se_ your side; since side you shortly must, with one or other
party, even though you do nothing. Fear to be of those whose line is
decided for them by chance circumstances, and who may perchance find
themselves with the enemies of Christ, while they think but to remove
themselves from worldly politics. Such abstinence is impossible in
troublous times. HE THAT IS NOT WITH ME IS AGAINST ME, AND HE THAT
GATHERETH NOT WITH ME SCATTERETH ABROAD.
While Mr. Palmer was working at the Association and the Address, Mr.
Newman with his friends was sending forth the Tracts, one after another,
in rapid succession, through the autumn and winter of 1833. They were
short papers, in many cases mere short notes, on the great questions
which had suddenly sprung into such interest, and were felt to be full
of momentous consequence,--the true and essential nature of the
Christian Church, its relation to the primitive ages, its authority and
its polity and government, the current objections to its claims in
England, to its doctrines and its services, the length of the prayers,
the Burial Service, the proposed alterations in the Liturgy, the neglect
of discipline, the sins and corruptions of each branch of Christendom.
The same topics were enforced and illustrated again and again as the
series went on; and then there came extracts from English divines, like
Bishop Beveridge, Bishop Wilson, and Bishop Cosin, and under the title
"Records of the Church," translations from the early Fathers, Ignatius,
Justin, Irenaeus, and others. Mr. Palmer contributed to one of these
papers, and later on Mr. Perceval wrote two or three; but for the most
part these early Tracts were written by Mr. Newman, though Mr. Keble and
one or two others also helped. Afterwards, other writers joined in the
series. They were at first not only published with a notice that any one
might republish them with any alterations he pleased, but they were
distributed by zealous coadjutors, ready to take any trouble in the
cause. Mr. Mozley has described how he rode about Northamptonshire, from
parsonage to parsonage, with bundles of the Tracts. The _Apologia_
records the same story. "I called upon clergy," says the writer, "in
various parts of the country, whether I was acquainted with them or not,
and I attended at the houses of friends where several of them were from
time to time assembled.... I did not care whether my visits were made to
High Church or Low Church: I wis
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