OXFORD MOVEMENT

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20563, 3 June 1932, Page 7

OXFORD MOVEMENT

ORIGIN AND EARLY YEARS. ADDRESS BY ARCHDEACON TAYLOR. Tlie tfrst of a series oi' nine lectures oe the Oxford Movement was given by. Archdeacon Taylor last night at the Jellicoo Hail, tlie subject being ''The Dawn of the Movement." Sir IJLfaton Rhodes was in the chair. The principal book on the subject, said Archdeacon Taylor, was Dean Church's "The Oxford Movement, 1833 • 4.5,'' and since the author had been in intimate relationship with Newman at Oxford, it was really tlio classic history of the period. It was far otherwise with "William Walsh's "History of the Oxford Movement" —to be found in the Public Library—which had been scathingly criticised by leading English journals. Preferring to Englund of one hundred years ago, beforo the Oxford Movement had its beginning, Archdeacon Taylor said that conditions werj very bad indeed, and the Churches seemed to be able to do nothing in tho matter. Ho illustrated the state of the Church itself by reading an account of Paul Dombey's baptism from Dickens' "Dombey and Son," and recounted how on Easter Day, 1800, no more than six people attended the only celebration of Communion at St. Paul's Cathedral. "Something of the spirit of God has beeu blown through the Churches since," ho remarked. "Ttiday the churches are open all the week, and are scenes of great activity at all times." Influences at Work. During tho eighteenth century, when the Oxford Movement began, AngloCatholicism was under a cloud, but wa3 subsequently asserted and vindicated. An important factor was the philosophical influence built up by Samuel Taylur Coleridge, whose challenge could not be withstood by the shallow ovaiigelicism of the time. But there were also 2 )o '"^ ca J Influences at work, and after the suppression of ten of the Irish Sees, the turn of the English bishoprics might well havo come next, Tt was at this time that the Oxford Movement first mado itself prominent. Keble laid the foundation in 1843 with a sermon on national apostacy, which was heard by the King, and ton days later tho matter v,-as discussed at length.

The Leaders. The leaders of the movement \ve:e three great Oxford men—Keble, Newman, and Pusey. At the time, Oriel was the College highest hi scholastic repute, and it was there that Jiearly all the leaders received their education. John Keble went to Oxford at tho age of fifteen, and while still little more* than a boy took a double first and gained an Oriel scholarship. lie had always been a High-Churchman, and his book of poems, entitled "The Christian Tear," sang tho doctrines of the new movement. Till his death in 1860 ho did greater service for the Church than all the clergy, by whom he. was distrusted and hated, and a College at Oxford now bears his honoured name. When John Henry Newman first went ii]> to Oxford he heard a sermon which brought home to him the truth that the Bible was never intended to teach doctrine, but only to prove it. Newman was immensely influenced by Keble and Pusey. His conception of episcopacy Mas interesting. "My own Bishop was my Pope," he wrote. "I know no other." Years after.wards Pusey said "Newman leaned on the bishops, Keble and I trusted tho Church." It was duo to being roundly referred to as a liar and a cheat by Charles Kingsley that Newman shut himself up and wrote the story of his in one of the most beautiful books in the language—his "Apologia." Even enemies of the movement could not withhold their admiration at its progress; but Tract Ninety, where Newman attacked certain passages in the Thirty-nine Articles, evoked a storm of protest, which profoundly affected such a sensitive being as Newman. His last sermon lis an Anglican was on the parting of friends. The Tuture. "Oxford has been described as the home of lost causes," concluded the speaker, "and it is certaijily true that most of her best sous have stood by <i causei that has never been a popular cause, and often a hated and despised cause. I think that this movement is not a losing one, but one that has conquered by the truth of its teaching and tho justice of its claims; and like the lovely city of its -origin, the Oxford Movement will be seen in a long perspective of the Church's life- to havelifted up above the mists of. error sin the spires and towers, the houses and bulwarks of the City of God. At the conclusion of the address a vote of thanks to the speaker and the chairman was moved by tho Rev. C. L. Perry.