tar.

There was nothing at Eton to subvert this frame of mind; for
nothing was taught us either for it or against it. But in the
spring and summer of 1828, I set to work on Hooker's
_Ecclesiastical Polity_, and read it straight through. Intercourse
with my elder sister Anne had increased my mental interest in
religion, and she, though generally of evangelical sentiments, had
an opinion that the standard divines of the English church were of
great value. Hooker's exposition of the case of the church of
England came to me as a mere abstraction; but I think that I found
the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration, theretofore abhorred,
impossible to reject, and the way was thus opened for further
changes.

In like manner at Oxford, I do not doubt that in 1830 and 1831 the
study of Bishop Butler laid the ground for new modes of thought in
religion, but his teaching in the sermons on our moral nature was
not integrated, so to speak, until several years later by larger
perusal of the works of Saint Augustine. I may, however, say that I
was not of a mind ill disposed to submit to authority.

The Oxford Movement, properly so called, began in the year 1833,
but it had no direct effect upon me. I did not see the Tracts, and
to this hour I have read but few of them. Indeed, my first
impressions and emotions in connection with it were those of
indignation at what I thought the rash intemperate censures
pronounced by Mr. Hurrell Froude upon the reformers. My chief tie
with Oxford was the close friendship I had formed in 1830 with
Walter Hamilton.[86] His character, always loving and loved, had,
not very greatly later, become deeply devout. But I do not think he
at this time sympathised with Newman and his friends; and he had
the good sense, in conjunction with Mr. Denison, afterwards bishop,
to oppose the censure upon Dr. Hampden, to which I foolishly and
ignorantly gave in, without, however, being an active or important
participator.

But the blow struck by the prayer-book in 1832 set my mind in
motion, and that motion was never arrested. I found food for the
new ideas and tendencies in various quarters, not least in the
religious writings of Alexander Knox, all of which I perused.
Moreover, I had an inclination to ecclesiastical conformity, and