KEBLE.

THE closing chapter of Lockhart's Life of Scott begins with these words: We read in Solomon, "The heart knoweth his own bitterness, and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy ;" and a wise poet of our own time thus beautifully expands the saying

"Why should we faint and fear to live alone,

Since all alone, so Heaven has willed, we die,
Nor even the tenderest heart, and next our own,
Knows half the reasons why we smile or sigh?""

On glancing to the footnote to see who the wise poet of our own time might be, the reader saw, for the first time perhaps, the name of KEBLE and The Christian Year. To many, in Scotland at least, this was the earliest announcement of the existence of the poet, and the work which has immortalized him. If some friend soon afterwards happened to bring from England a copy of The Christian Year, and make a present of it, the young reader could not but be struck by a lyric here and there, which opened a new vein, and struck a note of meditative feeling,

not exactly like anything he had heard before. But the little book contained much that was strange and unintelligible, some things even startling. Very vague were the rumours which at that time reached Scotland of the author. Men said he belonged to a party of Churchmen who were making a great stir in Oxford, and leavening the University with a kind of thought which was novel, and supposed to be dangerous. The most definite thing said was that the new school had a general Romanizing tendency. But this must be a mistake or strange exaggeration. Folly and sentimentalism might no doubt go far enough at Oxford. But as for Romanism, the revival of such antiquated nonsense was simply impossible in this enlightened nineteenth century. If such an absurdity were to show itself openly, was there not still extant the Edinburgh Review ready to crush it? To many a like folly ere now it had administered the quietus. Would it not deal as summarily with this one too? Such was the kind of talk that was heard when Scott's Life appeared in 1838. For more exact information, young men who were inquisitive had to wait, till a few years later gave them opportunities of seeing for themselves, and coming into personal contact with what was actually going on in Oxford.

It was a strange experience for a young man trained anywhere, much more for one born and bred in Scotland, and brought up a Presbyterian, to enter Oxford when the religious movement was at its height. He found himself all at once in the midst

of a system of teaching which unchurched himself and all whom he had hitherto known. In his simplicity he had believed that spiritual religion was a thing of the heart, and that neither Episcopacy nor Presbytery availeth anything. But here were men— able, learned, devout-minded men-maintaining that outward rites and ceremonies were of the very essence, and that where these were not, there was no true Christianity. How could men, such as these were reported to be, really go back themselves and try to lead others back to what were but the beggarly eleIt was all very perplexing, not to say irritating. However, there might be something more behind, which a young man could not understand. So he would wait and see what he should see.

ments?

Soon he came to know that the only portions of Oxford society unaffected by the new influence, were the two extremes. The older dons, that is, the heads of houses and the senior tutors, were unmoved by it, except to opposition. The whole younger half of the undergraduates generally took no part in it. But the great body that lay between these extremes, that is, most of the younger fellows of colleges, and most of the scholars and elder undergraduates, at least those of them who read or thought at all, were in some way or other busy with the new questions. When in time the new-comer began to know some of the men who sympathized with the movement, his first impression was of something constrained and reserved in their manners and deportment. High character and ability many of

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them were said to have; but to a chance observer it seemed that, in as far as their system had moulded them, it had made them the opposite of natural in their views of things, and in their whole mental attitude. You longed for some free breath of mountain air to sweep away the stifling atmosphere that was about you. This might come partly, no doubt, from the feeling with which you knew that these men must from their system regard you, and all who had the misfortune to be born outside of their sacred pale. Not that they ever expressed such views in your hearing. Good manners, as well as their habitual reserve, forbade this. But, though they did not say it, you knew quite well that they felt it. And if at any time the ' young barbarian' put a direct question, or made a remark which went straight at these opinions, they would only look at him, astonished at his rudeness and profanity, and shrink into themselves.

Now and then, however, it would happen that some adherent, or even leading man of the movement, more frank and outspoken than the rest, would deign to speak out his principles, and even to discuss them with undergraduates and controversial Scots. To him urging the necessity of Apostolical Succession, and the sacerdotal view of the Sacraments, some young man might venture to reply— 'Well! if all you say be true, then I never can have known a Christian. For up to this time I have lived among people who were strangers to all these things, which, you tell me, are essentials of Chris

tianity. And I am quite sure that, if I have never known a Christian till now, I shall never know one.' The answer to this would probably be, 'There is much in what you say. No doubt high virtues, very like the Christian graces, are to be found outside of the Christian Church. But it is a remarkable thing, those best acquainted with Church history tell me, that outside of the pale of the Church the saintly character is never found.' This naïf reply was not likely to have much weight with the young listener. It would have taken something stronger to make him break faith with all that was most sacred in his early recollections. Beautiful examples of Presbyterian piety had stamped impressions on his memory not to be effaced by sacerdotal theories or subtleties of the schools. And the Church system which began by disowning these examples placed a barrier to its acceptance at the very outset.

But however unbelievable their theory, further acquaintance with the younger men of the new school, whether junior fellows or undergraduate scholars, disclosed many traits of character that could not but awaken respect or something more. If there was about many of them a constraint and reserve which seemed unnatural, there was also in many an unworldliness and self-denial, a purity of life and elevation of aim, in some a generosity of purpose and depth of devotion, not to be gainsaid. Could the movement which produced these qualities, or even attracted them to itself, be wholly false and bad? This movement, moreover, when at its height, ex