Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 37.djvu/113

 1830 by a small legacy, though Jacobson had offered to advance his expenses (ib. i. 112).

At Oxford Maurice joined an ‘Essay Society,’ on the model of the Apostles', and made the acquaintance of Mr. Gladstone and of James Bruce, afterwards eighth Earl of Elgin [q. v.] Bruce introduced him to the writings of Thomas Erskine (1788–1870) [q. v.] of Linlathen. He was much interested by the religious excitement in Irving's congregation and the alleged miracles, but he was not personally acquainted with the leaders of the Oxford movement. On 29 March 1831 he was baptised as a member of the church of England. He spent the next three months by the deathbed of his sister Emma. She died on 9 July 1832, having, it is said, had much influence upon the development of his mind. Her papers, with those of her sister Anne, who died in 1826, were published as ‘Memorials of Two Sisters.’ He took a second class in November 1831. After spending some time with A. J. Stephenson, incumbent of Lympsham, Somerset, to prepare for holy orders, he was ordained by the Bishop of Lichfield on 26 Jan. 1834 to the curacy of Bubbenhall, near Leamington. His story, ‘Eustace Conway,’ for which he received 100l. (ib. i. 124), was published soon afterwards. Coleridge, as Sterling told him, praised it warmly, though it had little commercial success. He never met Coleridge personally (ib. i. 178). He also published a pamphlet, ‘Subscription no Bondage,’ of which Southey said in 1836 (ib. vi. 292) that he ‘never read an abler treatise,’ against the measure then proposed for abolishing subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles in the universities. He argued that the declaration of bonâ fide membership of the church of England imposed upon graduates at Cambridge was really more stringent than the Oxford subscription to the articles, which he interpreted as only implying acceptance of them as the terms of university teaching. He had changed his mind by 1853 (ib. ii. 154) on finding that this subscription was not generally made in this sense, and afterwards strongly advocated the abolition of the tests. At Bubbenhall he also began for the ‘Encyclopædia Metropolitana’ an article upon ‘Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy,’ the completion and revision of which in later editions occupied much of his attention through life.

In January 1836 he became chaplain to Guy's Hospital. Here he lectured the students twice a week upon moral philosophy. His sister Priscilla kept house for him, and he had a pupil, afterwards a warm friend, (Sir) Edward Strachey. He saw few friends except Sterling, but occasionally met Carlyle and others. His relation to Carlyle became more antagonistic. He felt bound to insist upon points of difference, which Carlyle preferred to pass over (ib. i. 250), and they agreed enough to make the differences painful (see Maurice's criticisms upon Carlyle's ‘pantheism,’ Life, i. 276–82). In 1836 he declined an offer of the tutorship at Downing, where the new master, Thomas Worsley, dreamt of ‘making theology and Christian philosophy the centre of all studies’ (ib. i. 207). At the end of the year he allowed himself to be named as candidate for the chair of political economy at Oxford. The appointment was supported without his knowledge by the leaders of the Oxford movement. His pamphlet upon subscription had been shown (ib. i. 182) to Newman and Pusey, who approved the aim, if not the spirit. Maurice, however, had been profoundly alienated by Pusey's tracts upon baptism, representing a theology radically opposed to his own. His second ‘Letter to a Quaker’ (published early in 1837) dealt with baptism, and showed his previous supporters that they had mistaken his position. They decided at once to vote against him, and his name was withdrawn.

In June 1837 Maurice visited Hare at Hurstmonceaux, where he met Sterling and Anna Barton, sister of Sterling's wife, and already known to him. He now became engaged to her, and they were married by Sterling at Clifton on 7 Oct. following. During the first ten months of 1837 Maurice was publishing the ‘Letters to a Quaker.’ They were addressed to his friend Samuel Clark (1810–1875), then a quaker, and afterwards a clergyman. They were collected at the end of the year as ‘The Kingdom of Christ.’ The publication was the signal for the beginning of a series of attacks from the religious press, which lasted for the rest of his life, and caused great pain to a man of a singularly sensitive nature. The book contains a very full statement of his fundamental convictions, which were opposed to the tenets of all the chief parties in the church. His philosophical position was not easily grasped by the average mind, and if he was often misrepresented and attacked with unjustifiable bitterness, it must be admitted that he condemned very unsparingly the favourite doctrines of his opponents.

In September 1839 Maurice became one of the editors of a newly founded ‘Educational Magazine.’ The progress of chartism and Owenism had increased his deep interest in national education. A grant of 20,000l. previously given was increased to 30,000l. in 1839, with a condition of government inspec-