e unkindest cut--he asserted for Religion the chief place among the
elements of national well-being. We were just then living at the fag-end
of an anti-religious time. The critical, negative, and utilitarian
spirit which had seized on Oxford after the apparent defeat and collapse
of Newman's movement had profoundly affected the Liberal Party. It was
an essential characteristic of the political Liberals to pour scorn on
that "retrograding transcendentalism" which was "the hardheads' nickname
for the Anglo-Catholic Symphony."[29] The fact that Gladstone was so
saturated with the spirit of that symphony was a cause of mistrust which
his genius and courage could barely overcome; and, even when it was
overcome, a good many of his Party followed him as reluctantly and as
mockingly as Sancho Panza followed Don Quixote. The only heaven of which
the political Liberal dreamed was what Arnold called "the glorified and
unending tea-meeting of popular Protestantism." And the portion of the
Party which regarded itself as the intellectual wing, seemed to have
reverted to the temper described by Bishop Butler; "taking for granted
that Christianity is not so much as a subject of enquiry, but that it is
now at length discovered to be fictitious"; and habitually talking as if
"this were an agreed point among all people of discernment." Great was
the vexation of the "old Liberal hacks" who had been repeating these
dismal shibboleths, and ignoring or denying the greatest force in human
life, to find in this new teacher of liberal ideas a convinced and
persistent opponent. He affirmed that Religion was the best, the
sweetest, and the strongest thing in the world; he insisted that without
it there could be no perfect culture, no complete civilization; he
showed a reverent admiration for the historical character and teaching
of Jesus Christ; he urged the example of His "mildness and sweet
reasonableness." He taught that the best way of extending Christ's
kingdom on earth was by sweetening the character and brightening the
lives of the men and women whose nature He shared.

It belongs to another part of this work to enquire what he meant by
Religion and Christianity, and how far his interpretations accorded
with, or how far they departed from, the traditional creed of
Christendom. But enough, perhaps, has been said to explain why the
appearance of _Culture and Anarchy_ so profoundly disquieted the "old
Liberal hacks" and the popular teachers of