This large majority was a genuine expression of the sense of the University.  It was not specially a “Tractarian” success, though most of the arguments which contributed to it came from men who more or less sympathised with the effort to make a vigorous fight for the Church and its teaching; and it showed that they who had made the effort had touched springs of thought and feeling, and awakened new hopes and interest in those around them, in Oxford, and in the country.  But graver events were at hand.  Towards the end of the year (1835), Dr. Burton, the Regius Professor of Divinity, suddenly died, still a young man.  And Lord Melbourne was induced to appoint as his successor, and as the head of the theological teaching of the University, the writer who had just a second time seemed to lay the axe to the root of all theology; who had just reasserted that he looked upon creeds, and all the documents which embodied the traditional doctrine and collective thought of the Church, as invested by ignorance and prejudice with an authority which was without foundation, and which was misleading and mischievous.

FOOTNOTES: 

[52] The conversation between Mr. Sikes of Guilsborough and Mr. Copeland is given in full in Dr. Pusey’s Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury (1842), pp. 32-34.

[53] “Dr. Wilson was mightily pleased with my calling the traditionals the ‘Children of the Mist.’  The title of ‘Veiled Prophets’ he thought too severe” (1838), Life, ed. 1875, p. 167.  Compare “Hints to Transcendentalists for Working Infidel Designs through Tractarianism,” a jeu d’esprit (1840), ib. p. 188.  “As for the suspicion of secret infidelity, I have said no more than I sincerely feel,” ib. p. 181.

[54] “It would be a curious thing if you (the Provost of Oriel) were to bring into your Bampton Lectures a mention of the Thugs....  Observe their submissive piety, their faith in long-preserved tradition, their regular succession of ordinations to their offices, their faith in the sacramental virtue of the consecrated governor; in short, compare our religion with the Thuggee, putting out of account all those considerations which the traditionists deprecate the discussion of, and where is the difference?” (1840), ib. p. 194.

[55] Apologia, pp. 131, 132.

CHAPTER IX

DR. HAMPDEN

The stage on which what is called the Oxford movement ran through its course had a special character of its own, unlike the circumstances in which other religious efforts had done their work.  The scene of Jansenism had been a great capital, a brilliant society, the precincts of a court, the cells of a convent, the studies and libraries of the doctors of the Sorbonne, the council chambers of the Vatican.  The scene of Methodism had been English villages and country