At the age of fifteen Newman had begun his profound study of theological subjects.  For science, literature, art, nature,—­all the broad interests which attracted other literary men of his age,—­he cared little, his mind being wholly occupied with the history and doctrines of the Christian church, to which he had already devoted his life.  He was educated first at the school in Ealing, then at Oxford, taking his degree in the latter place in 1820.  Though his college career was not more brilliant than that of many unknown men, his unusual ability was recognized and he was made a fellow of Oriel College, retaining the fellowship, and leading a scholarly life for over twenty years.  In 1824 he was ordained in the Anglican church, and four years later was chosen vicar of St. Mary’s, at Oxford, where his sermons made a deep impression on the cultivated audiences that gathered from far and near to hear him.

A change is noticeable in Newman’s life after his trip to the Mediterranean in 1832.  He had begun his life as a Calvinist, but while in Oxford, then the center of religious unrest, he described himself as “drifting in the direction of Liberalism.”  Then study and bereavement and an innate mysticism led him to a profound sympathy with the mediaeval Church.  He had from the beginning opposed Catholicism; but during his visit to Italy, where he saw the Roman church at the center of Its power and splendor, many of his prejudices were overcome.  In this enlargement of his spiritual horizon Newman was greatly influenced by his friend Hurrell Froude, with whom he made the first part of the journey.  His poems of this period (afterwards collected in the Lyra Apostolica), among which is the famous “Lead, Kindly Light,” are noticeable for their radiant spirituality; but one who reads them carefully sees the beginning of that mental struggle which ended in his leaving the church in which he was born.  Thus he writes of the Catholic church, whose services he had attended as “one who in a foreign land receives the gifts of a good Samaritan”: 

    O that thy creed were sound! 
      For thou dost soothe the heart, thou church of Rome,
    By thy unwearied watch and varied round
      Of service, in thy Saviour’s holy home. 
    I cannot walk the city’s sultry streets,
    But the wide porch invites to still retreats,
      Where passion’s thirst is calmed, and care’s unthankful gloom.

On his return to England, in 1833, he entered into the religious struggle known as the Oxford or Tractarian Movement,[245] and speedily became its acknowledged leader.  Those who wish to follow this attempt at religious reform, which profoundly affected the life of the whole English church, will find it recorded in the Tracts for the Times, twenty-nine of which were written by Newman, and in his Parochial and Plain Sermons (1837- 1843).  After nine years of spiritual conflict Newman retired to Littlemore,