re well inclined to our doctrines. This too we felt at
the time; but it was our duty to see that our good should not be
evil-spoken of; and accordingly, two or three of the writers of the
Tracts for the Times had commenced a Series of what they called
"Plain Sermons" with the avowed purpose of discouraging and
correcting whatever was uppish or extreme in our followers: to this
series I contributed a volume myself.

Its conductors say in their Preface: "If therefore as time goes on,
there shall be found persons, who admiring the innate beauty and
majesty of the fuller system of Primitive Christianity, and seeing
the transcendent strength of its principles, _shall become loud and
voluble advocates_ in their behalf, speaking the more freely,
_because they do not feel them deeply as founded_ in divine and
eternal truth, of such persons _it is our duty to declare plainly_,
that, as we should contemplate their condition with serious
misgiving, _so would they be the last persons from whom we should_
seek support.

"But if, on the other hand, there shall be any, who, in the silent
humility of their lives, and in their unaffected reverence for holy
things, show that they in truth accept these principles as real and
substantial, and by habitual purity of heart and serenity of temper,
give proof of their deep veneration for sacraments and sacramental
ordinances, those persons, _whether our professed adherents or not_,
best exemplify the kind of character which the writers of the Tracts
for the Times have wished to form."

These clergymen had the best of claims to use these beautiful words,
for they were themselves, all of them, important writers in the
Tracts, the two Mr. Kebles, and Mr. Isaac Williams. And this passage,
with which they ushered their Series into the world, I quoted in the
Article, of which I am giving an account, and I added, "What more can
be required of the preachers of neglected truth, than that they
should admit that some, who do not assent to their preaching, are
holier and better men than some who do?" They were not answerable for
the intemperance of those who dishonoured a true doctrine, provided
they protested, as they did, against such intemperance. "They were
not answerable for the dust and din which attends any great moral
movement. The truer doctrines are, the more liable they are to be
perverted."

The notice of these incidental faults of opinion or temper in
adherents of the Movement, led on to