account of what is done and permitted in its dominions under an authority supposed to be irresistible, that it can claim to be the one pure and perfect Church, entitled to judge and correct and govern all other Churches.  And if the claim is made, there is no help for it, we must not shrink from the task of giving the answer.[81] And, as experience has shown, the more that rigid good faith is kept to in giving the answer, the more that strictness and severity of even understatement are observed, the more convincing will be the result that the Roman Church cannot be that which it is alleged to be in its necessary theory and ideal.

But this task was never adequately undertaken.  It was one of no easy execution.[82] Other things, apparently more immediately pressing, intervened.  There was no question for the present of perfect and unfeigned confidence in the English Church, with whatever regrets for its shortcomings, and desires for its improvement But to the outside world it seemed as if there were a reluctance to face seriously the whole of the Roman controversy; a disposition to be indulgent to Roman defects, and unfairly hard on English faults.  How mischievously this told in the course of opinion outside and inside of the movement; how it was misinterpreted and misrepresented; how these misinterpretations and misrepresentations, with the bitterness and injustice which they engendered, helped to realise themselves, was seen but too clearly at a later stage.

4.  Lastly, looking back on the publications, regarded as characteristic of the party, it is difficult not to feel that some of them gave an unfortunate and unnecessary turn to things.

The book which made most stir and caused the greatest outcry was Froude’s Remains.  It was undoubtedly a bold experiment; but it was not merely boldness.  Except that it might be perverted into an excuse by the shallow and thoughtless for merely “strong talk,” it may fairly be said that it was right and wise to let the world know the full measure and depth of conviction which gave birth to the movement; and Froude’s Remains did that in an unsuspiciously genuine way that nothing else could have done.  And, besides, it was worth while for its own sake to exhibit with fearless honesty such a character, so high, so true, so refined, so heroic.  So again, Dr. Pusey’s Tract on Baptism was a bold book, and one which brought heavy imputations and misconstructions on the party.  In the teaching of his long life, Dr. Pusey has abundantly dispelled the charges of harshness and over-severity which were urged, not always very scrupulously, against the doctrine of the Tract on Post-baptismal Sin.  But it was written to redress the balance against the fatally easy doctrines then in fashion; it was like the Portroyalist protest against the fashionable Jesuits; it was one-sided, and sometimes, in his earnestness, unguarded; and it wanted as yet the complement of encouragement, consolation, and tenderness which his future teaching