. Charges of an inclination to Roman views had been
promptly and stoutly met; nor was there really anything but the
ignorance or ill-feeling of the accusers to throw doubt on the sincerity
of these disavowals. The deepest and strongest mind in the movement was
satisfied; and his steadiness of conviction could be appealed to if his
followers talked wildly and rashly. He had kept one unwavering path; he
had not shrunk from facing with fearless honesty the real living array
of reasons which the most serious Roman advocates could put forward.
With a frankness new in controversy, he had not been afraid to state
them with a force which few of his opponents could have put forth. With
an eye ever open to that supreme Judge of all our controversies, who
listens to them on His throne on high, he had with conscientious
fairness admitted what he saw to be good and just on the side of his
adversaries, conceded what in the confused wrangle of conflicting claims
he judged ought to be conceded. But after all admissions and all
concessions, the comparative strength of his own case appeared all the
more undeniable. He had stripped it of its weaknesses, its incumbrances,
its falsehoods; and it did not seem the weaker for being presented in
its real aspect and on its real grounds. People felt that he had gone to
the bottom of the question as no one had yet dared to do. He was yet
staunch in his convictions; and they could feel secure.

But a change was at hand. In the course of 1839, the little cloud showed
itself in the outlook of the future; the little rift opened, small and
hardly perceptible, which was to widen into an impassable gulf.
Anglicanism started with undoubted confidence in its own foundations and
its own position, as much against Romanism as against the more recent
forms of religion. In the consciousness of its strength, it could afford
to make admissions and to refrain from tempting but unworthy arguments
in controversy with Rome; indeed the necessity of such controversy had
come upon it unexpectedly and by surprise. With English frankness, in
its impatience of abuses and desire for improvement within, it had dwelt
strongly on the faults and shortcomings of the English Church which it
desired to remedy; but while allowing what was undeniably excellent in
Rome, it had been equally outspoken and emphatic in condemnation of the
evils of Rome. What is there to wonder at in such a position? It is the
position of every honest refo