e weaker
members of it, and headstrong ones, and imitative ones; there were
grotesque and absurd ones; some were deeper, some shallower; some liked
it for its excitement, and some liked it for its cause; there were those
who were for pushing on, and those who were for holding back; there were
men of combat, and men of peace; there were those whom it made conceited
and self-important, and those whom it drove into seriousness, anxiety,
and retirement. But, whatever faults it had, a pure and high spirit
ruled in it; there were no disloyal members, and there were none who
sought their own in it, or thought of high things for themselves in
joining it. It was this whole-heartedness, this supreme reverence for
moral goodness, more even than the great ability of the leaders, and in
spite of mistakes and failures, which gave its cohesion and its momentum
to the movement in its earlier stages.

The state of feeling and opinion among Churchmen towards the end of
1835, two years after the Tracts had begun, is thus sketched by one who
was anxiously observing it, in the preface to the second volume of the
Tracts (November 1835).

In completing the second volume of a publication, to which the
circumstances of the day have given rise, it may be right to allude to
a change which has taken place in them since the date of its
commencement. At that time, in consequence of long security, the
attention of members of our Church had been but partially engaged, in
ascertaining the grounds of their adherence to it; but the imminent
peril to all which is dear to them which has since been confessed, has
naturally turned their thoughts that way, and obliged them to defend
it on one or other of the principles which are usually put forward in
its behalf. Discussions have thus been renewed in various quarters, on
points which had long remained undisturbed; and though numbers
continue undecided in opinion, or take up a temporary position in some
one of the hundred middle points which may be assumed between the two
main theories in which the question issues; and others, again, have
deliberately entrenched themselves in the modern or ultra-Protestant
alternative; yet, on the whole, there has been much hearty and
intelligent adoption, and much respectful study, of those more
primitive views maintained by our great Divines. As the altered state
of public information and opinion has a necessary bearing on the
effort