affectation of power so contemptible, the change of Vicars
Apostolic into Bishops and Archbishops, so impotent for evil to
Protestants, while it might possibly be of use to Roman Catholics,
that ridicule and contempt were the only fit arms for the occasion.
But when he came to consider the chief cause of the measure--that
is, the great and growing evil of Tractarianism--of an established
clergy becoming daily less efficient for the wants of their
parishioners, and more at variance with the laity and with the
spirit of the Church to which they outwardly belong; when the whole
Protestant country showed its anger or fear; when such a man as the
Bishop of Norwich (Hinds), a man so tolerant as to be called by the
intolerant a latitudinarian, came to him to represent the necessity
for some expression of opinion on the part of the Government, and
the immense evils that would result from the want of such an
expression; when, after a calm survey of the state of religion
throughout the country, he thought he saw that it was in his power
to prevent the ruin of the Church of England, not by assuming
popular opinions, but merely by openly avowing his own--then, and
not till then, he wrote his letter--then, and not till then, I felt
he was right to do so.

It has quieted men's fears with regard to the Pope, and directed
them towards Tractarianism. And we are told that a great many (I
think one hundred) of the clergy omitted some of their "mummeries"
on the following Sunday. That word was perhaps ill-chosen, and he
is willing to say so--but I doubt it. Suppose he had omitted it,
some other would have been laid hold of as offensive to men sincere
in their opinions, however mistaken he may think them.

The letter was a Protestant one, and could not give great
satisfaction to Roman Catholics, except such as Lord Beaumont, who
prefers the Queen to the Pope. John has all his life showed himself
a friend to civil and religious liberty, especially that of the
Roman Catholics--and would gladly never have been called upon to
say a word that they could take as an insult to their creed. But it
was a moment in which he had to choose between a temporary offence
to a part of their body and the deserved loss of the confidence of
the Protestant body, to which he heart and soul belongs. He could
scarcely