eener and closer touch than questions
about doctrine. It was the subject of many a bitter, agonising struggle
which no one knew anything of; it was with many the act of a supreme
self-oblation. The idea of the single life may be a utilitarian one as
well as a religious one. It may be chosen with no thought of
renunciation or self-denial, for the greater convenience and freedom of
the student or the philosopher, the soldier or the man of affairs. It
may also be chosen without any special feeling of a sacrifice by the
clergyman, as most helpful for his work. But the idea of celibacy, in
those whom it affected at Oxford, was in the highest degree a religious
and romantic one. The hold which it had on the leader of the movement
made itself felt, though little was directly said. To shrink from it was
a mark of want of strength or intelligence, of an unmanly preference for
English home life, of insensibility to the generous devotion and purity
of the saints. It cannot be doubted that at this period of the movement
the power of this idea over imagination and conscience was one of the
strongest forces in the direction of Rome.

Of all these ideas Mr. Ward's articles in the _British Critic_ were the
vigorous and unintermittent exposition. He spoke out, and without
hesitation. There was a perpetual contrast implied, when it was not
forcibly insisted on, between all that had usually been esteemed highest
in the moral temper of the English Church, always closely connected with
home life and much variety of character, and the loftier and bolder but
narrower standard of Roman piety. And Mr. Ward was seconded in the
_British Critic_ by other writers, all fervid in the same cause, some
able and eloquent. The most distinguished of his allies was Mr. Oakeley,
Fellow of Balliol and minister of Margaret Chapel in London. Mr. Oakeley
was, perhaps, the first to realise the capacities of the Anglican ritual
for impressive devotional use, and his services, in spite of the
disadvantages of the time, and also of his chapel, are still remembered
by some as having realised for them, in a way never since surpassed, the
secrets and the consolations of the worship of the Church. Mr. Oakeley,
without much learning, was master of a facile and elegant pen. He was a
man who followed a trusted leader with chivalrous boldness, and was not
afraid of strengthening his statements. Without Mr. Ward's force and
originality, his articles were more attractive read