Disraeli's opinions on these subjects were perhaps the same as Plato's. He too may have had his uncertainties about Zeus and Here, and yet have had no uncertainty at all about the general truth of the teaching of the Church of England, while as a statesman he was absolutely convinced of the necessity of supporting and defending it, defending it alike from open enemies and from the foolish ecclesiastical revivalism into which Tractarianism had degenerated. The strength of the Church lay in its hold upon the habits of the people, and whoever was breaking through the usages which time had made familiar and consecrated was equally dangerous and mischievous. The critics were bringing in reason to decide questions which belonged to conscience and imagination. The ritualists were bringing back pagan superstition in a pseudo-Christian dress. He despised the first. He did what he could to restrain the second with a Public Worship Bill as soon as he had power to interfere. Late in his career, when he was within view of the Premiership, he used an opportunity of expressing his feeling on the subject in his own characteristic manner. [Sidenote: A SCENE AT OXFORD] Oxford having produced the High Churchmen, was now generating rationalists and philosophers. Intellectual society was divided into the followers of Strauss and Darwin and those who believed that the only alternative was the 'Summa Theologiæ.' Both streams were concentrated in support of the Liberal leader, who was Disraeli's political antagonist; one because he represented progress, the other because in matters spiritual he was supposed to hold the most advanced Catholic doctrines. In the year 1864 Disraeli happened to be on a visit at Cuddesdon, and it happened equally that a diocesan conference was to be held at Oxford at the time, with Bishop Wilberforce in the chair. The spiritual atmosphere was, as usual, disturbed. The clerical mind had been doubly exercised by the appearance of Colenso on the 'Pentateuch' and Darwin on the 'Origin of Species.' Disraeli, to the surprise of everyone, presented himself in the theatre. He had long abandoned the satins and silks of his youth, but he was as careful of effect as he had ever been, and had prepared himself in a costume elaborately negligent. He lounged into the assembly in a black velvet shooting-coat and a wide-awake hat, as if he had been accidentally passing through the town. It was the fashion with University intellect to despise Disraeli as a man with neither sweetness nor light; but he was famous, or at least notorious, and when he rose to speak there was general curiosity. He began in his usual affected manner, slowly and rather pompously, as if he had nothing to say beyond perfunctory platitudes.