Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/586

524 opposite motives. To Bunsen this &ldquo;special mission&rdquo; brought in a rich harvest of friendly feeling among the leaders of both ary, so that when selected his name out of three proposed by the   of  for the post of n , he found himself well received by all classes of. 's visit to in  1842, as sponsor to the, helped to prove the earnest desire of  to seek the  of. An event, however, which directed the eyes of the public even more to Bunsen than royal favour was the publication of 's Life of Dr Arnold, in whose private s an admiration amounting almost to enthusiasm for his   was expressed with a fervour unusual to Arnold's stately reserve. Although not palatable to the growing ritualistic school, and not always considered a safe by the  leaders of the, Bunsen retained to the last the affection of the , among whom he spent thirteen eventful s. In the 1844 his advice was asked by  on the al changes,—from  to a  ,—upon which, although in a first-rate   and  condition, found herself irresistibly constrained to enter. His advice, though studiously conservative, was considered of too sweeping a nature, and contented himself in 1847 with convoking an  composed of all members of the eight  s of the monarchy, and clothed with scarcely any al powers On the question of organization, also, and his friend were fated to disagree more strongly than they had expected. Bunsen's views had developed into a system essentially, though with an headship. He held up the of the  as, perhaps, the best type to follow, because it contained personal rule organically allied to the free power of the. He recommended these ideas to as well as to  in a  entitled The Church of the Future, which has not been without influence in the   now (1876) about to become  in. 's expectations of a quiet time for maturing his work of reconstruction in and were rudely broken in upon by the. Bunsen's warning voice had been raised in vain; the discontent of the classes helped to weaken the distracted s of, and, though a  was eventually promulgated, n  succumbed under the tutelage of the n, , in 1849 Bunsen's  labours were mainly directed to settle, as  , the dispute with  about the  of  and ,  having offered her. In these a strong agitation of several s standing had roused the, which occupies the whole of the former and part of the latter, to oppose the centralizing tendencies of the. During the troubles of 1848 they had  against  and found assistance in, then for the first time aspiring again to the position of a al power. This disturbance of the public peace of was, however, regarded with so much disfavour by all powers, and secretly also by the s of  and, that the  obtained, in 1852, a an , which reversed the   of the two , and settled the  of , after the death of the king and his son, upon  of. It was the fate of Bunsen to be obliged to add his to this, although it contained an abrogation of those &ldquo;al  of  and ,&rdquo; upon which he had dilated in a Letter to Viscount Palmerston, printed in  1848. The unity of was another of those wishes in which Bunsen and had been one ever since the beginning of their acquaintance, and yet found themselves widely apart when the question came to be practically tested. sincerely aimed at the resuscitation of the venerable, fancying that the leadership within the of s might be divided between  and, yet so as to leave a kind of  primacy to the former. Enlightened, on the contrary, had then already arrived at the conviction that the leadership must be in n hands. , hampered as she is by the, and the divergence of her interests from those of , should, they thought, take her place within a wider. Gradually and almost imperceptibly did this truth work its way through time-honoured tradition. Bunsen was one of its most eloquent s, in his official correspondence as well as in s published in 1848. Several times he was sanguine enough to believe such a policy to be permanently grasped in, but 's vacillating temper and his adherence to tradition refused to be wrought upon beyond the approval of half-measures. Thus the opportunity was lost, the potentiality of the n neglected, and a gnawing disappointment left in the minds of the best patriots throughout. With small hopes, and with no other wish but to serve as long as possible whose and confidence had outlived their former agreement on matters of  and, Bunsen continued in the thankless task of representing  after the downfall of those proud hopes that had pictured forth a revival of the  under n leadership. His main object, pursued under every difficulty, and seized with energy on every favourable opportunity, was to dissociate the policy of from that of  and, and to draw closer whatever bonds of common sentiment or interest existed between the  and  communities. He was not tardy, therefore, in advising in an anti-n sense when the  began. As had so often been the case, 's understanding went along with much that Bunsen wrote, and hopes were entertained that a n participation in, containing the threat of an invasion of the north-western frontier of , would force that country into compliance with the demands of the Western powers. But traditional policy again prevailed, mixed with 's unconquerable aversion to, and his growing mistrust of 's political principles. The of the Western powers was declined,  preserved towards  what is technically called a &ldquo;benevolent ,&rdquo; and  accepted Bunsen's proffered  of his post as  in  in  1854. The remaining s of Bunsen's life were spent in almost unbroken labours, first at a  on the banks of the, near , and at the last in. In the of the day his interest was as keen as ever, and readily did he give his advice when advice was asked, as happened frequently on the part of the prince and princess of Prussia then residing at, who have since risen to the exalted position of  and  of. But declining determined him not to enter the n, in which a seat was offered him by the liberal majority in the  of. His Signs of the Times, however, an elaborate, published in 1856, acted like a first -call