320 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT, A RECOVERY.

ordinances, which have been of late so freely taught (this was written in 1895) amongst us, should appear to many as a mere accretion upon our proper and legitimate system, the invention of the Oxford Movement. This was actually said lately in a leading article of the Times. It would seem from Mr. Shore's article that this idea has also entered into his view of the present condition of our Church life, and to many there may be need of some explanation: how it could be, if the views above stated are correct as to such doctrines leavening the Church up to the end of the seventeenth century and beyond it, as acknowledged and accepted principles in active operation, they should have fallen into such oblivion that their assertion now appears to be a novelty, and awakes in many such strenuous opposition. I cannot myself doubt as to the cause. There supervened upon the Revolution the secession of the non-jurors, and this comprehended no less than four hundred priests and eight bishops, including the Primate. The men who clung to the belief of the Divine right of kings, and to whom their oath to the exiled family was a part of their religion, were also the main upholders of the higher view of the Church's system. They were succeeded by men of a different stamp, and with these came in a lower view of Church life. There is no mistaking the difference between those who seceded in consequence of their reverence for their oath, and those who were able to accommodate themselves to the new order of things and the new principles of government. The consequences of such a change extended throughout the Church as well as throughout the State. There were families who retained the old usages. These were individual witnesses to the forgotten truths among the clergy, but they were comparatively like angels' visits, few and far between, as voces clamantium in deserto. The Oxford Movement was, as it were, the rising up again to the surface for the first time, after more than a century, of the stream which had so long been hidden underground, bringing with it the treasures of Catholic truth, held in abeyance during the interval. The Oxford Movement was the rising to the surface of the teaching and uses of the days of Andrews, and Jeremy Taylor, and George Herbert, and Cosin, and Ken. We see a difference in the attitude of the men who led the Oxford Movement, a difference arising from their antecedents. Keble and Pusey were both brought up from childhood in families which had inherited the old ideas common to the non-jurors. Newman had no such advantage. Newman,

1

during the struggle, said, 'I look to the bishops.' Pusey said, 'I look to the Church.' A whole world of difference lay between the two sayings, marking the immense diversity between the two men in their bringing up, and their grounds of belief. To Keble and Pusey the attacks which reached them from all quarters were of no account. They were conscious of the solid groundwork of the system they had inherited. They remained calm and tranquil through all the turmoil. Newman had no such stability, for he had had no such early teaching, and when attacked, he had no standing ground, and despaired de republica. The strength of those who held firm, and still taught, and have prevailed, arose from their clearly seeing that the Tractarian theology was nothing new in the Church of England; was simply a recovery through faithful witnesses of the good old system for which a long line of our forefathers prayed and suffered, before the Revolution in Church and State led to the decline and torpor of the last century." 1

This is the true explanation of the contrast between the last century and the present, which so many view with surprise and suspicion. The Evangelical Movement led the way out of the "Slough of Despond; " the Oxford Movement completed the recovery.

In the year 1882 some of Canon Carter's friends united together to present him with his portrait as "a mark of their esteem," and it was painted by Mr. F. Holl, R.A. Lord Beauchamp was asked to make the presentation, but was unfortunately prevented from discharging this "agreeable duty" in person. He, however, wrote to Mr. Carter in the kindest terms, expressing the pleasure which the contributors received from joining in the gift, and the hope that it would be treasured by his family, and be an enduring record of the countenance of one who had done so much for the revival of the Religious Life in the English Church.2

Canon Carter replied

"I can hardly adequately express to your lordship my grateful sense of the great kindness which has dictated this 1 Nineteenth Century, February, 1895, p. 288.

2 The frontispiece of this volume is from the picture thus presented.

Y

322

PRESENTATION OF PORTRAIT.

very gratifying and valuable gift. It really impresses me with the thought of so much generous and flattering regard, when one seems only to be doing what has come to one simply in the way of duty to do. Nothing could have been more grateful to me than this, with which my family are so delighted, which has been so generously designed and beautifully carried out, for all greatly admire Mr. Holl's work. Your lordship's very kind expressions have added greatly to what in itself I have every reason to be grateful for, though I hardly like to take to myself what you have been good enough to say.

"Believe me, my Lord Beauchamp,

"Yours, etc.,

"T. T. C."

Dr. Pusey had, I understand, some objection to likenesses, and wished to explain why his name was not on the list of contributors. A regret was expressed that Dr. Pusey had not seen his way clear to afford his friends the same pleasure which Mr. Carter had given to his in this respect.

We have received the following letter, which brings out strikingly two features of Canon Carter's character-his love of travel and sight-seeing, and his attractiveness to children:

"We were staying in Florence, and some of us being a little tired of sight-seeing, a drive into the country was proposed. Mr. Carter consented, but added, 'You must remember that we have sixteen more things to see.' He liked to explore a place thoroughly, and, having done this, to go on at once somewhere else. Another point is, young people always took to him, and liked to come and tell him about their affairs. His grandchildren used to love to run into his study."

CHAPTER XI.

LATER YEARS.

IN June, 1881, Canon Carter left the Rectory, which, by the kindness of his successor, the Rev. Roland Errington, he was permitted to occupy for a year after his resignation, and went to live in St. John's Lodge, the beautiful home prepared for him by generous and loving friends, in which the remainder of his life was spent. Here, for twenty years, he worked with unswerving regularity, visiting the scattered branches of the Sisterhood, and receiving all (and they were many) who desired to come to him for spiritual help. No stress of weather, even when he was long past eighty, would induce him to give up his weekly visit to the house in Rose Street, Soho, where he was accustomed to see the Sisters and others who came to him from different parts of London; and though extremely sensitive to changes of temperature, he seemed to take an almost boyish pleasure in braving the elements. "I have come back safe," he would say, with his bright smile. "But really it was not fit for you to have gone." "So the guard told me at the station," he answered, laughing, after a day of dense November fog.

To the very last no temptation would induce him to put aside his plan of work. He would not, even in the heat of summer, change his accustomed hours so as to walk or drive at a cooler time, lest he should thereby cause some slight inconvenience to others. His consideration, his delicate thoughtfulness for the comfort or pleasure of those about him, seemed to grow year by year.

He read widely, almost to the end, using for this purpose every available moment. His great power of abstraction

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RANGE OF READING.

enabled him to read much-even difficult books-during his frequent railway journeys. He took great delight in history and biography (one of the last books that he enjoyed was the "Story of Dr. Pusey's Life"), and he was heard to regret Bishop Creighton's appointment to the See of London, because it destroyed all hopes of his completion of his "History of the Papacy." The last hour of the evening was frequently spent in reading aloud, and none who heard it can forget his reading of his favourite passages from Wordsworth or Tennyson. For Browning he never cared much. The Christian Year was a lifelong companion, usually called for on Sunday evening, or, when away from home, during afternoon rambles on the seashore or mountain-side. He retained his early love for Scott's novels and poems, but as a rule he refused to read stories except in his holidays, saying they took up too much of his thoughts.

The intense delight in scenery, in natural beauty of all kinds, seemed to deepen as his years increased. It was indeed a delight and high privilege to be with him in the holidays, spent always in some beautiful spot-often in Switzerland or the Highland glens, or, when long journeys could no longer be undertaken, in Devonshire and Cornwall.

"I think it is really the nicest combination I have come across in this paradise of pastoral beauty," he wrote to his son from St. Beatenberg in 1885 or 1886; "undulating, bright, upland scenery, and gigantic masses around crowned with those great Oberland heights. You can wander, lie down, just as you like, with plenty of pine trees for shade, and splendid views around, and in the glorious though rather hot weather we have now, we could not have a pleasanter place, and pleasant people have been or are here. . . . I am very glad Gladstone has resigned, though evidently he does not bate his absoluteness. I have had the Spectator forwarded to me as well as the Guardian. Don't you think the Spec. good? It suits me admirably, though I suppose it has been more dead against G.'s views than I can quite be."

No doubt his wonderful endurance and power of work,