ere hard to parry; even
to those who respected them for their connexion with our present order
of things, their learning, their soundness, their authority appeared to
be greatly exaggerated; and the reaction from excessive veneration made
others dislike and depreciate them. This was the state of feeling when
the Martyrs' Memorial was started. It was eagerly pressed with ingenious
and persevering arguments by Mr. Golightly, the indefatigable and
long-labouring opponent of all that savoured of Tractarianism. The
appeal seemed so specious that at first many even of the party gave in
their adhesion. Even Dr. Pusey was disposed to subscribe to it. But Mr.
Newman, as was natural, held aloof; and his friends for the most part
did the same. It was what was expected and intended. They were either to
commit themselves to the Reformation as understood by the promoters of
the Memorial; or they were to be marked as showing their disloyalty to
it. The subscription was successful. The Memorial was set up, and stood,
a derisive though unofficial sign of the judgment of the University
against them.

But the "Memorial" made little difference to the progress of the
movement. It was an indication of hostility in reserve, but this was
all; it formed an ornament to the city, but failed as a religious and
effective protest. Up to the spring of 1839, Anglicanism, placed on an
intellectual basin by Mr. Newman, developed practically in different
ways by Dr. Pusey and Dr. Hook, sanctioned in theory by divines who
represented the old divinity of the English Church, like Bishop
Phillpotts and Mr. H.J. Rose, could speak with confident and hopeful
voice. It might well seem that it was on its way to win over the coming
generations of the English clergy. It had on its side all that gives
interest and power to a cause,--thought, force of character, unselfish
earnestness; it had unity of idea and agreement in purpose, and was
cemented by the bonds of warm affection and common sympathies. It had
the promise of a nobler religion, as energetic and as spiritual as
Puritanism and Wesleyanism, while it drew its inspiration, its canons of
doctrine, its moral standards, from purer and more venerable
sources;--from communion, not with individual teachers and partial
traditions, but with the consenting teaching and authoritative documents
of the continuous Catholic Church.

Anglicanism was agreed, up to this time--the summer of 1839--as to its
general principles