our apostolical polity has been ridiculed and denied.”  The condition of the times made these things more than ordinarily alarming, and the pressing danger was urged as a reason for the formation, by members of the Church in various parts of the kingdom, of an association on a few broad principles of union for the defence of the Church.  “They feel strongly,” said the authors of the paper, “that no fear of the appearance of forwardness should dissuade them from a design, which seems to be demanded of them by their affection towards that spiritual community to which they owe their hopes of the world to come; and by a sense of duty to that God and Saviour who is its Founder and Defender.”  But the plan of an Association, or of separate Associations, which was circulated in the autumn of 1833, came to nothing.  “Jealousy was entertained of it in high quarters.”  Froude objected to any association less wide than the Church itself.  Newman had a horror of committees and meetings and great people in London.  And thus, in spite of Mr. Palmer’s efforts, favoured by a certain number of influential and dignified friends, the Association would not work.  But the stir about it was not without result.  Mr. Palmer travelled about the country with the view of bringing the state of things before the clergy.  In place of the Association, an Address to the Archbishop of Canterbury was resolved upon.  It was drawn up by Mr. Palmer, who undertook the business of circulating it.  In spite of great difficulties and trouble of the alarm of friends like Mr. Rose, who was afraid that it would cause schism in the Church; of the general timidity of the dignified clergy; of the distrust and the crotchets of others; of the coldness of the bishops and the opposition of some of them—­it was presented with the signatures of some 7000 clergy to the Archbishop in February 1834.  It bore the names, among others, of Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, Master of Trinity; Dr. Gilbert, of Brasenose College; Dr. Faussett, and Mr. Keble.  And this was not all.  A Lay Address followed.  There were difficulties about the first form proposed, which was thought to say too much about the doctrine and discipline of the Church; and it was laid aside for one with more vague expressions about the “consecration of the State,” and the practical benefits of the Established Church.  In this form it was signed by 230,000 heads of families, and presented to the Archbishop in the following May.  “From these two events,” writes Mr. Perceval in 1842, “we may date the commencement of the turn of the tide, which had threatened to overwhelm our Church and our religion."[45] There can, at any rate, be little doubt that as regards the external position of the Church in the country, this agitation was a success.  It rallied the courage of Churchmen, and showed that they were stronger and more resolute than their enemies thought.  The revolutionary temper of the times had thrown all Churchmen on the Conservative side; and these addresses were partly helped by political Conservatism, and also reacted in its favour.