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Rh the pulpit at one or two crises. In the political conflict over the Bulgarian atrocities in 1876 he threw out a passionate warning of the moral and spiritual issues involved for England in a struggle between Christian and Mohammedan. He had been, as a young curate, hotly indignant with England's policy in the Crimean war. In October 1876 he and Canon McColl became implicated in a warm argument with the foreign office and the home press, owing to their united declaration that they had seen the body of an impaled Bulgarian on the banks of the Save, while journeying a few months earlier to visit Cardinal Strossmayer, archbishop of Bosnia. Liddon never doubted for a moment that he had seen what he said (cf. Times, 6 and 21 Oct. 1876).

In 1881, when the collision between the ritualists and the judicial authorities reached its climax in the imprisonment of Mr. Dale and Mr. Enraght for refusal to obey the judgment of Lord Penzance in the court of arches, Liddon preached four sermons during his month's residence in December (published under the title ‘Thoughts on Present Church Troubles,’ 1881), in which he stated with skill and force the duties and the anxieties of churchmen. In an elaborate preface he justified the rare occasions on which, in view of the religious and moral interests involved, he had spoken on contemporary controversies from the pulpit of St. Paul's, and he laid down at length his reasons for repudiating the final court of appeal, and the novel jurisdiction erected under the Public Worship Regulation Act. Against that act he had already delivered himself in two sermons in 1874, as well as in a speech for the English Church Union. He had also declared himself against the ecclesiastical authority of the privy council by a published letter written in 1871 in concert with Canon Gregory; there he challenged the Bishop of London to proceed against them for the adoption of the eastward position. He was summoned as a witness before the commission on ecclesiastical courts on 16 Aug. 1882, and was relieved to see the allegations made against the spiritual authority of the existing court amply justified by the commission's report.

In December 1889, his last month but one of residence at St. Paul's, he vehemently denounced an article on ‘Inspiration,’ written by Charles Gore, principal of the Pusey House, Oxford (afterwards Bishop of Birmingham), in a volume of essays called ‘Lux Mundi.’ The volume came from those who adhered to the theological school of which Liddon was himself the foremost interpreter, and the writer of the article belonged to the closest circle of his friends among the younger generation. But Liddon believed it illogical and impossible to permit criticism to dissect and redistribute the structure and materials of the Old Testament, and yet to hope to retain belief in the infallible authority of Jesus Christ. His last sermon, preached on Whitsunday 1890, before the university, at St. Mary's, Oxford, contained a final and measured pronouncement on this controversy.

Except at St. Paul's or at the university churches of Oxford and Cambridge, he preached only on urgent reasons; e.g., after the death of Bishop Wilberforce; at the opening of Keble College Chapel (1876); on behalf of the memorial to Dr. Pusey; and once, in Christ Church Cathedral, on behalf of the Christ Church mission in Poplar (1889). Although he was an admirable public speaker he very rarely appeared on the platform or joined committees, or took a public part in religious controversy. But in 1871 he publicly addressed letters to Sir John Coleridge and to the Bishop of London on the Purchas judgment; he also wrote a series of letters in the ‘Times’ on ‘Anglican Books of Devotion,’ in December 1874 and January 1875; and again in 1888 in the ‘Guardian,’ on the re-establishment of the Anglican bishopric in Jerusalem. One of the severest struggles in which he engaged dealt with the use or disuse of the Athanasian Creed (1871). He was willing to add an explanation of the damnatory clauses; but any further change he regarded as a breach with catholic order, continuity, and authority. On 31 Dec. 1871 he announced to the Archbishop of Canterbury his resolution to resign all ministerial office in the church of England if the creed were mutilated or degraded from its place in the prayer-book, and he said that Dr. Pusey agreed with him (cf. Life of Tait, ii. 137–9). It was in protest against any such action that he made one of his very few speeches, at a great meeting in St. James's Hall on 31 Jan. 1873. It was chiefly owing to its treatment of this creed that he was in vehement disagreement with the church of Ireland at the time of its revision of the prayer-book in 1875 (cf. Letters of Archbishop Trench, chaps. ix. and x.)

Liddon took the deepest interest in the Eastern churches, as well as in the Old Catholic movement. In the Bonn conferences (10–16 Aug. 1875) he took a leading part, and translated in 1876 Dr. Reusch's record of the proceedings, adding a preface addressed to Dr. Pusey. At Bonn he formed a close friendship with Dr. Döllinger. He was already intimate with Père Loyson.

Liddon lived to the end at Oxford, when out