sense of the deep spiritual meaning of the scriptures, and his broad sympathy with various forms of Christian faith and hope, and with the best endeavours of pre-Christian times.
His counsel was often privately asked on questions of belief, or on the choice of a sphere of work. Younger members of the university turned to him for aid in various religious efforts. To his inspiration and guidance was largely due the inception of the Cambridge Mission to Delhi, which continues to bear the impress of his aims and spirit. So, too, with a view that men who were looking forward to be parochial clergy should receive more help at the university in preparing for their future work, the Cambridge Clergy Training School was founded, with Westcott as president; he delivered courses of devotional addresses to the members, and they regularly attended his classes on Christian doctrine. The school's subsequent position largely reflects Westcott's early interest in it. Its present home has received the name of Westcott House.
At public meetings in Cambridge he advocated foreign missions and other religious or social objects with inspiring eloquence. In general university business he was also active. From 1872 to 1876 and 1878 to 1882 he was a member of the council of the senate, the chief administrative body in the university, and he served on important syndicates. Like Lightfoot he urged on the senate the plan of university extension originated by (Prof.) James Stuart, for establishing, under the management of a university syndicate, systematic courses of lectures and classes in populous centres.
In May 1883 he resigned his examining chaplaincy at Peterborough. To his surprise Bishop Magee thereupon requested him to resign his canonry. Next month (June) he became examining chaplain to his old friend. Dr. Benson, newly appointed archbishop of Canterbury; and in October he received through Gladstone a canonry at Westminster. Gladstone had already sounded him as to his willingness to accept the deanery of Exeter, and in 1885 the liberal prime minister offered that of Lincoln, while in 1889 Lord Salisbury offered him that of Norwich. But he felt that so long as his strength was equal to his work at Cambridge he ought not to give it up for such a post.
He felt deeply the responsibility of preaching in the Abbey; and its historic associations powerfully appealed to him. He looked forward to settling altogether at Westminster on retiring from his professorship. During his months of residence there he took part in several public movements, and joined in an influential protest by members of various Christian bodies against the immense expenditure of the nations of Europe on armaments, and in a plea for the settlement of international differences by arbitration.
Though no considerable work appeared from his pen during the first ten years of the tenure of his professorship, he published various sermons, essays, and addresses and the articles on the Alexandrian teachers, 'Clement,' 'Demetrius,' and 'Dionysius,' in the 'Dictionary of Christian Biography' (vol. i. 1877). His literary energy was mainly absorbed by the preparation, in conjunction with Hort, of a critical text of the New Testament in Greek. This, the fruit of twenty-eight years' toil, was published in May 1881 (2 vols.; new edit. 1885). In 1870 he had been appointed a member of the committee for the revision of the English translation of the New Testament. The revised version was published in 1881, a few days after Westcott and Hort's Greek text. He was besides still at work upon the Johannine writings. His commentary upon the 'Gospel according to St. John' appeared in the 'Speaker's Commentary' in 1882, that on the 'Epistles of St. John' in 1883. Thereupon he devoted himself to the 'Epistle to the Hebrews,' and published his Commentary upon it in 1889.
Origen and his place in the history of Christian thought was a subject which peculiarly attracted him. He delivered two lectures on it at Edinburgh in 1877, wrote in the 'Contemporary Review' in 1878 on 'Origen and the Beginnings of Religious Philosophy' (see Religious Thought in the West, 1891), and contributed a masterly article on Origen to the 'Dictionary of Christian Biography' (vol. iv. 1889). Another favourite theme was 'Benjamin Whichcote,' 'father of the Cambridge Platonists' (see Religious Thought and Barry's Masters of English Theology). In 1881 he was appointed a member of the ecclesiastical courts commission, for which he did historical work of another kind. Sermons and addresses also continued to appear singly or in volumes, among them 'Christus Consummator' (1886) and 'Social Aspects of Christianity' (1887), two volumes of sermons preached at Westminster. The latter was his earliest treatment with some fulness of a subject in
