distinguished men in Oxford, when about the year 1823 he felt himself
bound to give himself more exclusively to the work of a clergyman, and
left Oxford to be his father's curate. There was nothing very unusual in
his way of life, or singular and showy in his work as a clergyman; he
went in and out among the poor, he was not averse to society, he
preached plain, unpretending, earnest sermons; he kept up his literary
interests. But he was a deeply convinced Churchman, finding his standard
and pattern of doctrine and devotion in the sober earnestness and
dignity of the Prayer Book, and looking with great and intelligent
dislike at the teaching and practical working of the more popular system
which, under the name of Evangelical Christianity, was aspiring to
dominate religious opinion, and which, often combining some of the most
questionable features of Methodism and Calvinism, denounced with fierce
intolerance everything that deviated from its formulas and watchwords.
And as his loyalty to the Church of England was profound and intense,
all who had shared her fortunes, good or bad, or who professed to serve
her, had a place in his affections; and any policy which threatened to
injure or oppress her, and any principles which were hostile to her
influence and teaching, roused his indignation and resistance. He was a
strong Tory, and by conviction and religious temper a thorough High
Churchman.

But there was nothing in him to foreshadow the leader in a bold and
wide-reaching movement. He was absolutely without ambition. He hated
show and mistrusted excitement. The thought of preferment was steadily
put aside both from temper and definite principle. He had no popular
aptitudes, and was very suspicious of them. He had no care for the
possession of influence; he had deliberately chosen the _fallentis
semita vitae,_ and to be what his father had been, a faithful and
contented country parson, was all that he desired. But idleness was not