e world in fullest measure the
teaching and the writings of the Fathers. I thought that the Church of
England was substantially founded upon them. I did not know all that the
Fathers had said, but I felt that, even when their tenets happened to
differ from the Anglican, no harm could come of reporting them. I said
out what I was clear they had said; I spoke vaguely and imperfectly, of
what I thought they said, or what some of them had said. Any how, no
harm could come of bending the crooked stick the other way, in the
process of straightening it; it was impossible to break it. If there was
any thing in the Fathers of a startling character, this would be only
for a time; it would admit of explanation, or it might suggest something
profitable to Anglicans; it could not lead to Rome. I express this view
of the matter in a passage of the Preface to the first volume, which I
edited, of the Library of the Fathers. Speaking of the strangeness at
first sight, in the judgment of the present day, of some of their
principles and opinions, I bid the reader go forward hopefully, and not
indulge his criticism till he knows more about them, than he will learn
at the outset. "Since the evil," I say, "is in the nature of the case
itself, we can do no more than have patience, and recommend patience to
others, and with the racer in the Tragedy, look forward steadily and
hopefully to the _event_, [Greek: to telei pistin pheron], when, as we
trust, all that is inharmonious and anomalous in the details, will at
length be practically smoothed."

Such was the position, such the defences, such the tactics, by which I
thought that it was both incumbent on us, and possible for us, to meet
that onset of Liberal principles, of which we were all in immediate
anticipation, whether in the Church or in the University. And during the
first year of the Tracts, the attack upon the University began. In
November, 1834, was sent to me by Dr. Hampden the second edition of his
Pamphlet, entitled, "Observations on Religious Dissent, with particular
reference to the use of religious tests in the University." In this
Pamphlet it was maintained, that "Religion is distinct from Theological
Opinion," pp. 1. 28. 30, &c.; that it is but a common prejudice to
identify theological propositions methodically deduced and stated, with
the simple religion of Christ, p. 1; that under Theological Opinion were
to be placed the Trinitarian doctrine, p. 27, and the Unitarian, p. 1