know that it was I, and hesitated before they spoke to
me. And I had the consciousness that I was employed in that work which I
had been dreaming about, and which I felt to be so momentous and
inspiring. I had a supreme confidence in our cause; we were upholding
that primitive Christianity which was delivered for all time by the
early teachers of the Church, and which was registered and attested in
the Anglican formularies and by the Anglican divines. That ancient
religion had well nigh faded away out of the land, through the political
changes of the last 150 years, and it must be restored. It would be in
fact a second Reformation:--a better reformation, for it would be a
return not to the sixteenth century, but to the seventeenth. No time was
to be lost, for the Whigs had come to do their worst, and the rescue
might come too late. Bishopricks were already in course of suppression;
Church property was in course of confiscation; Sees would soon be
receiving unsuitable occupants. We knew enough to begin preaching upon,
and there was no one else to preach. I felt as on board a vessel, which
first gets under weigh, and then the deck is cleared out, and luggage
and live stock stowed away into their proper receptacles.

Nor was it only that I had confidence in our cause, both in itself, and
in its polemical force, but also, on the other hand, I despised every
rival system of doctrine and its arguments too. As to the high Church
and the low Church, I thought that the one had not much more of a
logical basis than the other; while I had a thorough contempt for the
controversial position of the latter. I had a real respect for the
character of many of the advocates of each party, but that did not give
cogency to their arguments; and I thought, on the contrary, that the
Apostolical form of doctrine was essential and imperative, and its
grounds of evidence impregnable. Owing to this supreme confidence, it
came to pass at that time, that there was a double aspect in my bearing
towards others, which it is necessary for me to enlarge upon. My
behaviour had a mixture in it both of fierceness and of sport; and on
this account, I dare say, it gave offence to many; nor am I here
defending it.

I wished men to agree with me, and I walked with them step by step, as
far as they would go; this I did sincerely; but if they would stop, I
did not much care about it, but walked on, with some satisfaction that I
had brought them so far. I liked t