Catechetical lectures on Saturdays and Sundays in the afternoons were crowded, not only by residents, but also by young clergymen from the country. He was a student all his life, but from this time moral theology was a subject in which he took special interest. In the words of his biographer Isaacson, "he was a man deeply seen in all cases of conscience." He kept outside the field of the controversies of the day, but his earnestness and good judgment soon won the confidence of many enquirers. In 1586 he was persuaded by the Earl of Huntingdon, President of the North, to attend him as his chaplain, and in this capacity he had many opportunities of reconciling recusant priests and others to the English Church. In the same year he was made chaplain to Archbishop Whitgift, and two years later was presented by Sir Francis Walsingham to the Vicarage of St Giles', Cripplegate. Walsingham was at this time at the height of his influence as Queen Elizabeth's minister, and had been interested in Andrewes from his boyhood. In 1589 Andrewes was made Prebendary of St Paul's Cathedral, receiving the stall of St Pancras to which was attached the office of penitentiary. As at Cambridge he at once began to lecture three times a week on the book of Genesis, and revived the neglected functions of his office by walking in the aisle at stated times to give counsel to any who sought it. 1 Two series were published after his death, A Pattern of Catechistical Doctrine and an exposition of the Decalogue called The Moral Law expounded, but the latter is largely unauthentic. |