he hoped that the requirements of the paper would be satisfied.
Maurice upon resigning received many warm expressions of sympathy and approval from his friends and old pupils, including Lord Tennyson's fine poem. The benchers of Lincoln's Inn declined his offer to resign the chaplaincy. He resigned the chairmanship of the committee of Queen's College, but consented to retain his lectureship if he should be unanimously requested to do so. A minority objecting he resigned, but in 1856 resumed the position, all opposition having been withdrawn. The public feeling was strongly with him, though perhaps the popular objections to everlasting punishment did not quite coincide with his own.
The failure of the Christian Socialist associations had suggested the importance of improving the education of the artisan class. Some lectures had been given during 1853 at the ‘Hall of Association.’ In February 1854 Maurice drew up a scheme for a Working Men's College, partly suggested by a ‘People's College’ founded at Sheffield in 1842. During the remainder of the year he gave lectures in its behalf at various places. On 30 Oct. he delivered an inaugural address at St. Martin's Hall, and the college started with over 130 pupils, in Red Lion Square, moving successively to Great Ormond Street and to Crowndale Road, N.W. Maurice became principal, and took an active part both in teaching and superintending during the rest of his life in London. Many distinguished men became gratuitous lecturers, and similar colleges were started in other towns. Both teachers and pupils were of many religious persuasions. In 1855 two French gentlemen of strongly revolutionary principles were excluded from the council. Some difficulties afterwards arose about the ‘Sunday question.’ Maurice, though carefully avoiding anything like a sectarian system, desired to give an essentially Christian character to the college. He had Bible classes both in connection with the college and outside of it, where he encouraged the freest discussion of all questions.
During the King's College controversy H. L. Mansel [q. v.] had written a pamphlet against Maurice's theories, which had been noticed by Maurice in his ‘Old Testament Sermons.’ A short correspondence between them only showed the absence of any common ground (Life, ii. 311). When Mansel in 1858 delivered his Bampton lectures, Maurice was profoundly moved by their assertion of a principle diametrically opposite to his own. He wrote a reply, called ‘What is Revelation?’ A very sharp controversy followed, which occasionally led to unfortunate imputations on both sides. As Maurice assumed as the centre of his whole teaching a ‘knowledge of God’ in a sense in which, according to Mansel, such knowledge was demonstrably impossible, any compromise or approximation was out of the question. Arthur Stanley, Mr. Goldwin Smith, and Mr. Chretien took Maurice's side in Oxford.
In July 1860 Maurice was appointed to the chapel of St. Peter's, Vere Street, by Mr. William Cowper, then chief commissioner of the board of works. The appointment was attacked by the ‘Record,’ and an address, signed by about twenty clergymen, was sent to the Bishop of London (Tait), protesting against his institution. A counter-address, with 332 clerical and 487 lay signatures, congratulating him upon the ‘tardy recognition’ of his services to the church, showed that the prejudices against him were now confined to a few determined antagonists. Mr. Ludlow, Mr. Llewellyn Davies, and Dean Hook had been the chief promoters, and among the signatures were those of Mr. Gladstone, Lord Tennyson, and Bishop Thirlwall. His position, however, was not free from trouble. Bishop Colenso had been an old friend, and (as bishop-designate of Natal) had greatly touched Maurice by dedicating a volume of sermons to him during the King's College controversy. When preparing his book upon the Pentateuch in 1862, he consulted Maurice and showed him the proof-sheets. Maurice was shocked by the tendency of the book. He told Colenso that many people would think that he ought to resign his bishopric. Colenso replied that many people thought that Maurice had no business to hold his living. Maurice had been alarmed by decisions (reversed on appeal) in the cases of Heath and Wilson, which would condemn his own teaching. He now determined to resign, thinking that as an unbeneficed clergyman he would be able to assert more forcibly his adherence to its formularies, whereas his legal ejection from his living might cause a schism. His intention became known, and excited many protests. He found that he was supposed to be resigning because he had doubts as to subscribing the articles. Bishop Tait declared that he could hardly accept the resignation; but Maurice was at last only withheld by the suggestion that he was acting unfairly to Colenso, who had confided in him, and would be injured by the resignation. He agreed to be guided by the advice of the bishop, and retained the living. The misunderstanding, however, caused a falling off of the congregation, who were puzzled by his scrupulosity (ib. ii. 553). In 1863 he replied to
