R,CHARD MONCKTON MILNES was born in the year - OUDL Home

Cambridge in the 'Seventies 259of his doctrines was a clog on their influence. It wassignificant of the Cambridge dislike for an attitude ofbalance and hesitation—a dislike due to intensive cultureof the mathematical mind—that the Professorshipvacated by Maurice was given to a clergyman of Evangelicalleanings. Sidgwick in defeat judged the electorsand their choice with full Christian charity. But of theinner meaning of the episode there could not be muchdoubt.When I say that the old Simeonite movement was nolonger a power in the 'seventies, I feel bound to say alsothat about 1873-5 the Revivalist crusade of Moody andSankey reached Cambridge. American enthusiasm, everready to 'go one better' than Europe in religion as inother things, was suddenly turned upon our little studentworld. Whether this undertaking had been in any wayinspired by the unfavourable picture of Cambridge moralsin the 'forties drawn by C. A. Bristed (New York, 1851),I cannot tell. At all events the new evangelists, artistsin emotional procedure, succeeded in luring undergraduatesto their meetings, in convincing them of sin (their ownand their neighbours'), and in inducing not a few to seeka cure by American methods. So far as I know, no lastingresult was achieved. But I came across temporary manifestationsthat could not be ignored. A captain of a BoatClub was so possessed by the spirit of the Revival thathe (so undergraduate critics declared) chose oarsmen bya mixed standard; and indeed his boat, for whateverreason, was a failure. Now young men talk, not alwayswisely, but a College Boat is a sacred thing, and even themere suspicion that any officer is playing fast and loosewith its prospects is enough to condemn him as a 'badsportsman'. No Moody and Sankey propaganda couldneutralise so deep-rooted a prejudice. And stories ofgrotesque doings passed round, such as that of a man17-2