Robert Elsmere

Robert Elsmere is a novel by Mrs. Humphry Ward. It is about an Oxford clergyman who begins to doubt the doctrines of the Anglican Church after encountering the writings of German rationalists like Schelling and David Strauss. Instead of succumbing to atheism or Roman Catholicism, however, Elsmere takes up a "constructive liberalism" (which Ward received from Thomas Hill Green) stressing social work amongst the poor and uneducated.