at Oxford, where he was matriculated at Baliol College, in 1832, cannot be called a brilliant one. He was a man of scholarly tastes and of scholarly attainments as well, yet in certain of the highest requirements of the university he seems to have fallen short; for we hear of his failing once or twice, not indeed in his examinations, but in competition for a distinguished place. The fact probably was, that he applied himself with undue partiality to favorite studies, such as poetry and divinity. He was remarkable even at this time for graces of person and manner, fine conversational powers, and a rare faculty of attracting friends, notwithstanding a certain dangerous keenness in his perceptions of the ludicrous, coupled with great frankness in the expression of his feelings. "I cannot tell why it is," said one of his schoolmates at Harrow, "but that Faber fascinates every body." This remark was repeated to him afterward, and filled him with a sense of obligation to use the gift in promoting God's glory. The temporary eclipse of faith to which we have alluded was of very short duration; and when he came to Oxford, he was keenly alive to religious impressions, with a strong Calvinistic tendency. The tractarian movement, however, was just beginning, and Faber became an enthusiastic admirer--"an acolyth," as he expressed it--of John Henry Newman, who was then preaching at St. Mary's, Oxford. He did not make Mr. Newman's acquaintance till several years later; but under his influence he forgot his evangelicalism, and threw himself eagerly into the great movement for the revival of church principles as expounded in the _Tracts for the Times_. "Transubstantiation has been bothering me," he wrote to a friend; "not that I lean to it, _but I have seen no refutation of it_. How can it be absurd and contradictory to the evidence of our senses, when they cannot by any means take cognizance of the unknown being, substance, which alone is held up as the subject of this conversion?" This tendency toward Catholic truth was but slight, however, and evanescent. There came a reaction in the course of a little while, and Mr. Faber wrote to one of his friends: "I have been thinking a great deal on the merits and tendency of Newmanism, and I have become more than ever convinced of its falsehood.... What makes me fear most is, that I have seen Newman himself _growing_ in his opinions; I have seen indistinct visions become distinct embodiments; I have seen the conclusion of one proposition become the premiss of a next, through a long series: all this is still going on--to my eyes more like the blind march of error than the steady uniformity of truth--and I know not when it will stop."