[31] "He told me," writes a relative, "that questions about trade used to occupy him very early in life. He used to ponder how it could be right to sell things for more than they cost you."
[32] "He had his own way of doing everything, and used most stoutly to protest that it was quite impossible that he should do it in any other."--_MS. Memoir_ by his brother, John Marriott.
[34] "This became the main task of his life us long as health was continued to him. All who knew him well will remember how laboriously he worked at it, and how, in one shape or another, it was always on hand. Either he was translating, or correcting the translation of others; or he was collating MSS., or correcting the press. This last work was carried on at all times and wherever he was--on a journey, after dinner--even in a boat, he would pull out a sheet and go to write upon it in haste to get it finished for the next post. The number of volumes in the Library of the Fathers which bear the signature C.M. attest his diligence."--John Marriott's Memoir of him (MS.)
"On 14th July 1833," we read in Cardinal Newman's _Apologia_, "Mr. Keble preached the assize sermon in the University Pulpit. It was published under the title of _National Apostasy_. I have ever considered and kept the day as the start of the religious movement of 1833."[37]
This memorable sermon was a strong expression of the belief common to a large body of Churchmen amid the triumphs of the Reform Bill, that the new governors of the country were preparing to invade the rights, and to alter the constitution, and even the public documents, of the Church. The suppression of ten Irish Bishoprics, in defiance of Church opinion, showed how ready the Government was to take liberties in a high-handed way with the old adjustments of the relations of Church and State. Churchmen had hitherto taken for granted that England was "a nation which had for centuries acknowledged, as an essential part of its theory of government, that, _as_ a Christian nation, she is also a part of Christ's Church, and bound, in all her legislation and policy, by the fundamental laws of that Church." When "a Government and people, so constituted, threw off the restraint which in many respects such a principle would impose upon them, nay, disavowed the principle itself," this, to those whose ideas Mr. Keble represented, seemed nothing short of a "direct disavowal of the sovereignty of God. If it be true anywhere that such enactments are forced on the legislature by public opinion, is Apostasy too hard a word to describe the temper of such a nation?" The sermon was a call to face in earnest a changed state of things, full of immediate and pressing danger; to consider how it was to be met by Christians and Churchmen, and to watch motives and tempers. "Surely it will be no unworthy principle if any man is more circumspect in his behaviour, more watchful and fearful of himself, more earnest in his petitions for spiritual aid, from a dread of disparaging the holy name of the English Church in her hour of peril by his own personal fault and negligence. As to those who, either by station or temper, feel themselves more deeply interested, they cannot be too careful in reminding themselves that one chief danger in times of change and excitement arises from their tendency to engross the whole mind. Public concerns, ecclesiastical or civil, will prove indeed ruinous to those who permit them to occupy all their care and thought, neglecting or undervaluing ordinary duties, more especially those of a devotional kind. These cautions being duly observed, I do not see how any person can devote himself too entirely to the cause of the Apostolic Church in these realms. There may be, as far as he knows, but a very few to sympathise with him. He may have to wait long, and very likely pass out of this world, before he see any abatement in the triumph of disorder and irreligion. But, _if he be consistent_, he possesses to the utmost the personal consolations of a good Christian; and as a true Churchman, he has the encouragement which no other cause in the world can impart in the same degree: he is calmly, soberly, demonstrably _sure_ that, sooner or later, _his will be the winning side_, and that the victory will be complete, universal, eternal."