h adherence to the principles of Protestantism. Like many
other men at the time, and still more of to-day, he was at a loss to
discover how ecclesiastics of such a stamp could remain in the ministry
of the Church of England, when they seemed to ordinary eyes to be in
league with Rome. The prelates, almost to a man, were hotly opposed to
the Tractarians when Lord John wrote the Durham Letter. They shared his
convictions and applauded his action. Since then many things have
happened. The Oxford Movement has triumphed, and has done so largely by
the self-sacrificing devotion of its adherents. It has summoned to its
aid art and music, learning and eloquence; it has appealed to the
aesthetic and emotional elements in human nature; it has led captive the
imagination of many by its dramatic revival of mediaeval ideas and
methods; and it has stilled by its assumption of authority the
restlessness of souls, too weary to argue, too troubled to rebel. The
bishops of to-day have grown either quite friendly towards the Oxford
Movement, or else discreetly tolerant. Yet, when all this is admitted,
it does nothing towards proving that Lord John Russell was a mistaken
alarmist. The Durham Letter and its impassioned protest have been
justified by the logic of events. It is easy for men to be charitable
who have slipped their convictions.

Possibly it was not judicious on Lord John's part to be so zealously
affected in the matter. That is, perhaps, open to dispute, but the
question remains: Was he mistaken in principle? He saw clergymen of the
English Church, Protestant at least in name, 'leading their flocks step
by step to the very verge of the precipice,' and he took up his parable
against them, and pointed out the danger to the hitherto accepted faith
and practice of the English Church. One of the most distinguished
prelates of the Anglican Church in the Queen's reign has not hesitated
to assert that the tenets against which Lord John Russell protested in
the Durham Letter were, in his judgment, of a kind which are
'destructive of all reasonable faith, and reduce worship to a mere
belief in spells and priestcraft.' Cardinal Vaughan, it is needless to
say, does not sympathise with such a view. He, however, has opinions on
the subject which are worthy of the attention of those who think that
Lord John was a mere alarmist. His Eminence delivered a suggestive
address at Preston on September 10, 1894, on the 'Re-Union of
Christendom.' He t