The Witness of the Parochial and Plain Sermons

Extract

Centenaries ecclesiastical and secular have of late years crowded so fast upon one another’s heels that they have become almost dangerously popular. Cathedrals, abbey ruins, tombs of poets and birthplaces of novelists have beckoned to the devout or the sightseer and in every case the char-a-bancs have made reply, and the newspapers have risen to the occasion. A hundred years ago the staid respectability of the Established Church of England received a shock, and though at the time very few of its members knew with certainty what it was all about, the vast majority were quite sure that it was something very shocking. Rumour had it that while courtly prelates maintained a dignified isolation in their palaces and country squires dozed peacefully in their pews an insidious band of cultured divines with Oxford as their plotting ground, were seeking to change the features of the National Church so completely that even its most intimate friends would experience no little difficulty in recognising it.

Among that select group around which the battle raged, three names stand out prominently, but while Pusey lent his name to denote the adherents of this brave endeavour and Keble blunted the enemy’s sword by gentle verse making, John Henry Newman is the man whose name leaps to the tongue and captures thought whenever mention is made of the Oxford Movement.