ty he re-acted on his readers,
stimulating their mental thirst, feeding their hopes, setting before
them visions, which, when once seen, are not easily forgotten, and
silently indoctrinating them with nobler ideas, which might afterwards
be appealed to as first principles."

Then I spoke of Coleridge, thus: "While history in prose and verse was
thus made the instrument of Church feelings and opinions, a
philosophical basis for the same was laid in England by a very original
thinker, who, while he indulged a liberty of speculation, which no
Christian can tolerate, and advocated conclusions which were often
heathen rather than Christian, yet after all installed a higher
philosophy into inquiring minds, than they had hitherto been accustomed
to accept. In this way he made trial of his age, and succeeded in
interesting its genius in the cause of Catholic truth."

Then come Southey and Wordsworth, "two living poets, one of whom in the
department of fantastic fiction, the other in that of philosophical
meditation, have addressed themselves to the same high principles and
feelings, and carried forward their readers in the same direction."

Then comes the prediction of this re-action hazarded by "a sagacious
observer withdrawn from the world, and surveying its movements from a
distance," Mr. Alexander Knox. He had said twenty years before the date
of my Article: "No Church on earth has more intrinsic excellence than
the English Church, yet no Church probably has less practical
influence.... The rich provision, made by the grace and providence of
God, for habits of a noble kind, is evidence that men shall arise,
fitted both by nature and ability, to discover for themselves, and to
display to others, whatever yet remains undiscovered, whether in the
words or works of God." Also I referred to "a much venerated clergyman
of the last generation," who said shortly before his death, "Depend on
it, the day will come, when those great doctrines, now buried, will be
brought out to the light of day, and then the effect will be fearful." I
remarked upon this, that they who "now blame the impetuosity of the
current, should rather turn their animadversions upon those who have
dammed up a majestic river, till it has become a flood."

These being the circumstances under which the Movement began and
progressed, it was absurd to refer it to the act of two or three
individuals. It was not so much a movement as a "spirit afloat;" it was
within