Among the many sources of agitation existing at that time, none was more remarkable, or in some respects more important, than the High Church movement, which had originated several years before, but which in 1841 was beginning to assume grave proportions. This turmoil of the religious mind had first shown itself in the University of Oxford towards the latter end of the reign of George IV. A number of enthusiastic young students--men of great mental power, and of unquestionable sincerity--began to be dissatisfied with the position, doctrine, and ceremonial of the Church for which they were being prepared, or which they had already entered. They considered that that Church had abnegated some of its most valuable functions; that it was lax in its ideas, somnolent in its teaching, forgetful of tradition, slovenly in its ritual, and indifferent to its authoritative powers. There had in truth been a good deal of dull and formal worldly-mindedness amongst the clergy for the last hundred years; but it must not be forgotten that this period of repose had had inestimable advantages in the softening of dogma, the development of toleration, and the growth of independent thought. To the Oxford ecclesiologists, however, these very circumstances were amongst the heaviest indictments which they brought against the Church as it was then constituted. They had grand visions of Apostolical succession, and certainly suggested, if they did not precisely state, that no one would be entitled to differ from the Church, if the Church were only reformed according to their ideas. Curious inquirers trace back the beginning of this movement to the lectures of Bishop Lloyd on the Prayer Book and the Council of Trent, which were delivered when he was Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, about 1823. But, whatever impulse he may have given to subsequent speculations, Dr. Lloyd does not appear among the leaders of the great movement which afterwards shook the religious world of England to its centre. Those leaders were the Rev. John Keble, author of “The Christian Year,” and Fellow of Oriel; the Rev. J. H. Newman (now Cardinal Newman); the Rev. Richard Hurrell Froude (who, with Newman, was also a Fellow of Oriel); the Rev. E. B. Pusey, Regius Professor of Hebrew, and Canon of Christchurch; and the Rev. Isaac Williams, Fellow of Trinity, and author of “The Cathedral, and Other Poems.” Cambridge contributed the services of the Rev. Hugh Rose; but, on the whole, the sister University was little affected by the new ideas.