l Church. The neo-catholic revival, which
afterwards took its popular name from Pusey but drew its chief
inspiration from Newman, was in a great degree the outcome of the reform
act and a reaction against the more than Erastian tendencies of the
reformed parliament. In the early part of the century, as we have seen,
personal and practical religion was mainly represented by the
evangelical or low Church party, which did admirable service in the
cause of philanthropy, as well as in reclaiming the masses from
heathenism. The high Church party was comparatively inactive, but
co-operated with its rival in opposition to catholic emancipation. The
clergy, as a body, were hostile to reform, and the bishops incurred the
fiercest obloquy by voting against the first reform bill, which had
unfortunately been rejected by a majority exactly corresponding with the
number of their votes.[117] The democratic outcry against the Church
became louder and louder, as the evils of nepotism, pluralism, and
sinecurism were exposed to public criticism, and a growing disposition
was shown to deal with Church endowments both in England and in Ireland,
if not as the property of the state, yet as under its paramount control.

[Pageheading: _THE TRACTARIAN MOVEMENT._]

The recent infusion of Irish Roman catholics into the house of commons,
following that of Scotch presbyterians a century earlier, rendered it
less and less fit, in the opinion of high Churchmen, to legislate for
the Church of England, and every concession to religious liberty shocked
them as a step towards "National Apostasy". This was, in fact, the
impressive title of a sermon preached by John Keble, in July, 1833,
before the university of Oxford. From this sermon Newman himself dated
the origin of the Oxford or "Tractarian" movement, but its inward source
lay deeper. Having lost all confidence in the state and even in the
Anglican hierarchy as a creature of the state, a section of the clergy
had already been looking about for another basis of authority, and had
found it in theories of apostolical succession and Church organisation.
The university of Oxford was a natural centre for such a reaction, and
it was set on foot with the deliberate purpose of defending the Church
and the Christianity of England against the anti-catholic aggressions of
the dominant liberalism. It was not puritanism but liberal secularism
which Newman always denounced as the arch-enemy of the catholic faith.
F