ent party, who talk loudly and
strangely, do odd or fierce things, display themselves unnecessarily,
and disgust other people; persons, too young to be wise, too generous to
be cautious, too warm to be sober, or too intellectual to be humble.
Such persons will be very apt to attach themselves to particular
persons, to use particular names, to say things merely because others
do, and to act in a party-spirited way."

While I thus republish what I then said about such extravagances as
occurred in these years, at the same time I have a very strong
conviction that those extravagances furnished quite as much the welcome
excuse for those who were jealous or shy of us, as the stumbling-blocks
of those who were 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 whic