Worse still, if possible, the Church
herself was ignorant and lukewarm; she had forgotten the
mysteries of the sacraments, she had lost faith in the
Apostolical Succession; she was no longer interested in the Early
Fathers; and she submitted herself to the control of a secular
legislature, the members of which were not even bound to profess
belief in the Atonement. In the face of such enormities what
could Keble do? He was ready to do anything, but he was a simple
and an unambitious man, and his wrath would in all probability
have consumed itself unappeased within him had he not chanced to
come into contact, at the critical moment, with a spirit more
excitable and daring than his own.
Hurrell Froude, one of Keble's pupils, was a clever young man to
whom had fallen a rather larger share of self-assurance and
intolerance than even clever young men usually possess. What was
singular about him, however, was not so much his temper as his
tastes. The sort of ardour which impels more normal youths to
haunt Music Halls and fall in love with actresses took the form,
in Froude's case, of a romantic devotion to the Deity and an
intense interest in the state of his own soul. He was obsessed by
the ideals of saintliness, and convinced of the supreme
importance of not eating too much. He kept a diary in which he
recorded his delinquencies, and they were many.
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