nculcated and
acted upon had taken too deep a root in the heart of the nation to fall
with his fall. Walpole had learned the wisdom of applying his favourite
maxim, '_Quieta non movere_,' to the affairs of the Church before he
began to apply it to those of the State. 'In 1710,' writes his
biographer, 'Walpole was appointed one of the managers for the
impeachment of Sacheverell, and principally conducted that business in
the House of Commons. The mischievous consequences of that trial had a
permanent effect on the future conduct of Walpole when head of the
Administration. It infused into him an aversion and horror at any
interposition in the affairs of the Church, and led him to assume
occasionally a line of conduct which appeared to militate against those
principles of toleration to which he was naturally inclined.'[649] And
so his one idea of managing ecclesiastical affairs was to keep things
quiet; he calmed down all opposition to the Church from without, but he
conferred a very questionable benefit upon her by this policy.[650]

We have seen in the chapter on the Deists how the Church suffered in
her practical work from the controversies of her own generation; and no
less did she suffer from the effects left by the controversies of a
preceding age. The events which had occurred during the seventeenth
century had tended to excite an almost morbid dread of extravagance both
in the direction of High Church and Low Church principles--according to
the nineteenth, not the eighteenth, century's acceptation of those
terms. The majority of the clergy shrank, not unnaturally, from anything
which might seem in any degree to assimilate them either to Romanism or
to Puritanism. Recent experience had shown the danger of both. The
violent reaction against the reign of the Saints continued with more or
less force almost to the end of the eighteenth century. The fear of
Romanism, which had been brought so near home to the nation in the days
of James II., was even yet a present danger, at least during the first
half of the century. In casting away everything that seemed to savour of
either of these two extremes there was a danger of casting away also
much that might have been edifying and elevating. On the one hand,
ornate and frequent services and symbolism of all kinds were regarded
with suspicion, and consequently infrequent services, and especially
infrequent communions, carelessness about the Church fabrics, and bad
taste in the