These two gentlemen had never seen each other, but they had been extremely bitter in print.

Mr.Slope had endeavoured to strengthen his cause by calling Mr.Arabin an owl, and Mr.Arabin had retaliated by hinting that Mr.Slope was an infidel.
This battle had been commenced in the columns of "The Jupiter," a powerful newspaper, the manager of which was very friendly to Mr.Slope's view of the case.

The matter, however, had become too tedious for the readers of "The Jupiter," and a little note had therefore been appended to one of Mr.Slope's most telling rejoinders, in which it had been stated that no further letters from the reverend gentlemen could be inserted except as advertisements.
Other methods of publication were, however, found, less expensive than advertisements in "The Jupiter," and the war went on merrily.

Mr.
Slope declared that the main part of the consecration of a clergyman was the self-devotion of the inner man to the duties of the ministry.
Mr.Arabin contended that a man was not consecrated at all, had, indeed, no single attribute of a clergyman, unless he became so through the imposition of some bishop's hands, who had become a bishop through the imposition of other hands, and so on in a direct line to one of the apostles.

Each had repeatedly hung the other on the horns of a dilemma, but neither seemed to be a whit the worse for the hanging; and so the war went on merrily.
Whether or no the near neighbourhood of the foe may have acted in any way as an inducement to Mr.Arabin to accept the living of St.Ewold, we will not pretend to say; but it had at any rate been settled in Dr.Gwynne's library, at Lazarus, that he would accept it, and that he would lend his assistance towards driving the enemy out of Barchester, or, at any rate, silencing him while he remained there.