John Keble was an English Anglican priest and poet, and one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement. Born on 25 April 1792 in Fairford, Gloucestershire, where his father was vicar of Coln St Aldwyns, he studied at Oxford University, having won a scholarship to Corpus Christi College, and achieved a double first-class honours in Latin and maths.

While still at Oxford, he was ordained, in 1816, and became a curate to his father and then curate of St Michael and St Martin's Church, Eastleach Martin, in Gloucestershire, although he still lived in Oxford. On the death of his mother in 1823, he left Oxford and returned to live with his father and two surviving sisters at Fairford.

His most famous moment was his Assize Sermon on "National Apostasy" in 1833. The Assize Sermon marked the opening of a term of the civil and criminal courts and officially addresses the judges and officers of the court, exhorting them to deal justly. This sermon, together with seven ‘Tracts for the Times’ on faith and practice, were the stimulus for what has become known as the Oxford Movement, a theological movement of High-Church members of the Church of England which gave birth to the wing of the church we now know of as Anglo-Catholicism. Along with his colleagues, John Henry Newman and Edward Pusey, he became a leading light in the movement. The Assize Sermon was delivered on 14 July 1833, which is why John Keble is remembered each year on July 14th.

In 1835, his father died, and Keble and his sister retired from Fairford to Coln. In the same year he married Charlotte Clarke, and became Vicar of All Saints', Hursley in Hampshire, where he remained for the rest of his life as parish priest. He died in Bournemouth on 29 March 1866 at the Hermitage Hotel, while recovering from a long-term illness for which he believed the sea air would help. He is buried in All Saints' churchyard in Hursley.

Keble College in Oxford, where our former Diocesan Bishop, Geoffrey Rowell, was once Chaplain, was established in 1870 as a monument to John Keble. He is also remembered for four poems which were later made into hymns, including ‘Blest are the pure in heart’ and ‘New every morning is the love.’

PIcture above of John Keble, by Donkin (Miss) - http://www.100megsfree4.com/dictionary/theology/tdick.htm, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2658182

Every Tuesday morning at 10am

Simply tune in on Zoom and enjoy a few moments of quiet, prayerful reflection as the week unfolds. It will last no longer than 10 minutes.

Meeting ID: 892 2955 4820 Passcode: 836488

A time to pause, pray, reflect and reconnect.

No preparation needed.

Time for conversation for those who can stay.

“….Waiting on God, learning to be passive in a way creative for your inner life, is not a question of thinking about God, but of growing in stillness. It has to do with prayer, and with music or from the simple contemplation of the world about you.” (Michael Mayne, ‘A Year Lost and Found’)

Cluster Clergy and Readers will meet again by zoom on Tuesday 22nd July at 11am CET. Zoom link to follow.

William Wilberforce was born in Hull in August 1759 and became Hull’s Member of Parliament in 1781, so at the age of 21. In those days such an appointment was secured by spending money and buying votes. Young William spent some £8000 (worth £1¾ million in today’s money!) to secure his seat. But a year later he underwent a Christian conversion experience after reading the book, "The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul" by a leading 18th-century nonconformist called Philip Doddridge.

But this was not convenient to a man of his standing, because religious enthusiasm was regarded as a bit of a social faux-pas among polite society. And this challenged William Wilberforce and led him to question whether he should remain in public life at all. But he did, and increasingly his political views were informed by his faith and by a desire to promote Christian ethics in private and public life.

Wilberforce was pretty conservative in his views, and opposed to any radical change in a political & social order which he regarded as given by God. And so he focused on things like Sunday observance, and general social immorality that he believed could be solved through education. He founded the Church Missionary Society and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. So a good guy looking for a good cause.

And 2 years later he found it. He met a group of activists opposed to the transatlantic slave trade, he embraced their views and over time became the leading English abolitionist, heading up the parliamentary campaign against the British slave trade, which resulted in the Slave Trade Act 1807, the aim of which was to abolish the Atlantic trade in slaves within the British Empire, basically by introducing fines of up to £100 per enslaved person found on board ship, for those ship captains who didn´t comply.

But it didn´t completely work, it didn´t lead to abolition and it didn’t result in the freeing of those who were already enslaved. So Wilberforce stuck to his guns, continued the campaign in parliament for the complete abolition of slavery, resulting in the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, which finally did the trick, including emancipation, which was achieved by having the British government purchase the freedom of all slaves in the Empire, and outlawing any further practice of enslavement.

Wilberforce died just three days after hearing that the passage of the act through Parliament was assured, his job done.

PIcture above of William Wilberforce, taken from a picture by Anton Hickel - originally uploaded to en.wikipedia by Agendum (talk · contribs) on 4 November 2007, 14:53 under the file name William wilberforce.jpg.(+/−), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4215189