I do not say that other and
more intelligent forces than this were not opposed to the Oxford
movement: but this was the force which really beat it; this was the
force which Dr. Newman felt himself fighting with; this was the force
which till only the other day seemed to be the paramount force in this
country, and to be in possession of the future; this was the force whose
achievements fill Mr. Lowe[414] with such inexpressible admiration, and
whose rule he was so horror-struck to see threatened. And where is this
great force of Philistinism now? It is thrust into the second rank, it
is become a power of yesterday, it has lost the future. A new power has
suddenly appeared, a power which it is impossible yet to judge fully,
but which is certainly a wholly different force from middle-class
liberalism; different in its cardinal points of belief, different in its
tendencies in every sphere. It loves and admires neither the legislation
of middle-class Parliaments, nor the local self-government of
middle-class vestries, nor the unrestricted competition of middle-class
industrialists, nor the dissidence of middle-class Dissent and the
Protestantism of middle-class Protestant religion.
Pages:
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445