to be
agreed in condemning them. It soon went farther, and became vehement in
reprobating them as scandalous and dangerous publications. They incensed
the Evangelicals by their alleged Romanism, and their unsound views
about justification, good works, and the sacraments; they angered the
"two-bottle orthodox" by their asceticism--the steady men, by their
audacity and strong words--the liberals, by their dogmatic severity;
their seriously practical bearing was early disclosed in a tract on
"Fasting." But while they repelled strongly, they attracted strongly;
they touched many consciences, they won many hearts, they opened new
thoughts and hopes to many minds. One of the mischiefs of the Tracts,
and of those sermons at St. Mary's which were the commentaries on them,
was that so many people seemed to like them and to be struck by them.
The gathering storm muttered and growled for some time at a distance,
and men seemed to be taking time to make up their minds; but it began to
lour from early days, till after various threatenings it broke in a
furious article in the _Edinburgh_, by Dr. Arnold, on the "Oxford
Malignants"; and the Tract-writers and their friends became, what they
long continued to be, the most unpopular and suspected body of men in
the Church, whom everybody was at liberty to insult, both as dishonest
and absurd, of whom nothing was too cruel to say, nothing too ridiculous
to believe. It is only equitable to take into account the unprepared
state of the public mind, the surprise and novelty of even the commonest
things when put in a new light, the prejudices which the Tract-writers
were thought wantonly to offend and defy, their militant and
uncompromising attitude, where principles were at stake. But considering
what these men were known to be in character and life, what was the
emergency and what were the pressing motives which called for action,
and what is thought of them now that their course is run, it is strange
indeed to remember who they were, to whom the courtesies of controversy
were denied, not only by the vulgar herd of pamphleteers, but by men of
ability and position, some of whom had been their familiar friends. Of
course a nickname was soon found for them: the word "Tractarian" was
invented, and Archbishop Whately thought it worth while, but not
successfully, to improve it into "Tractites." Archbishop Whately, always
ingenious, appears to have suspected that the real but concealed object
of the