The Oxford Movement; Twelve Years, 1833-1845Church, R. W. (Richard William)
Religion
The Oxford Movement; Twelve Years, 1833-1845
Church, R. W. (Richard William)
Oxford movement
The first seven years of the movement, as it is said in the _Apologia_,
had been years of prosperity. There had been mistakes; there had been
opposition; there had been distrust and uneasiness. There was in some
places a ban on the friends of Mr. Newman; men like Mr. James Mozley and
Mr. Mark Pattison found their connexion with him a difficulty in the way
of fellowships. But on the whole, things had gone smoothly, without any
great breakdown, or any open collision with authority. But after 1840
another period was to begin of trouble and disaster. The seeds of this
had been partially sown before in the days of quiet, and the time was
come for their development. Differences in the party itself had been
growing sharper; differences between the more cautious and the more
fearless, between the more steady-going and the more subtle thinkers.
The contrast between the familiar and customary, and the new--between
the unknown or forgotten, and a mass of knowledge only recently
realised--became more pronounced. Consequences of a practical kind, real
or supposed; began to show themselves, and to press. And above all, a
second generation, without the sobering experience of the first, was
starting from where the first had reached to, and, in some instances,
was rising up against their teachers' caution and patience. The usual
dangers of all earnest and aggressive assertions of great principles
appeared: contempt for everything in opinion and practice that was not
advanced, men vying with each other in bold inferences, in the pleasure
of "talking strong." With this grew fear and exasperation on the other
side, misunderstandings, misgivings, strainings of mutual confidence,
within. Dr. Hook alternated between violent bursts of irritation and
disgust, and equally strong returns of sympathy, admiration, and
gratitude; and he represented a large amount of feeling among Churchmen.
It was but too clear that storms were at hand. They came perhaps quicker
than they were anticipated.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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