In the following year he returned to Cambridge as curate of St. Mary the Less, in order that he might study theology under the direction of Professor Blunt.
[2] In 1862 his health compelled him to retire to lighter work, and for two years he was minister of Holy Trinity Church, Conduit Street, Hanover Square; but in 1865 he returned to his old occupation, accepting the principalship of the Training College, Durham.
The fame of his success at Durham led Bishop Durnford, an entire stranger to him, to offer him in 1870 the principalship of the Theological College, Chichester, with a canonry attached, and he also held for a short time the rectory of St. Martin's (1871–75), and that of St. Andrew's (1872-5), in that city.
It is no wonder that his constitution was impaired by this excessive work, and that he succumbed to an attack of congestion of the lungs, which prematurely cut short a most active and useful life on 23 October 1879.
His little volume of printed sermons, entitled God in Nature, is full of striking and original ideas, expressed tersely and incisively, and evidently with a view to arrest or even force attention.
He was a very strict disciplinarian, and the kindest of friends and counsellors to all pupils who sought his aid in confidence, as many of them have testified to the present writer.
Besides the writings already mentioned, he published 'The Schoolmaster's Studies' (1860), 'The Argument against Evening Communions' (1875), 'Lectures on the Holy Catholic Church' (1876), and 'Septuagesima Lectures' (1877), all small works.