m, in the Articles
still. It was there, but this must be shown. It was a matter of life
and death to us to show it. And I believed that it could be shown; I
considered that those grounds of justification, which I gave above,
when I was speaking of Tract 90, were sufficient for the purpose; and
therefore I set about showing it at once. This was in March, 1840,
when I went up to Littlemore. And, as it was a matter of life and
death with us, all risks must be run to show it. When the attempt was
actually made, I had got reconciled to the prospect of it, and had no
apprehensions as to the experiment; but in 1840, while my purpose was
honest, and my grounds of reason satisfactory, I did nevertheless
recognise that I was engaged in an _experimentum crucis_. I have no
doubt that then I acknowledged to myself that it would be a trial of
the Anglican Church, which it had never undergone before--not that
the Catholic sense of the Articles had not been held or at least
suffered by their framers and promulgators, and was not implied in
the teaching of Andrewes or Beveridge, but that it had never been
publicly recognised, while the interpretation of the day was
Protestant and exclusive. I observe also, that, though my Tract was
an experiment, it was, as I said at the time, "no _feeler_," the
event showed it; for, when my principle was not granted, I did not
draw back, but gave up. I would not hold office in a Church which
would not allow my sense of the Articles. My tone was, "This is
necessary for us, and have it we must and will, and, if it tends to
bring men to look less bitterly on the Church of Rome, so much the
better."

This then was the second work to which I set myself; though when I
got to Littlemore, other things came in the way of accomplishing it
at the moment. I had in mind to remove all such obstacles as were in
the way of holding the Apostolic and Catholic character of the
Anglican teaching; to assert the right of all who chose to say in the
face of day, "Our Church teaches the Primitive Ancient faith." I did
not conceal this: in Tract 90, it is put forward as the first
principle of all, "It is a duty which we owe both to the Catholic
Church, and to our own, to take our reformed confessions in the most
Catholic sense they will admit: we have no duties towards their
framers." And still more pointedly in my letter, explanatory of the
Tract, addressed to Dr. Jelf, I say: "The only peculiarity of the
view I advocate, i