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Mr Harding, whose conscience in the matter is clear, and
who has never felt that he had received a pound from Hiram's
will to which he was not entitled, has naturally taken the part
of the church in talking over these matters with his friend, the
bishop, and his son-in-law, the archdeacon. The archdeacon,
indeed, Dr Grantly, has been somewhat loud in the matter.
He is a personal friend of the dignitaries of the Rochester
Chapter, and has written letters in the public press on the
subject of that turbulent Dr Whiston, which, his admirers
think, must wellnigh set the question at rest. It is also known
at Oxford that he is the author of the pamphlet signed
'Sacerdos' on the subject of the Earl of Guildford and St
Cross, in which it is so clearly argued that the manners of the
present times do not admit of a literal adhesion to the very
words of the founder's will, but that the interests of the church
for which the founder was so deeply concerned are best consulted
in enabling its bishops to reward those shining lights whose
services have been most signally serviceable to Christianity.
In answer to this, it is asserted that Henry de Blois,
founder of St Cross, was not greatly interested in the welfare
of the reformed church, and that the masters of St Cross, for
many years past, cannot be called shining lights in the service
of Christianity; it is, however, stoutly maintained, and no
doubt felt, by all the archdeacon's friends, that his logic is
conclusive, and has not, in fact, been answered.
With such a tower of strength to back both his arguments
and his conscience, it may be imagined that Mr Harding has
never felt any compunction as to receiving his quarterly sum
of two hundred pounds. Indeed, the subject has never presented
itself to his mind in that shape. He has talked not unfrequently,
and heard very much about the wills of old founders and
the incomes arising from their estates, during the last year
or two; he did even, at one moment, feel a doubt (since expelled
by his son-in-law's logic) as to whether Lord Guildford
was clearly entitled to receive so enormous an income as he
does from the revenues of St Cross; but that he himself was
overpaid with his modest eight hundred pounds--he who, out
of that, voluntarily gave up sixty-two pounds eleven shillings
and fourpence a year to his twelve old neighbours--he who,
for the money, does his precentor's work as no precentor
has done it before, since Barchester Cathedral was built,--such
an idea has never sullied his quiet, or disturbed his conscience.
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