to assert was to prove, and that to explain was to persuade; and that the movement in which they were taking part was the birth of a crisis rather than of a place.  In a very few years a school of opinion was formed, fixed in its principles, indefinite and progressive in their range; and it extended itself into every part of the country.  If we inquire what the world thought of it, we have still more to raise our wonder; for, not to mention the excitement it caused in England, the movement and its party-names were known to the police of Italy and to the backwoods-men of America.  And so it proceeded, getting stronger and stronger every year, till it came into collision with the Nation and that Church of the Nation, which it began by professing especially to serve.

FOOTNOTES: 

[59] “I answered, the person whom we were opposing had committed himself in writing, and we ought to commit ourselves, too.”—­Apologia, p. 143.

[60] “I very much doubt between Oxford and Cambridge for my boy.  Oxford, which I should otherwise prefer, on many accounts, has at present two-thirds of the steady-reading men, Rabbinists, i.e. Puseyites.”  But this was probably an exaggeration.—­Whately’s Life; letter of Oct. 1838, p. 163 (ed. 1875).

[61] “The sagacious and aspiring man of the world, the scrutiniser of the heart, the conspirator against its privileges and rights.”—­Prophetical Office of the Church, p. 132.

[62] Parochial Sermons, iv. 20.  Feb. 1836.

[63] Vide J.B.  Mozley, Letters, pp. 114, 115.  “Confidence in me was lost, but I had already lost confidence in myself.”  This, to a friend like J.B.  Mozley, seemed exaggeration.  “Though admiring the letter [to the Vice Chancellor] I confess, for my own part, I think a general confession of humility was irrelevant to the present occasion, the question being simply on a point of theological interpretation.  I have always had a prejudice against general confessions.”  Mozley plainly thought Newman’s attitude too meek.  He would have liked something more spirited and pugnacious.

[64] Romanism and Popular Protestantism, from 1834 to 1836, published March 1837; Justification, after Easter 1837, published March 1838; Canon of Scripture, published May 1838; Antichrist, published June 1838.

[65] Cf. Lyra Apostolica, No. 65: 

Thou to wax fierce
In the cause of the Lord!

* * * * *

Anger and zeal,
And the joy of the brave,
Who bade thee to feel,

      Sin’s slave?

[66] This weak side was portrayed with severity in a story published by Mr. Newman in 1848, after he left the English Church—­Loss and Gain.

[67] Apologia, p. 156.

CHAPTER XI