THE VICTORIAN AGE OF ENGLISH LITERATURE BY MRS. OLIPHANT. AUTHOR OF "A LITERARY HISTORY OF ENGLAND,' ROYAL EDINBURGH," CHAPTER VII. OF ECCLESIASTICAL WRITERS AND THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. cal affairs at confu- the begin ning of the period. Both THE state of ecclesiastical affairs at the beginning Ecclesiasti of the half century was full of agitation and sion. Oxford was the centre of a conflict which extended over the whole kingdom, and which had perhaps a greater effect than any religious movement except the Reformation throughout England. period and movement are dominated by one commanding figure, of whom it can scarcely be said so much that he was a theologian, a controversialist and a religious thinker, as that he was himself a man of such singular mind, character and personality, that while we think and speak of the works of other men, our minds are occupied wherever he appears chiefly with him--John Henry Newman, once a submissive John Henry member of the Evangelical school of religious thought, 1801-90. then a believer in the Fathers and the English Church, then a disturbed and anxious inquirer, wading in deep waters of confusion and uncertainty, afterwards making a casuistical, though always sincere, attempt to find footing within his own communion upon the rock of the Church which appeared to him the only thing solid on earth, then landing with a sudden impulse, though after long preparation and de-l Newman, |