ogical controversy had abated. Pamphlet no longer
followed upon pamphlet, and folio upon folio, as when, a few years
before, every writer in divinity had felt bound to contribute his quota
of argument to the voluminous stock, and when Tillotson hardly preached
a sermon without some homethrust at Popery. But the general fear and
hatred of it long continued unmitigated. So long, particularly, as there
was any apprehension of Jacobite disturbances, it always seemed possible
that Romanism might yet return with a power of which none could guess
the force. Additions were still made to the long list of penalties and
disabilities attached to Popish recusancy; and when, in 1778, a
proposition was brought forward to abate them, it is well known what a
storm of riot arose in Scotland and burst through England.

It might be thought that in the dull ebb-tide of spiritual energies
which set in soon after the beginning of the eighteenth century, and
prevailed wherever the Methodist movement did not reach, Rome, with her
strong organisation and her experienced Propaganda, had as great a field
before her as Wesley had,--that she would have made rapid advance in
spite of all disabilities,--and that, in consequence, the Protestant
fears, which had been subsiding into indifference, would have arisen
again in full force. But Rome shared in the strange religious apathy
which was dominant not in England only, but the Continent. Her writers
generally acknowledge the greater part of the eighteenth century to have
been a period of comparative inactivity,[312] broken at last only by the
violent stimulus of the Revolution. Many thought that Romanism continued
to gain ground in England, and some cried out that still stricter laws
were needed to suppress the Papists. It is doubtful, however, whether
advances in some quarters were not more than balanced by losses
elsewhere. As the century advanced, Rome gradually ceased to be dreaded
as a subtle pervading power, full of mysterious activity, whose force
might be felt most severely at the very moment when least preparation
had been made to meet it. Later still, fear was sometimes replaced by a
confidence no less excessive. 'It is impossible,' said Mr. Windham in
the House of Commons, 1791, 'to deem them (the Roman Catholics)
formidable at the present period, when the power of the Pope is
considered as a mere spectre, capable of frightening only in the dark,
and vanishing before the light of reason and k