Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/400

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RELIGIOUS ACTIVITY

sincerity and truth, and searching in past history to supply present needs. The activity in the Church took the form of the Oxford Movement, led by the saintly Keble, whose "Christian Year" had been published in 1827, Newman, Pusey, and others, who made their voices heard in a famous series known as "Tracts for the Times." A "Broad Church" party, led by Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, increased the newly aroused religious difficulty, which was not simplified by the immense advances now being made in the wakening world of science. Nor was this activity confined to the Church of England. Nonconformity was growing apace, though still entirely confined to the middle class. Round chapel as round church clustered benevolent societies, penny banks, Sunday-schools, mothers' meetings, and missionary societies. It has been observed that as commercial activity worked through companies, so religious organisations worked through societies; certainly they increased with extraordinary rapidity during this period. For all philanthropic causes money was forthcoming, but if it was an age of wealth, so also was it an age of luxury. Our fathers drank more tea than their parents had ever thought of drinking, they con-