come into the hands of men and parties hostile to the Church in
their principles, and ready to use to its prejudice the advantages which
its position as an establishment gave them; and the anticipation grew in
Keble's mind, that in the struggles which seemed likely, not only for
the legal rights but for the faith of the Church, the Church might have
both to claim more, and to suffer more, at the hands of Government. Yet
though these thoughts filled his mind, and strong things were said in
the intercourse with friends about what was going on about them, no
definite course of action had been even contemplated when Keble went
into the country in 1823. There was nothing to distinguish him from
numbers of able clergymen all over England, who were looking on with
interest, with anxiety, often with indignation, at what was going on.
Mr. Keble had not many friends and was no party chief. He was a
brilliant university scholar overlaying the plain, unworldly country
parson; an old-fashioned English Churchman, with great veneration for
the Church and its bishops, and a great dislike of Rome, Dissent, and
Methodism, but with a quick heart; with a frank, gay humility of soul,
with great contempt of appearances, great enjoyment of nature, great
unselfishness, strict and severe principles of morals and duty.

What was it that turned him by degrees into so prominent and so
influential a person? It was the result of the action of his convictions
and ideas, and still more of his character, on the energetic and
fearless mind of a pupil and disciple, Richard Hurrell Froude. Froude
was Keble's pupil at Oriel, and when Keble left Oriel for his curacy at
the beginning of the Long Vacation of 1823, he took Froude with him to
read for his degree. He took with him ultimately two other pupils,
Robert Wilberforce and Isaac Williams of Trinity. One of them, Isaac
Williams, has left some reminiscences of the time, and of the terms on
which the young men were with their tutor, then one of the most famous
men at Oxford. They were on terms of the utmost freedom. "Master is the
greatest boy of them all," was the judgment of the rustic who was
gardener, groom, and parish clerk to Mr. Keble. Froude's was a keen
logical mind, not easily satisfied, contemptuous of compromises and
evasions, and disposed on occasion to be mischievous and aggressive; and
with Keble, as with anybody else, he was ready to dispute and try every
form of dialectical experiment. But