Untitled - Electric Scotland

1 54 I-IFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [CH. vi.
what we call a Freethinking spirit : not that Dr. Tait is a free
thinker any more than Dr. Arnold was a freethinker, but because
the tendency of a system of education conducted by either of
them is to a false and irreligious liberality."
Though appointed in October to the Deanery of
Carlisle, Dr. Tait acquiesced in the wish of the trustees
that he should retain his Head-mastership until the fol
lowing spring. He went to Carlisle, however, for his
formal installation in the* Cathedral. The ceremony took
place on Saturday, 5th January 1850. Next day he
entered in his diary, with much dismay, that though it
was Sunday and the feast of the Epiphany, there were
only nine or ten communicants. Some days were spent
in a vigorous inspection, not only of the Cathedral pre
cincts and all belonging to them, but of the condition
generally of the various parishes in the town. He
noted the want of order in one of the National Schools,
the fact that there was no chaplain at the Infirmary, and
many other details of Cathedral and parochial short
comings ; he issued new orders regulating the Minor
Canons interchange of duty and the attendance of the
bedesmen at divine service, and returned to Rugby, having
given evidence that, in Lord Cockburn s phrase, he
at least did not mean to
cushion."
*
doze on the decanal
In the early days of May 1850 they were settled with
their three little children 1 in the Deanery of Carlisle.
Mrs. Tait used to describe in after years the thankful
ness she at this time felt that her husband had, after all,
escaped alive from his Rugby work, and her expecta
tions of comparatively quiet and uneventful usefulness in
the Border City.
1 Catherine Anna, born March 15, 1846. Mary Susan, born June 20,
1847. Craufurd, bom June 22, 1849.