It is deeply significant to find such a Hymn as that written while 'yet among the Protestants.' Putting the two things together--(_a_) his recluse, shy, meditative life 'under Tertullian's roofe of angels,' and his prayers THERE in the night; (_b_) his passionately sympathetic reading, as of Teresa, and going forth of his most spiritual yearnings after the 'sweet and subtle pain,' and Love's death 'mystical and high'--we get at the secret of the 'change' now being considered. However led to it, Crashaw's reading lay among books that were as fuel to fire brought to a naturally mystical and supersensitive temperament; and however formed and nurtured, such self-evidently was his temperament. His innate mysticism drew him to such literature, and the literature fed what perchance demanded rather to be neutralised.[19] I feel satisfied one main element of the attraction of Roman Catholicism for him was the nutriment and nurture for his profoundest though most perilous spiritual experiences in its Writers. His great-brained, strong-thewed father would have dismissed such 'intolerable ioyes' as morbid sentimentalism; but the nervous, finely and highly-strung organisation of his son was as an Æolian harp under their touch. To all this must be added certain local influences, and ultimately the crash of the Ejection. The history of the University during the period of Crashaw's residence makes it plain that there was then, as later, a revival of what may be technically called Ritualism--as an intended help-meet to Faith--and that by some of the most cultured and gracious scholars of the Colleges. I am not vindicating, much less judging such, any more than would I 'sit in judgment' on the Ritualist revival of our own day, _i.e._ of its adherents. For myself, I find it a diviner and grander thing to 'walk by faith' rather than by 'sight,' and not 'bodied' but 'disembodied truth' the more spiritual. But to not a few--and to such as Crashaw--the sensible, the visible, the actually looked-at--sanctified with the hoar of centuries--light up and etherealise. Contemporary records show that the chapel of Peterhouse--Crashaw's college--which was built in 1632, and consecrated by Francis White, Bishop of Ely, was a 'handsome' one, having a beautiful ceiling and a noble east window--its glass 'hid away in the troublesome times.' Among the benefactors to its building were (afterwards bishops) Cosin and Wren, and also Shelford, whose 'Five learned Discourses' were graced with a noticeable 'commendatory poem' by Crashaw (vol. ii. pp. 162-5). Before this chapel was built the society made use of the chancel of the adjacent church of Little St. Mary's, into which there was a door from Peterhouse College. The reader may at this point turn to our poet's heart-broken 'pleadings' for the 'restoration' of his College, now made 'to speak English.' On all which, and the like, dear old Fuller, in his History of the University, thus