reconciliation of the perfection of the author with the blunders and the
immoralities of the work.

Maurice's writings now came in for very careful study, and I read also
those of Robertson, of Brighton, and of Stopford Brooke, striving to find
in these some solid ground whereon I might build up a new edifice of
faith. That ground, however, I failed to find; there were poetry, beauty,
enthusiasm, devotion; but there was no rock on which I might take my
stand. Mansel's Bampton lectures on "The Limits of Religious Thought"
deepened and intensified my doubts. His arguments seemed to make
certainty impossible, and I could not suddenly turn round and believe to
order, as he seemed to recommend, because proof was beyond reach. I could
not, and would not, adore in God as the highest Righteousness that which,
in man was condemned as harsh, as cruel, and as unjust.

In the midst of this long mental struggle, a change occurred in the
outward circumstances of my life. I wrote to Lord Hatherley and asked him
if he could give Mr. Besant a Crown living, and he offered us first one
in Northumberland, near Alnwick Castle, and then one in Lincolnshire, the
village of Sibsey, with a vicarage house, and an income of £410 per
annum. We decided to accept the latter.

The village was scattered over a considerable amount of ground, but the
work was not heavy. The church was one of the fine edifices for which the
fen country is so famous, and the vicarage was a comfortable house, with
large and very beautiful gardens and paddock, and with outlying fields.
The people were farmers and laborers, with a sprinkling of shopkeepers;
the only "society" was that of the neighboring clergy, Tory and prim to
an appalling extent. There was here plenty of time for study, and of that
time I vigorously availed myself. But no satisfactory light came to me,