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‘A Recurring Grief, The Rankling of a Thorn’: The Unhappy Conversion of Richard Sibthorp
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2015
Extract
As an undergraduate, Gladstone was enchanted by the preaching of Richard Sibthorp, but was unsure whether he could be trusted as a sound guide. So in December 1829 he wrote to his theological mentor, Edward Craig, an episcopal minister in Edinburgh, seeking an opinion. In reply, Craig described Sibthorp as a ‘very judicious man.’ Few would have dissented.
At a time of major divisions in the Protestant religious world, Sibthorp had established a reputation as a conciliator. In 1827, when the British and Foreign Bible Society was being torn apart by the Apocryphal controversy, he had been trusted by both sides to visit the Continent and report on adherence to the Society's revised rules. In the same year, he became Clerical Secretary of the Religious Tract Society, an office he held until 1836. In an inter-denominational Society, disputes over what should be published were constantly threatening to boil over and Sibthorp played no small part in ensuring that it did not suffer the convulsions that almost wrecked the B.F.B.S.
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References
1 Edinburgh, December 15, 1829; Gladstone Papers, Addn. Mss. 44352, Fo. 141, British Library.
2 He was remembered in Oxford as having been a Catholic. Renouf wrote to his father in 1841, ‘When he came here first to reside as undergraduate he was a Roman Catholic. I don’t know whether he had any scruples. …’ Cathcart, K. J., The Letters of Peter le Page Renouf, 2002, Vol. 1, p. 76.Google Scholar
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35 P.H. The words in Italics are underlined in the original.
36 Quoted in The Times, November 28, 1843.
37 Ibidem.
38 Article quoted in English Churchman, November 23, 1843.
39 April 6, 1844, P.H.
40 To Bloxam, December 15, 1845, P.H.
41 November 22, 1844, P.H.
42 February 24, 1846, Keble College, Gresley Letters No. 164.
43 Ibidem.
44 Sibthorp’s last published sermon (delivered on November 23, 1862) was anti-Colenso: The Saviour’s Estimation of the Writings of Moses Shown in His Own Use of Them.
45 In conversation with Rev. Orlando W. W. Forester on January 13, 1879, reported in The Times, February 2, 1892.
46 Sykes, p. 19.