to maintain the claims of moderation and
soberness, and to decline to submit his judgment to the fashionable
theories of the hour. A stand made for independence and good sense
against the pressure of an exacting and overbearing dogmatism is a good
thing for everybody, though made in a camp with which we have nothing
to do. He goes far enough, indeed, as it is. Still, it is something
that a great writer, of whose genius and religious feeling Englishmen
will one day be even prouder than they are now, should disconnect
himself from the extreme follies of his party, and attempt to represent
what is the nobler and more elevated side of the system to which he has
attached himself. But it seems to us much more difficult for him to
release his cause from complicity with the doctrines which he dislikes
and fears. We have no doubt that he is not alone, and that there are
numbers of his English brethren who are provoked and ashamed at the
self-complacent arrogance and childish folly shown in exaggerating and
caricaturing doctrines which are, in the eyes of most Englishmen,
extravagant enough in themselves. But the question is whether he or the
innovators represent the true character and tendencies of their
religious system. It must be remembered that with a jealous and touchy
Government, like that of the Roman Church, which professes the duty and
boasts of the power to put down all dangerous ideas and language, mere
tolerance means much. Dr. Newman speaks as an Englishman when he writes
thus:--

This is specially the case with great ideas. You may stifle them;
or you may refuse them elbow-room; or you may torment them with
your continual meddling; or you may let them have free course and
range, and be content, instead of anticipating their excesses, to
expose and restrain those excesses after they have occurred. But
you have only this alternative; and for myself, I prefer much,
wherever it is possible, to be first generous and then just; to
grant full liberty of thought, and to call it to account when
abused.

But that has never been the principle of his Church. At least, the
liberty which it has allowed has been a most one-sided liberty. It has
been the liberty to go any length in developing the favourite opinions
about the power of the Pope, or some popular form of devotion; but as
to other ideas, not so congenial, "great" ones and little ones too, the
lists of the Roman Index bear witness