“ Both at King’s College and at Cambridge Maurice gathered round him a band of earnest students, to whom he directly taught much that was valuable drawn from wide stores of his own reading, wide rather than deep, for he never was, strictly speaking, a learned man. Still more did he encourage the habit of inquiry and research, more valuable than his direct teaching. In his Socratic power of convincing his pupils of their ignorance he did more than perhaps any other man of his time to awaken in those who came under his sway the desire for knowledge and the process of independent thought. ”

“ As a social reformer, Maurice was before his time, and gave his eager support to schemes for which the world was not ready. From an early period of his life in London the condition of the poor pressed upon him with consuming force; the enormous magnitude of the social questions involved was a burden which he could hardly bear. For many years he was the clergyman whom working men of all opinions seemed to trust even if their faith in other religious men and all religious systems had faded, and he had a marvellous power of attracting the zealot and the outcast. ”

“ Certain abortive attempts at co-operation among working men, and the movement known as Christian Socialism, were the immediate outcome of his teaching. In 1866 Maurice was appointed professor of moral philosophy at Cambridge, and from 1870 to 1872 was incumbent of St Edward’s in that city. ”