Keble, John

KEBLE, JOHN. - Anglican theologian, preacher and poet, b. at Fairford in Gloucestershire on 25 April 1792, d. at Bournemouth on 29 March 1866. After his early education, received from his father, an Anglican pastor, he obtained a scholarship at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. In 1811 he went as a tutor to Oriel College and began to exercise a great intellectual influence in the university milieu of Oxford. Ordained deacon (1815) and then priest (1816) by the Anglican bishop of Oxford, he was sent to exercise his ministry in small parishes and then as vicar at Southrop. In 1819 he began to write his hymns, published in 1827 under the title: The Christian year. The success was extraordinary; suffice it to say that the year after K.'s death the 109th edition came out and that the editions had been of 3000 and 5000 copies. In 1831 he became professor of poetry at Oxford. On 14 July 1833 at «St. Mary's» in Oxford he delivered the famous sermon on «National apostasy»; 24 years later he could write to Newman: «I have always regarded and celebrated that day as the starting point of the religious movement». Indeed, K. was always considered by Newman as «the true initiator of the Oxford movement». Intense was K.'s collaboration on the famous Tracts of the times: nos. 4, 12, 52, 54, 57, 60 and 89 are his. When, in 1841, the famous Tract 90 appeared, K. confessed that he had read and approved it. On 9 March 1836 he accepted the benefice of Hursley, which had become vacant, and shortly afterwards published the works of Hooker. His fame as a spiritual director then became greater day by day. In 1838, in collaboration with Newman and with Pusey, he began to work for the publication of the series of volumes entitled The Library of the Fathers. Newman's conversion, which took place in 1845, troubled him greatly; it does not appear, however, that he ever thought of abandoning, like his illustrious friend, that Anglican Church for which, on the other hand, he had worked a great deal.

K.'s works, besides those already mentioned, are the following: Catholic subscription to the XXXIX Articles, considered in reference to Tract XC (printed in 1865 with a new ed. of Tract XC); The Psalter, or Psalms of David in English verse, by a Member of the University of Oxford, adapted for the most part to Times in common use (1839); De poeticae et medica praeclectiones Oxonii habitae annis 1832-45 (1841); Lyra innocentiam (1846);

Academical and occasional sermons (1847); Pastoral tracts on the Gorham question (1850); An argument against repealing the laws which treat the nuptial bond as indissoluble (1857); The life of Thomas, bishop of Sador and Man (1863); A litany of our Lord's warnings (1864). Posthumous publications: Sermons occasional and parochials (1867); Village sermons on the Baptismal service (1868); Sermons for the Christian year (11 vols. 1875-80); Outlines of the instructions or meditations for the Church seasons (1880); Miscellaneous Poems (1869); 45 hymns in Lyra apostolica; Letters of spiritual counsel and guidance (1870); Occasional papers and reviews, with a preface by Pusey (1877); Studia sacra (1877).

James de Bivort de la Saudée