public were dismayed
and certain members of the Tractarian party avowed their intention of
becoming Romanists. So decided was the setting of the tide towards Rome
that Newman made a vigorous effort to turn it by his famous Tract No.
90. In this he endeavored to show that it was possible to interpret the
Thirty-nine Articles in the interest of Roman Catholicism. This tract
aroused a storm of indignation. The violent controversy which it
occasioned led to the discontinuance of the series."

FOOTNOTES:

[4] See Withrow.

Such in little was this remarkable movement. When Tract No. 90 appeared
Wiseman had been in England for some time, and had been a strong
influence in taking many thinking men in the direction of Rome. His
lectures and discourses upon his first visit to England had attracted
remarkable attention. The account runs by one who attended his lectures
to Catholics and Protestants: "Society in this country was impressed,
and listened almost against its will, and listened not displeased. Here
was a young Roman priest, fresh from the center of Catholicism, who
showed himself master, not only of the intricacies of polemical
discussion but of the amenities of civilized life. The spacious church
of Moorfields was thronged on every evening of Dr. Wiseman's appearance.
Many persons of position and education were converted, and all departed
with abated prejudice, and with very different notions about Catholicism
from those with which they had been prepossessed by their education."
Wiseman, himself, wrote, "I had the consolation of witnessing the
patient and edifying attention of a crowded audience, many of whom stood
for two hours without any symptom of impatience."

The great triumph for Wiseman, however, was when, shortly after Tract
90, Newman, "a man," described "in many ways, the most remarkable that
England has seen during the century, perhaps the most remarkable whom
the English Church has produced in any century," went over to the Church
of Rome and was confirmed by Wiseman. Others followed his example and by
1853 as many as four hundred clergymen and laity had become Roman
Catholics.

The controversies and discussions of that time, it must be remembered,
were more upon the dogmas of the church than upon what we should call
to-day the essential truths of religion. Yet, to a certain order of mind
dogmas seem important truths. There are those whose religious attitude
cannot be preserved without belief in dogm