a Cardinal, nor the triple tiara that crowns the Head of the Church, will serve as life-belts in the gales of doubt and controversy. My friends at Oxford did not know that, though with my one jewel I seemed outwardly poor, I was really richer and safer than many a Cardinal and many a Doctor of Divinity. A confession of faith, like a prayer, may be very long, but the prayer of the Publican may have been more efficient than that of the Pharisee.