Poor "Soapy Sam" Wilberforce. The Bishop of Oxford is remembered most for being bested by Professor Huxley in the first great debate between science and religion, generated by the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species. When Wilberforce asked Huxley - in effect - on which side of his family were the apes, the professor (supposedly) replied, "If I had to choose between being descended from an ape or from a man who would use his great powers of rhetoric to crush an argument, I should prefer the former." The legend is that Huxley's rebuke to the Bishop caused a great tumult in the hall. Women fainted on the spot.
Read how the Bishop dealt with a more temporal problem in "Why, Dammit, You're a Parson!," included in the new Kindle book, CLERICAL ERRORS - A VICTORIAN SERIES, Volume 1.
Available NOW at Amazon.co.uk (£3.86)
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