ate judgment, of ill-balanced and disproportionate
views of what was true and all-important. There was an inevitable
feverishness in the way in which the movement was begun, in the way in
which it went on. Those affected by it were themselves surprised at the
swiftness of the pace. When a cause so great and so sacred seemed thus
to be flourishing, and carrying along with it men's assent and
sympathies, it was hardly wonderful that there should often be
exaggeration, impatience at resistance, scant consideration for the
slowness or the scruples or the alarms of others. Eager and sanguine men
talked as if their work was accomplished, when in truth it was but
beginning. No one gave more serious warnings against this and other
dangers than the leaders; and their warnings were needed.[79]

2. Another mistake, akin to the last, was the frequent forgetfulness of
the apostolic maxim, "All things are lawful for me, but all things are
not expedient." In what almost amounted to a revolution in many of the
religious ideas of the time, it was especially important to keep
distinct the great central truths, the restoration of which to their
proper place justified and made it necessary, and the many subordinate
points allied with them and naturally following from them, which yet
were not necessary to their establishment or acceptance. But it was on
these subordinate points that the interest of a certain number of
followers of the movement was fastened. Conclusions which they had a
perfect right to come to, practices innocent and edifying to themselves,
but of secondary account, began to be thrust forward into prominence,
whether or not these instances of self-will really helped the common
cause, whether or not they gave a handle to ill-nature and ill-will.
Suspicion must always have attached to such a movement as this; but a
great deal of it was provoked by indiscreet defiance, which was rather
glad to provoke it.

3. Apart from these incidents--common wherever a number of men are
animated with zeal for an inspiring cause--there were what to us now
seem mistakes made in the conduct itself of the movement. Considering
the difficulties of the work, it is wonderful that there were not more;
and none of them were discreditable, none but what arose from the
limitation of human powers matched against confused and baffling
circumstances.

In the position claimed for the Church of England, confessedly unique
and anomalous in the history of