‘Besides the explanations which I desired, your letter has afforded me a still higher satisfaction, in shewing me that I am indebted to you for an obligation on which I shall always reflect with pleasure and gratitude—in the attempt which you made to avert the evil which my imprudence had drawn upon me. And as this is the strongest proof you could have given of the desire you felt to continue the relation in which we stood with one another, so it encourages me to hope that I may still find opportunities, before I leave this place, of co-operating with you, though in a different form, for the like ends. But at all events I shall never cease to retain that esteem and regard with which I now remain yours most truly, C. THIRLWALL[55].’ In reviewing the whole controversy at a distance of more than half a century, with, we must admit, a strong bias in Thirlwall’s favour, it is impossible not to admit that he had made a mistake. In all questions of college management it is most important that the authorities should appear, at any rate, to be unanimous; and the words ‘my imprudence,’ which occur in the passage quoted above from his letter to Whewell, indicate that by that time he had begun to take the same view himself. It is easy to see how he had been drawn into an opposite course. He had never considered that he had anything to do with the chapel discipline; he had agreed to attend himself, but he did not consider that such attendance implied approval of the system. His own attendance, as we learn from a contemporary, was something more than formal; he was rarely absent, morning or evening; and his behaviour was remarkable for reverence and devotion. With him, religion had nothing to do with discipline; and it was infinitely shocking to his pure and thoughtful mind to defile things heavenly with things earthly. The far too rigorous rules of attendance which were then in force had exasperated the undergraduates, and their behaviour, without being absolutely profane, was careless and irreverent. Talking was very prevalent, especially on surplice nights, when the service is choral. Thirlwall probably knew, from the friendly intercourse which he maintained with the younger members of the College, what their feelings were, and determined to do his best to get a system altered which produced such disastrous results. It must be remembered that at that time the Act of Uniformity prevented any shortening of the service. Whewell’s mind was a very different one. Without being a bigot, he had a profound respect for the existing order of things; shut his eyes to any defects it might have, even when they were pointed out to him; and regarded attempts to subvert it, or even to weaken it, as acts of profanity.