Bishoprics were already in course of suppression; Church property was in course of confiscation; sees would be soon receiving unsuitable occupants.  We knew enough to begin preaching, and there was no one else to preach.  I felt,” he goes on,[47] with a characteristic recollection of his own experience when he started on his voyage with Froude in the Hermes, “as on a vessel, which first gets under weigh, and then clears out the deck, and stores away luggage and live stock into their proper receptacles.”  The first three Tracts bear the date of 9th September 1833.  They were the first public utterance of the movement.  The opening words of this famous series deserve to be recalled.  They are new to most of the present generation.

  TO MY BRETHREN IN THE SACRED MINISTRY, THE PRESBYTERS AND DEACONS OF
  THE CHURCH OF CHRIST IN ENGLAND, ORDAINED THEREUNTO BY THE HOLY GHOST
  AND THE IMPOSITION OF HANDS.

FELLOW-LABOURERS,—­I am but one of yourselves—­Presbyter; and therefore I conceal my name, lest I should take too much on myself by speaking in my own person.  Yet speak I must; for the times are very evil, yet no one speaks against them.

Is not this so?  Do not we “look one upon another,” yet perform nothing?  Do we not all confess the peril into which the Church is come, yet sit still each in his own retirement, as if mountains and seas cut off brother from brother?  Therefore suffer me, while I try to draw you forth from those pleasant retreats, which it has been our blessedness hitherto to enjoy, to contemplate the condition and prospects of our Holy Mother in a practical way; so that one and all may unlearn that idle habit, which has grown upon us, of owning the state of things to be bad, yet doing nothing to remedy it.

Consider a moment.  Is it fair, is it dutiful, to suffer our bishops to stand the brunt of the battle without doing our part to support them?  Upon them comes “the care of all the Churches.”  This cannot be helped; indeed it is their glory.  Not one of us would wish in the least to deprive them of the duties, the toils, the responsibilities of their high office.  And, black event as it would be for the country, yet (as far as they are concerned) we could not wish them a more blessed termination of their course than the spoiling of their goods and martyrdom.

To them then we willingly and affectionately relinquish their high privileges and honours; we encroach not upon the rights of the SUCCESSORS OF THE APOSTLES; we touch not their sword and crozier.  Yet surely we may be their shield-bearers in the battle without offence; and by our voice and deeds be to them what Luke and Timothy were to St. Paul.

Now then let me come at once to the subject which leads me to address you.  Should the Government and the Country so far forget their God as to cast off the Church, to deprive it of its temporal honours