Untitled - Electric Scotland

1834-41] THE OXFORD MOVEMENT, 1833 53
the heart, and that neither Episcopacy nor Presbytery availeth
anything. But here were men able, learned, devout -minded
men maintaining that outward rites and ceremonies were of the
very essence, and that where these were not, there was no true
Christianity. Now
. . .
and then it would happen that some
adherent, or even leading man of the movement, more frank and
outspoken than the rest, would deign to speak out his principles,
and even to discuss them with undergraduates and controversial
Scots. To him urging the necessity of Apostolical Succession,
and the sacerdotal view of the Sacraments, some young man
might venture to reply, *
Well ! if all you say be true, then I
never can have known a Christian. For up to this time I
have lived among people who were strangers to all these things,
which, you tell me, are essentials of Christianity. And I am
quite sure that, if I have never known a Christian till now, I
shall never know one. The answer to this would probably be,
There is much in what you say. No doubt high virtues, very
like the Christian graces, are to be found outside of the Christian
Church. But it is a remarkable thing, those best acquainted
with Church history tell me, that outside of the pale of the
Church the saintly character is never found. This naif reply was
not likely to have much weight with the young listener. It
would have taken something stronger to make him break faith
with all that was most sacred in his early recollections. Beautiful
examples of Presbyterian piety had stamped impressions on his
memory not to be effaced by sacerdotal theories or subtleties of
the schools. And the Church system which began by disowning
these examples placed a barrier to its acceptance at the very
outset." l
The following letter to his old Glasgow friend, Morell
Mackenzie, who had become a Nonconformist minister at
Poole, shows the bent of Tait s sympathies at this time :
Mr. A. C. Tait to the Rev. J. Morell Mackenzie.
"27
March 1834.
"Mv DEAR MACKENZIE,- ... I have commenced taking
pupils in Oxford, which I find not at all an unpleasant employ-
1 Studies in Poetry and Philosophy, pp. 240-242.