... With a man who reads and reasons I can have no
controversy; and you do both.' Archdeacon Hare was pleased, but
soon a rumour reached him, which was, to say the least of it,
upsetting. Manning had been removing the high pews from a church
in Brighton, and putting in open benches in their place. Everyone
knew what that meant; everyone knew that a high pew was one of
the bulwarks of Protestantism, and that an open bench had upon it
the taint of Rome. But Manning hastened to explain: 'My dear
friend,' he wrote, 'I did not exchange pews for open benches, but
got the pews (the same in number) moved from the nave of the
church to the walls of the side aisles, so that the whole church
has a regular arrangement of open benches, which (irregularly)
existed before ... I am not today quite well, so farewell, with
much regard--Yours ever, H. E. M.' Archdeacon Hare was reassured.
It was important that he should be, for the Archdeacon of
Chichester was growing very old, and Hare's influence might be
exceedingly useful when a vacancy occurred. So, indeed, it fell
out. A new bishop, Dr. Shuttleworth, was appointed to the See,
and the old Archdeacon took the opportunity of retiring. Manning
was obviously marked out as his successor, but the new bishop
happened to be a low churchman, an aggressive low churchman, who
went so far as to parody the Tractarian fashion of using Saints'
days for the dating of letters by writing 'The Palace, washing-
day', at the beginning of his.
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