h the view then taken of them in
Oxford as the theological text-book, and in the condition of men's
minds, could not but be a great shock.

And what seemed to give a sinister significance to No. 90 was that, as
has been said, a strong current was beginning to set in the direction of
Rome. It was not yet of the nature, nor of the force, which was
imagined. The authorities suspected it where it was not. They accepted
any contemptible bit of gossip collected by ignorance or ill-nature as a
proof of it. The constitutional frankness of Englishmen in finding fault
with what is their own--disgust at pompous glorification--scepticism as
to our insular claims against all the rest of Christendom to be exactly
right, to be alone, "pure and apostolic"; real increase and enlargement
of knowledge, theological and historical; criticism on portions of our
Reformation history; admiration for characters in mediaeval times;
eagerness, over-generous it might be, to admit and repair wrong to an
opponent unjustly accused; all were set down together with other more
unequivocal signs as "leanings to Rome." It was clear that there was a
current setting towards Rome; but it was as clear that there was a much
stronger current in the party as a whole, setting in the opposite
direction. To those who chose to see and to distinguish, the love, the
passionate loyalty of the bulk of the Tractarians to the English Church
was as evident and unquestionable as any public fact could be. At this
time there was no reason to call in question the strong assurances
given by the writer of No. 90 himself of his yet unshaken faith in the
English Church. But all these important features of the
movement--witnessing, indeed, to deep searchings of heart, but to a
genuine desire to serve the English Church--were overlooked in the one
overwhelming fear which had taken possession of the authorities.
Alarming symptoms of a disposition to acknowledge and even exaggerate
the claims and the attractions of the Roman system were indeed apparent.
No doubt there were reasons for disquiet and anxiety. But the test of
manliness and wisdom, in the face of such reasons, is how men measure
their proportion, and how they meet the danger.

The Heads saw a real danger before them; but they met it in a wrong and
unworthy way. They committed two great errors. In the first place, like
the Jesuits in their quarrel with Portroyal and the Jansenists, they
entirely failed to recognise the mora