The tendency of this section of able men was unquestionably Romewards, almost from the beginning of their connexion with the movement.  Both the theory and the actual system of Rome, so far as they understood it, had attractions for them which nothing else had.  But with whatever perplexity and perhaps impatience, Mr. Newman’s power held them back.  He kept before their minds continually those difficulties of fact which stood in the way of their absolute and peremptory conclusions, and of which they were not much inclined to take account.  He insisted on those features, neither few nor unimportant nor hard to see, which proved the continuity of the English Church with the Church Universal.  Sharing their sense of anomaly in the Anglican theory and position, he pointed out with his own force and insight that anomaly was not in England only, but everywhere.  There was much to regret, there was much to improve, there were many unwelcome and dangerous truths, invidiosi veri, to be told and defended at any cost.  But patience, as well as honesty and courage, was a Christian virtue; and they who had received their Christianity at the hands of the English Church had duties towards it from which neither dissatisfaction nor the idea of something better could absolve them. Spartam nactus es, hanc exorna is the motto for every one whose lot is cast in any portion of Christ’s Church.  And as long as he could speak with this conviction, the strongest of them could not break away from his restraint.  It was when the tremendous question took shape, Is the English Church a true Church, a real part of the Church Catholic?—­when the question became to his mind more and more doubtful, at length desperate—­that they, of course, became more difficult to satisfy, more confident in their own allegations, more unchecked in their sympathies, and, in consequence, in their dislikes.  And in the continued effort—­for it did continue—­to make them pause and wait and hope, they reacted on him; they asked him questions which he found it hard to answer; they pressed him with inferences which he might put by, but of which he felt the sting; they forced on him all the indications, of which every day brought its contribution, that the actual living system of the English Church was against what he had taught to be Catholic, that its energetic temper and spirit condemned and rejected him.  What was it that private men were staunch and undismayed?  What was it that month by month all over England hearts and minds were attracted to his side, felt the spell of his teaching, gave him their confidence?  Suspicion and disapprobation, which had only too much to ground itself upon, had taken possession of the high places of the Church.  Authority in all its shapes had pronounced as decisively as his opponents could wish; as decisively as they too could wish, who desired no longer a barrier between themselves and Rome.