is experience in those
years:--[67]

From beginnings so small (I said), from elements of thought so
fortuitous, with prospects so unpromising, the Anglo-Catholic party
suddenly became a power in the National Church, and an object of alarm
to her rulers and friends. Its originators would have found it
difficult to say what they aimed at of a practical kind: rather, they
put forth views and principles, for their own sake, because they were
true, as if they were obliged to say them; and, as they might be
themselves surprised at their earnestness in uttering them, they had
as great cause to be surprised at the success which attended their
propagation. And, in fact, they could only say that those doctrines
were in the air; that to assert was to prove, and that to explain was
to persuade; and that the movement in which they were taking part was
the birth of a crisis rather than of a place. In a very few years a
school of opinion was formed, fixed in its principles, indefinite and
progressive in their range; and it extended itself into every part of
the country. If we inquire what the world thought of it, we have still
more to raise our wonder; for, not to mention the excitement it caused
in England, the movement and its party-names were known to the police
of Italy and to the backwoods-men of America. And so it proceeded,
getting stronger and stronger every year, till it came into collision
with the Nation and that Church of the Nation, which it began by
professing especially to serve.

FOOTNOTES:

[59] "I answered, the person whom we were opposing had committed himself
in writing, and we ought to commit ourselves, too."--_Apologia_, p. 143.

[60] "I very much doubt between Oxford and Cambridge for my boy. Oxford,
which I should otherwise prefer, on many accounts, has at present
two-thirds of the steady-reading men, Rabbinists, _i.e._ Puseyites." But
this was probably an exaggeration.--Whately's _Life_; letter of Oct.
1838, p. 163 (ed. 1875).

[61] "The sagacious and aspiring man of the world, the scrutiniser
of the heart, the conspirator against its privileges and
rights."--_Prophetical Office of the Church_, p. 132.

[62] _Parochial Sermons_, iv. 20. Feb. 1836.

[63] _Vide_ J.B. Mozley, _Letters_, pp. 114, 115. "Confidence in me was
lost, but I had already lost confidence in myself." This, to a friend
like J.B. Mozley, seemed exaggeration. "Though admiring the letter [to