At this time the University was greatly influenced by Calvinist doctrines. It was from S. John’s that the first opposition to the prevalent opinions came, and it was thus that William Laud first became famous. Laud was ordained deacon and priest by Dr. Young, Bishop of Rochester, who, “finding his study raised above the systems and opinions of the age, upon the noble foundations of the fathers, councils, and the ecclesiastical historians, early presaged that if he lived he would be an instrument of restoring the Church from the narrow and private principles of modern times to the more enlarged, liberal, and public sentiments of the apostolic and primitive ages.” Dr. Young was right in his prophecy, for Laud was soon the leader of the reaction against Calvinism in the University, as he was afterwards successful in asserting more liberal and Catholic sentiments in the Anglican Church at large. By maintaining in theological lectures and sermons before the University the doctrine of baptismal regeneration and the divine institution of Episcopacy, he made himself prominent in opposition to the chief authorities of the day, who were all imbued with Calvinistic views. It was reckoned, so in later years he told Heylin, a heresy to speak to him, and a suspicion of heresy to salute him as he walked in the street. Yet he had no lack of friends; the most eminent members of his own College seem always to have stood by him,--we have Sir William Paddy’s approval of an University sermon that had caused much offence,--and before long he found the whole University converted to his views. There were sermons and pamphlets and answers and counterblasts, inquiries by Vice-Chancellor and Doctors, threats of suspension, murmurs of disloyalty to the Church, as there have often been since in Oxford theological tempests; but the misconception and bitter feeling were gradually overcome by the steadfast conscientiousness of Laud. He received a number of preferments outside the University, was especially honoured by Bishop Neile of Rochester, and resigned his Fellowship in 1610 to devote himself entirely to parochial work. At the end of that year, however, Dr. Buckeridge, President of S. John’s, was elected Bishop of Rochester in succession to Dr. Neile, and by his advice and support Laud was proposed for the vacant headship of the College. Calvinist influence in the University was set to work to induce the King to prevent the appointment, but without success, and Laud was elected on May 10th, 1611. The election was marked by keen and violent party feeling. When the nomination papers had been laid on the altar (as was the custom in College elections down to within living memory), and the Vice-President was about to announce the result, one of the Fellows, Richard Baylie, snatched the papers from his hands and tore them in pieces. It is characteristic of Laud’s freedom from personal animosity, that he passed over this act of irritable partisanship and showed special