system was a magnificent one in itself, but
dwarfed and cramped by reason of their own
narrowness of view. They undoubtedly often
" quickened conscience," as Dean Church tells us
they did, but their system became a one-sided
and an unnatural one, though its principles
66 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.
led Howard and Elizabeth Fry to assail the
brutalities which were then common in our
jails, and urged Clarkson and Wilberforce to
overthrow that blot upon England's fair fame
the traffic in slaves. It created, as we have seen,
great Missionary Societies, and gave motive
power and stimulus to many schemes of philan-
thropy, that would have probably never existed
but for the so-called Evangelical party.
But neither the one party nor the other
was able fully to satisfy the earnest cravings,
wishes, and desires of many devoted sons of
Mother Church.
N
CHAPTER V.
THE PIONEERS OF THE MOVEMENT.
OW there were at Oxford at that time
j\
men whose hearts burned within them
as they recalled the fact remembered, it seemed,
by so few that the great Mother Church of Eng-
land was very different from what it was usually
regarded by the majority of thinkers or writers
upon the subject in those days. Such men
realised that the National Church was no mere
institution of the State ; that she, among all the
religious societies in the kingdom, and she
alone, claimed to be a true branch of the Holy
Catholic Church of Christ, whose ministers
were ordained to teach, and to preach, with
the authority of her one Divine Head and
Founder, Jesus Christ.
68 THE STORY OF
Thus, while outside and around raged con-
fusion worse confounded, while hot partisans
were issuing tracts, broadsides, and leaflets,
demanding this and that reform in Church
matters, a few men in the quiet recesses of the
Common Room of Oriel College, Oxford,
met together to consider the position of affairs,
and they ultimately resolved to put into practice
what they believed would be the best remedy
for the then appalling state of things existing
in the Church.
Foremost among such men was John Keble,
parish priest, Fellow of Oriel, and poet, to
whom really the Oxford Movement was due.
Let us first briefly recall to mind Mr. Keble's
work as a poet, as the writer of some of the
most beautiful verses the world has ever read.
It will be admitted that no little force was
given to ideas which ultimately resulted in the
Oxford Movement by the publication in 1827
of a singularly beautiful book of poems, issued
under the title of "The Christian Year," a
THE OXFORD MOVEMENT. 69
work which has done perhaps as much as any
book ever written to elevate and deepen the
religious thoughts of mankind. Few books
have been more largely read none more
highly treasured than Keble's " Christian Year."
John Keble was the son of a clergyman, and
was born on S. Mark's Day, 1792, at Fairford,
in Gloucestershire. His life at Oxford will
long be remembered as one of the most brilliant
and distinguished careers which ever fell to
the lot of the student. At his first College
Corpus he carried off every prize that was
obtainable, took a double first, the prize for
English and Latin essays, and was rewarded
with a Fellowship of Oriel.
A man of singularly sweet disposition, true
piety, and excessive modesty, bordering almost
upon shyness, he left Oxford to become his
father's curate, and for some years worked
amongst the poor as the most ordinary young
curate does work to-day.
Born a poet, young Keble devoted his spare
70 THE STORY OF
hours to the composition of verses, which he
himself contemptuously undervalued, and it
seems wonderful to relate that he refused even
to put his name to that rare volume which has
been read with such deep interest, pleasure, and
profit wherever the English language is spoken.
" The Christian Year " was therefore put forth
anonymously at first, but its intrinsic value
and beauty soon won for it a place of honour
and distinction which it will never lose.
In the year 1835 an old friend and
pupil, Sir William Heathcote, presented Mr.
Keble to the living of Hursley, a beautiful
little village it became a model village under
the fostering care of its pastor situate about
four miles from Winchester. Hursley is a place
of more than ordinary interest, for it was the
home at one time of Richard Cromwell during
the period of the Commonwealth. The
parishes of Hursley, and Otterbourne, had
been consolidated into one living for more
than five hundred years. In Keble's time a
THE OXFORD MOVEMENT. 71
resident clergyman was in charge of the latter,
and a new church and parsonage were built,
mainly through the exertions of Mr. W. C.
Yonge, an old Waterloo officer, and the father
of the much respected authoress, Miss C. M.
Yonge. Afterwards another church was built
at Ampfield, in Hursley parish, at the cost
of Sir William Heathcote. And then Hursley
Church was rebuilt, almost entirely out of the
moneys provided from the profits yielded by
the publication of " The Christian Year."
Mr. Keble is described as an old-fashioned
English Churchman, with much veneration for
the Church and its bishops, and an equal
dislike for the errors of the Church of
Rome, and for the principles which guide the
various forms of Dissent. He died, deeply
and deservedly regretted, on Maundy Thurs-
day, March 29th, 1866, and was buried at
Hursley, the place he probably loved better
than any spot on earth.
Keble was buried in his own churchyard.
72 THE STORY OF
A memorial brass was inserted in the chancel
floor by the parishioners, and a tall granite
churchyard cross was erected at Otterbourne.
That John Keble was indeed a bright and
shining example of a thoroughly good and
consistent Christian man, and a delightful com-
panion, may be inferred from the following
testimony of the companion and partner of
all his joys and sorrows :
On the day before his funeral his wife said
to one who was standing by his bedside :
" There is one thing I do not think anyone
could know but those who were constantly with
him the depth of his humility, and charity.
Notwithstanding his very keen feeling about
doctrine, he always made such great allow-
ances for other people. He never spoke a
sharp word about those who differed from him
without correcting himself immediately."
The following passages from a private letter
addressed to one of his dearest relatives from
one who was a lifelong friend of Keble well
THE OXFORD MOVEMENT. 73
illustrates the beautiful life of this eminently
good man :
" I suppose that no man has died in Eng-
land within our memory who has been so
dearly loved, and whose memory will be held
in such tender reverence by so many good
men. It will be long before many will cease
to say to themselves when in doubt, ' What
would Keble say to this ? ' or to remind them-
selves of his ways and sayings, and of Hursley
as it was in his time, and of all that made
his judgment a law and his companionship
delightful. . . . What I think remarkable
was, not how many people loved him, or how
much they loved him, but that everybody
seemed to love him with the very best kind
of love of which they were capable.
" It was like loving goodness itself. You
felt that what was good in him was applying
itself directly and bringing into life all that
was best in you. His ready, lively, transparent
affection seemed as if it was the very spirit
74 THE STORY OF
of love opening out upon you, and calling for
a return such as you could give."
Surely this is the picture drawn as it is by
one of his intimate associates of an eminently
good, holy, and peculiarly lovable nature.
All this Mr. Keble indeed was, and more.
Amongst the pioneers of the Oxford Move-
ment, in addition to Keble, were Mr. (after-
wards Cardinal) Newman, Dr. Pusey, Hugh
James Rose, William Palmer, Richard Hurrell
Froude, William John Copeland, and Isaac
Williams.
The lives of some of these men have been
written, and we know probably all we are
ever likely to learn about their work in con-
nection with this Movement, but as for the
majority of us such " lives " are usually sealed
books, often costly, not always easy to read,
and frequently unattainable, it may be just
as well to see what manner of men were they,
whose names have come to us as foremost in
the important work of opening the eyes of
THE OXFORD MOVEMENT. 75
the people of England to a higher and deeper
sense of their responsibilities as members of the
Holy Catholic Church.
William Palmer was a scholar of Worcester
College, Oxford, well equipped as a contro-
versialist, fully versed in all matters pertaining
to Church ritual, and one well able to dis-
criminate, as he did discriminate, between
those things which for the most part the
"people" then confounded as they do for the
most part, at any rate, still confound the enor-
mous difference, that is, between Romish error
and primitive Church doctrines. He was the
author of a volume of great value, written in
English, but with the title of " Origines
Liturgicae," published in 1832, which dealt
with the history and offices of the Church.
In this book, amongst other matters of
great interest and value, Mr. Palmer thus
sums up the question of the Apostolical
Succession : *
* "Origines Liturgicae," Vol. II., p. 249.
76 THE STORY OF
" This continual descent is evident to every-
one who chooses to investigate it. Let him
read the catalogue of our bishops ascending
up to the most remote period. Our ordina-
tions descend in a direct, unbroken line from
Peter and Paul, the apostles of the Circum-
cision and the Gentiles. These great apostles
successively ordained Linus, Cletus, and Clement
Bishops of Rome, and the Apostolic succession
was regularly continued from then to Celestine,
Gregory, and Vitalianus, who ordained Patrick
bishop for the Irish, and Augustine and
Theodore for the English, and from those
times an uninterrupted series of valid ordina-
tions has carried down the apostolical suc-
cession in our churches to the present day.
There is not a bishop, priest, or deacon among
us who cannot, if he pleases, trace his own
spiritual descent from St. Peter or St. Paul."
In a " Narrative of Events," connected with,
and explanatory of, the publication of the
" Tracts for the Times," published in 1 843,
THE OXFORD MOVEMENT. 77
Mr. Palmer thus describes the state of things
then existing :
"We felt ourselves assailed by enemies from
without and foes within ; our prelates insulted
and threatened by Ministers of State ; in Ire-
land the bishoprics suppressed. We were
advised to feel thankful that a more sweeping
measure had not been adopted. What was to
come next ? . . . Was the same principle
of concession to popular clamour ... to
be exemplified in the dismemberment of the
English Church ? We were overwhelmed with
pamphlets on Church Reform. Lord Henley,
brother-in-law of Sir Robert Peel, Dr. Burton,
and others of name and influence led the way.
Dr. Arnold of Rugby ventured to propose that
all sects should be united by Act of Parlia-
ment with the Church of England ! Pamphlets
. . . . recommended the abolition of the
Creeds (at least in public worship), especially
urging the expulsion of the Athanasian Creed ;
the removal of all mention of the Blessed
78 THE STORY OF
Trinity, of the doctrine of baptismal regenera-
tion, of the practice of absolution. We knew
not to what quarter to look for support. A
prelacy threatened, and apparently intimidated,
a Government making its power subservient to
agitators who avowedly sought the destruction
of the Church ; and, worst of all, no principles
in the public mind to which we could appeal,
an utter ignorance of all rational grounds of
attachment to the Church ; an oblivion of its
spiritual character as an institution not of man,
but of God ; the grossest Erastianism most
widely prevalent, especially amongst all classes
of politicians."
Much of this is as true to-day as at the
time (1843) it was written. The people of
England, as a rule those who call themselves
Churchpeople that is have no intelligent idea
why they go to Church beyond the fact,
possibly, that their fathers went before them.
This was curiously illustrated in a case which
came to the personal knowledge of the writer
THE OXFORD MOVEMENT. 79
a few years ago. Elizabeth H was a
Churchwoman and a communicant at St. Peter's,
Cornhill, for several years, a place of worship
in which her father and mother, for many years
previously, had been regular attendants. This
lady went to live in South London, and one
day casually visited the "Tabernacle" at New-
ington, where the late Mr. Charles Haddon
Spurgeon, then in the zenith of his popularity,
was preaching. Miss H was much im-
pressed with the wonderful eloquence of the
man, as were most people who heard him for
the first time, and finally she became a baptized
member of the Spurgeon community. Why?
Because, as she herself informed the writer,
she had learned from some one at the Newing-
ton Tabernacle that John the Baptist was the
" founder " of the Baptist community (!) and
therefore she felt she was in " safe " hands as
a recognised and incorporated member of that
body. This is not an idle story, but a fact,
and it shows how very small a matter will
8o THE STORY OF
sometimes turn unthinking persons from the
old paths in which they have been brought
up. And yet possibly there are still many
who, simply for want of knowledge, are led
into the same error, or similar errors, which
caused Elizabeth H to abandon the Church
of England to become a baptized member of
Mr. Spurgeon's community.
The condition of things set forth by Mr.
Palmer, was fully corroborated by another
writer of the time, Mr. A. P. Perceval, who
in 1842 thus graphically sums up the position
of affairs relating to the Church some sixty
years ago : " An agrarian and civic insurrec-
tion against the bishops and clergy, and all
who desired to adhere to the existing institu-
tions of the country ; the populace goaded on,
openly by the speeches, covertly (as was fully
believed at the time) by the paid emissaries
of the Crown, the chiet of those Ministers* in
his place in Parliament bidding the bishops
* The then Lord Grey.
THE OXFORD MOVEMENT. 81
' set their house in order,' the mob taking
him at his word and burning to the ground
the palace of the Bishop of Bristol, with the
public buildings of the city, while they shouted
the Premier's name in triumph on the ruins."*
Cardinal Newman, in his "Apologia," fully
endorses the description given in the foregoing
lines, tells of bishops " insulted and threatened
in the streets of London, and," he adds, " there
was so much apathy on the subject in some
quarters, such imbecile alarm in others, the
true principles of Churchmanship seemed so
radically decayed, and there was such distrac-
tion in the councils of the clergy ... I
felt affection for my own Church, but not
tenderness ; I felt dismay at her prospects,
scorn and anger at her do-nothing perplex-
ities. As to leaving her, the thought never
crossed my imagination ; still I ever kept
before me that there was something greater
* " Collection of Papers connected with the Movement of
833." p. 25.
8
82 THE STORY OF
than the Established Church, and that was the
Church Catholic and Apostolic, set up from
the beginning, of which she was but the local
presence and organ."
So it appeared to thoughtful men, in the face
of the then grave crisis, that some attempt
must be made to improve, if possible, the
condition of the Church ; that it must be done
quickly, or not at all, seemed to be the united
opinion of all who thought about the matter,
and so exceedingly perilous were the times
thought to be that some sixty years ago Mr.
Hugh James Rose expressed his belief that the
Church could not stand as it was then for
ten or fifteen years even !
Various suggestions were made. Mr. Palmer
suggested an association being formed, prob-
ably very much like the "English Church
Union," or the "Church Defence Institution,"
which were founded in later times, but for
some reason or another no such association
was then brought into being, and the reasons
THE OXFORD MOVEMENT. 83
for adopting the use of the pen in preference
to committees were no doubt wise in the face
of the fact that the " Liberationists " at that time
were making use of the popular form of
literature of the day, the pamphlet and leaf-
let, or tract, which could be quickly produced,
and was readily circulated amongst the people.
But, before a leaflet or tract was written or
circulated, it was resolved that an address
should be drawn up to the heads of the
Church. This was the work of Mr. Palmer,
and notwithstanding the apathy and opposition
of some, amongst whom must be reckoned
certain of the bishops of that time, and
the distrust, timidity, and crotchets of others,
no less than 7,000 clergy signed the address,
which was presented to the Archbishop of
Canterbury in February, 1834.
This address made no small stir, and created
something like a revived interest in affairs
affecting the Church. Fortunately, it did not
stop there. A lay address was resolved upon,
84 THE STORY OF
which was signed by no less than 230,000
heads of families, and which, as every word
is applicable to the year 1899, we make no
apology for reproducing in these pages.
" At a time when the clergy of England
and Wales have felt it their duty to address
their Primate with an expression of unshaken
adherence to the doctrine and discipline of
the Church of which they are ministers, we,
the undersigned, as lay members of the same,
are not less anxious to record our firm attach-
ment to her pure faith and worship, and her
apostolic form of government.
" We further find ourselves called upon by
the events which are daily passing around us
to declare our firm conviction that the con-
secration of the State by the public main-
tenance of the Christian religion is the first
and paramount duty of a Christian people ;
and that the Church established in these
realms, by carrying its sacred and beneficial
influence through all orders and degrees, and
THE OXFORD MOVEMENT. 85
into every corner of the land, has for many
ages been the great and distinguishing blessing
of this country, and the means under Divine
Providence, no less of national prosperity than
of individual piety.
" In the preservation, therefore, of this our
National Church in the integrity of her rights
and privileges, and in her alliance with the
State, we feel that we have an interest no less
real, and no less direct, than her immediate
ministers, and we accordingly avow our firm
determination to do all that in us lies, in our
several stations, to uphold unimpaired in its
security and efficiency that establishment which
we have received as the richest legacy of our
forefathers, and desire to hand down as the
best inheritance to our posterity."*
This address was perhaps the first real
organised step in the direction of Church
defence in modern days, and produced, as may
* Archdeacon Churton's "Memoir of Joshua Watson,"
Vol. II., p. 23.
86 THE STORY OF
be readily believed, a very marked impression
upon the people of those times ; in fact, from
these two addresses it was said by Mr. Per-
ceval (in 1842) that "we may date the com-
mencement of the turn of the tide which had
threatened to overwhelm our Church and our
religion."
These lay and clerical addresses brought men
of various shades of religious opinion together,
and gave courage and unity to a movement,
which, though it took no definite shape then,
resulted, in later days, in the formation of an
organised body of laymen who determined to
uphold and defend the National Church against
its adversaries.
The result of the deliberations of the framers
of the addresses was the determination to
issue a series of tracts, which became known
as the Oxford Tracts, or "Tracts for the
Times." These papers were written at dif-
ferent periods and by many persons. Each
man wrote as he felt, plain speaking and plain
THE OXFORD MOVEMENT. 87
writing was what each one of the tract writers
aimed at, and each writer, though all acted in
close concert together, took the responsibility
for what he had written, and no one else.
Canon Liddon tells us : " At Oriel College
some effort was made to agree upon a basis
of mutual co-operation. Two documents were
drawn up, in one of which it was declared
that the object was to maintain pure and
inviolate the doctrines, the services, and the
discipline of the Church ; to withstand all
change involving denial or suppression of
doctrine and departure from primitive prac-
tices in religious offices, or innovation upon
the Apostolical prerogatives, order, and com-
mission of bishops, priests, and deacons."
This meeting was followed by others in
London, Winchester, Coventry, and other places,
at which one of the little band of friends,
generally Mr. (afterwards Sir William) Palmer,
attended, to explain the objects of the " Asso-
ciation of Friends."
88 THE STORY OF
To Mr. Newman belongs the idea of the
" Tracts " as a means of arousing Church
people into action. The suggestion was to
issue short papers, " full of nerve," intentionally
alarming in tone, "as a man might give
notice of a fire, or inundation," transparently
clear in statement, and setting forth the truth
upon which the Church rested with uncom-
promising simplicity. This method was re-
jected ; the Association would not acknow-
ledge Newman's earlier efforts, and Newman
and his friends would not give them up.*
Richard Hurrell Froude, though one of the
leaders of the Movement, soon passed away,
dying at the early age of thirty-three, at
Darlington, where he was born in 1803. He
had at Oxford as colleagues Mr. Newman,
and Robert Wilberforce, and was elected
Fellow of Oriel in 1826. He is thus described
by one who knew him intimately : t
* Liddon's "Life of Pusey," Vol. I., p. 269.
t Sir John T. Coleridge, "A Memoir of John Keble,"
p. no.
THE OXFORD MOVEMENT. 89
" I knew him from a child, and I trace in
the somewhat singular composition of his
character what he inherited both from his
father and his highly gifted mother. His
father, whom Keble, after his first visit to
Dartington Parsonage playfully described as
'very amiable, but provokingly intelligent, one
quite uncomfortable to think of, making one
ashamed of going gawking, as one is wont to
do, about the world, without understanding
anything one sees ' ; his mother, ' very beau-
tiful in person, and delicate in constitution,
with a highly expressive countenance and
gifted in intellect, with the genius and imagi-
nation which his father failed in.' Like the
one, he was clever, knowing, quick, and handy ;
like the other, he was sensitive, intellectual,
imaginative. He came to Keble, full of respect
for his character ; he was naturally soon won
by his affectionateness and his simplicity, and
in turn he was just the young man in whom
Keble would at once take an interest and
9 o THE STORY OF
delight as a pupil ; and so, in fact, it was. I
find him again and again in Keble's letters
spoken of in the most loving language, yet
often not without some degree of anxiety as
to his future course. It would be idle to
speculate on what might have been when the
hour of trial came, which none of those
specially engaged probably then foresaw ;
before it arrived Hurrell Froude had sunk
under the constitutional malady against which
he had struggled for four years. What he
would have been, and what he would have
done, had his life been prolonged none can
say, and it would be unfair to judge him by
what he left behind except as rich grounds
of promise."
Of him Dean Church* writes : " It would be
more true to say that, with one exception, no
one was more responsible for the impulse
which led to the Movement ; no one had
more to do with shaping its distinct aims,
* "The Oxford Movement," p. 36.
THE OXFORD MOVEMENT. 91
and its moral spirit, and character in its first
stage ; no one was more daring and more
clear, as far as he saw, in what he was pre-
pared for. There was no one to whom his
friends so much looked up with admiration
and enthusiasm. There was no wasted shade
in Hurrell Froude's disabled, prematurely
shortened life." *
Cardinal Newman, his colleague, described him
as " an Englishman to the backbone " ; another,
who knew him intimately, described him as " that