sion in view, and he persuaded himself that a Church
established by law must allow a wider range of opinion than a
voluntary communion could afford to tolerate. As we have seen, he
had defended Tract Ninety, and he claimed for himself the latitude
which he conceded to Newman. It was in his case a mistake, as he
very soon discovered. But the system which encouraged it must bear a
large part of the blame. Meanwhile he had been employed by Newman on
an uncongenial task. After the discontinuance of Tracts for the
Times, Newman projected another series, called Lives of the Saints.
The idea was of course taken from the Bollandist Acta Sanctorum. But
Newman had a definite polemical purpose. Just as he felt the force
of Hume's argument against the probability of miracles, so he
realised the difficulty of answering Gibbon's inquiry when miracles
ceased. Had they ever ceased at all? Many Roman Catholics, if not
the most enlightened and instructed, thought not. Newman conceived
that the lives of English and Irish saints held much matter for
edification, including marvels and portents of various kinds. He
desired that these things should be believed, as he doubtless
believed them. They proved, he thought, if they could be proved
themselves, that supernatural power resided in the Church, and when
the Church was concerned he laid his reason aside.

He was extraordinarily sanguine. "Rationalise," he said to Froude,
"when the evidence is weak, and this will give credibility for
others, when you can show that the evidence is strong." Froude chose
St. Neot, a contemporary of Alfred, in whose life the supernatural
played a comparatively small part. He told his story as legend, not
quite as Newman wanted it. "This is all," he said at the end, "and
perhaps rather more than all, that is known of the life of the
blessed St. Neot." His connection with the series ceased. But his
curiosity was excited. He read far and wide in the Benedictine
biographies. No trace of investigation into facts could he discover.
If a tale was edifying, it was believed, and credibility had nothing
to do with it. The saints were beatified conjurers, and any nonsense
about them was swallowed, if it involved the miraculous element. The
effect upon Froude may be left to his own words. "St. Patrick I
found once lighted a fire with icicles, changed a French marauder
into a wolf, and floated to Ireland on an altar stone. I thought it
nonsense. I found it eventually uncert