The Oxford Movement | Page 2

likely to be long remembered wherever the English
language is studied.
We are sometimes told that enough has been written about the Oxford
Movement, and that the world is rather tired of the subject. A good deal
has certainly been both said and written about it, and more is probably
still to come; and it is true that other interests, more immediate or more
attractive, have thrown into the background what is severed from us by
the interval of half a century. Still that movement had a good deal to do
with what is going on in everyday life among us now; and feelings both
of hostility to it, and of sympathy with it, are still lively and keen
among those to whom religion is a serious subject, and even among
some who are neutral in the questions which it raised, but who find in it
a study of thought and character. I myself doubt whether the interest of
it is so exhausted as is sometimes assumed. If it is, these pages will
soon find their appropriate resting-place. But I venture to present them,
because, though a good many judgments upon the movement have been
put forth, they have come mostly from those who have been more or
less avowedly opposed to it.[1] The men of most account among those
who were attracted by it and represented it have, with one illustrious

exception, passed away. A survivor of the generation which it stirred so
deeply may not have much that is new to tell about it. He may not be
able to affect much the judgment which will finally be accepted about it.
But the fact is not unimportant, that a number of able and earnest men,
men who both intellectually and morally would have been counted at
the moment as part of the promise of the coming time, were fascinated
and absorbed by it. It turned and governed their lives, lifting them out
of custom and convention to efforts after something higher, something
worthier of what they were. It seemed worth while to exhibit the course
of the movement as it looked to these men--as it seemed to them
viewed from the inside. My excuse for adding to so much that has been
already written is, that I was familiar with many of the chief actors in
the movement. And I do not like that the remembrance of friends and
associates, men of singular purity of life and purpose, who raised the
tone of living round them, and by their example, if not by their ideas,
recalled both Oxford and the Church to a truer sense of their
responsibilities, should, because no one would take the trouble to put
things on record, "pass away like a dream."
The following pages were, for the most part, written, and put into
printed shape, in 1884 and 1885. Since they were written, books have
appeared, some of them important ones, going over most of the same
ground; while yet more volumes may be expected. We have had
ingenious theories of the genesis of the movement, and the filiation of
its ideas. Attempts have been made to alter the proportions of the scene
and of the several parts played upon it, and to reduce the common
estimate of the weight and influence of some of the most prominent
personages. The point of view of those who have thus written is not
mine, and they tell their story (with a full right so to do) as I tell mine.
But I do not purpose to compare and adjust our respective accounts--to
attack theirs, or to defend my own. I have not gone through their books
to find statements to except to, or to qualify. The task would be a
tiresome and unprofitable one. I understand their point of view, though
I do not accept it. I do not doubt their good faith, and I hope that they
will allow mine.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] It is hardly necessary to say that these and the following words were
written before Dr. Newman's death, and the publication of his letters.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
THE CHURCH IN THE REFORM DAYS

CHAPTER II
THE BEGINNING OF THE MOVEMENT--JOHN KEBLE

CHAPTER III
RICHARD HURRELL FROUDE

CHAPTER IV
MR. NEWMAN'S EARLY FRIENDS--ISAAC WILLIAMS

CHAPTER V
CHARLES MARRIOTT

CHAPTER VI
THE OXFORD TRACTS

CHAPTER VII
THE TRACTARIANS

CHAPTER VIII
SUBSCRIPTION AT MATRICULATION AND ADMISSION OF
DISSENTERS

CHAPTER IX
DR. HAMPDEN

CHAPTER X
GROWTH OF THE MOVEMENT, 1835-1840

CHAPTER XI
THE ROMAN QUESTION

CHAPTER XII
CHANGES

CHAPTER XIII
THE AUTHORITIES AND THE MOVEMENT

CHAPTER XIV
NO. 90

CHAPTER XV
AFTER NO. 90

CHAPTER XVI
THE THREE DEFEATS: ISAAC WILLIAMS, MACMULLEN,
PUSEY

CHAPTER XVII

W.G. WARD

CHAPTER XVIII
THE IDEAL OF A