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
With more power than most men of standing alone, and of arranging his
observations on life and the world in ways of his own, he had
pre-eminently above all men round him, in the highest and noblest form,
the spirit of a disciple. Like most human things, discipleship has its
good and its evil, its strong and its poor and dangerous side; but it
really has, what is much forgotten now, a good and a strong side. Both
in philosophy and religion, the μαθητὴς is a distinct character, and
Charles Marriott was an example of it at its best. He had its manly and
reasonable humility, its generous trustfulness, its self-forgetfulness;
he had, too, the enthusiasm of having and recognising a great master and
teacher, and doing what he wanted done; and he learned from the love of
his master to love what he believed truth still more. The character of
the disciple does not save a man from difficulties, from trouble and
perplexity; but it tends to save him from idols of his own making. It is
something, in the trials of life and faith, to have the consciousness of
knowing or having known some one greater and better and wiser than
oneself, of having felt the spell of his guidance and example.
Marriott's mind, quick to see what was real and strong, and at once
reverent to it as soon as he saw it, came very much, as an undergraduate
at Balliol, under the influence of a very able and brilliant tutor,
Moberly, afterwards Headmaster of Winchester and Bishop of Salisbury;
and to the last his deference and affection to his old tutor remained
unimpaired. But he came under a still more potent charm when he moved to
Oriel, and became the friend of Mr. Newman. Master and disciple were as
unlike as any two men could be; they were united by their sympathy in
the great crisis round them, by their absorbing devotion to the cause of
true religion. Marriott brought to the movement, and especially to its
chief, a great University character, and an unswerving and touching
fidelity. He placed himself, his life, and all that he could do, at the
service of the great effort to elevate and animate the Church; to the
last he would gladly have done so under him whom he first acknowledged
as his master. This was not to be; and he transferred his allegiance, as
unreservedly, with equal loyalty and self-sacrifice, to his successor.
But to the end, while his powers lasted, with all his great gifts and
attainments, with every temptation to an independent position and
self-chosen employment, he continued a disciple. He believed in men
wiser than himself; he occupied himself with what they thought best for
him to do.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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