m or orthodox Protestantism. They cannot go on
for ever standing on one leg, or sitting without a chair, or walking
with their feet tied, or like Tityrus's stags grazing in the air. They
will take one view or another, but it will be a consistent view. It may
be Liberalism, or Erastianism, or Popery, or Catholicity; but it will be
real."

I concluded the Article by saying, that all who did not wish to be
"democratic, or pantheistic, or popish," must "look out for _some_ Via
Media which will preserve us from what threatens, though it cannot
restore the dead. The spirit of Luther is dead; but Hildebrand and
Loyola are alive. Is it sensible, sober, judicious, to be so very angry
with those writers of the day, who point to the fact, that our divines
of the seventeenth century have occupied a ground which is the true and
intelligible mean between extremes? Is it wise to quarrel with this
ground, because it is not exactly what we should choose, had we the
power of choice? Is it true moderation, instead of trying to fortify a
middle doctrine, to fling stones at those who do?... Would you rather
have your sons and daughters members of the Church of England or of the
Church of Rome?"

And thus I left the matter. But, while I was thus speaking of the future
of the Movement, I was in truth winding up my accounts with it, little
dreaming that it was so to be;--while I was still, in some way or other,
feeling about for an available _Via Media_, I was soon to receive a
shock which was to cast out of my imagination all middle courses and
compromises for ever. As I have said, this Article appeared in the April
number of the British Critic; in the July number, I cannot tell why,
there is no Article of mine; before the number for October, the event
had happened to which I have alluded.

But before I proceed to describe what happened to me in the summer of
1839, I must detain the reader for a while, in order to describe the
_issue_ of the controversy between Rome and the Anglican Church, as I
viewed it. This will involve some dry discussion; but it is as necessary
for my narrative, as plans of buildings and homesteads are at times
needed in the proceedings of our law courts.

* * * * *

I have said already that, though the object of the Movement was to
withstand the Liberalism of the day, I found and felt this could not be
done by mere negatives. It was necessary for us to have a positive
Church theory