as assumed to
be undeniable--the perfect Catholicity of Rome. More almost than ideas
and assumptions, the tone of feeling changed. It had been, towards the
English Church, affectionate, enthusiastic, reverential, hopeful. It
became contemptuous, critical, intolerant, hostile with the hostility
not merely of alienation but disgust This was not of course the work of
a moment, but it was of very rapid growth. "How I hate these Anglicans!"
was the expression of one of the younger men of this section, an
intemperate and insolent specimen of it. It did not represent the tone
or the language of the leader to whom the advanced section deferred,
vexed as he often was with the course of his own thoughts, and
irritated and impatient at the course of things without. But it
expressed but too truly the difference between 1833 and 1840.

FOOTNOTES:

[73] See Sermons on _Subjects of the Day_, 1843.

CHAPTER XIII

THE AUTHORITIES AND THE MOVEMENT

While the movement was making itself felt as a moral force, without a
parallel in Oxford for more than two centuries, and was impressing
deeply and permanently some of the most promising men in the rising
generation in the University, what was the attitude of the University
authorities? What was the attitude of the Bishops?

At Oxford it was that of contemptuous indifference, passing into
helpless and passionate hostility. There is no sadder passage to be
found in the history of Oxford than the behaviour and policy of the
heads of this great Christian University towards the religious movement
which was stirring the interest, the hopes, the fears of Oxford. The
movement was, for its first years at least, a loyal and earnest effort
to serve the cause of the Church. Its objects were clear and reasonable;
it aimed at creating a sincere and intelligent zeal for the Church, and
at making the Church itself worthy of the great position which her
friends claimed for her. Its leaders were men well known in the
University, in the first rank in point of ability and character; men of
learning, who knew what they were talking about; men of religious and
pure, if also severe lives. They were not men merely of speculation and
criticism, but men ready to forego anything, to devote everything for
the practical work of elevating religious thought and life. All this did
not necessarily make their purposes and attempts wise and good; but it
did entitle them to respectful attention. If they spoke lan