gifted with the power
of compression and arrangement--into a volume of 600 pages: the famous
_Ideal of a Christian Church, considered in Comparison with Existing
Practice_, published in the summer of 1844.

The _Ideal_ is a ponderous and unattractive volume, ill arranged and
rambling, which its style and other circumstances have caused to be
almost forgotten. But there are interesting discussions in it which may
still repay perusal for their own sakes. The object of the book was
twofold. Starting with an "ideal" of what the Christian Church may be
expected to be in its various relations to men, it assumes that the
Roman Church, and only the Roman Church, satisfies the conditions of
what a Church ought to be, and it argues in detail that the English
Church, in spite of its professions, utterly and absolutely fails to
fulfil them. It is _plaidoirie_ against everything English, on the
ground that it cannot be Catholic because it is not Roman. It was not
consistent, for while the writer alleged that "our Church totally
neglected her duties both as guardian of and witness to morality, and
as witness and teacher of orthodoxy," yet he saw no difficulty in
attributing the revival of Catholic truth to "the inherent vitality and
powers of our own Church."[120] But this was not the sting and
provocation of the book. That lay in the developed claim, put forward by
implication in Mr. Ward's previous writings, and now repeated in the
broadest and most unqualified form, to hold his position in the English
Church, avowing and teaching all Roman doctrine.

We find (he exclaims), oh, most joyful, most wonderful, most
unexpected sight! we find the whole cycle of Roman doctrine gradually
possessing numbers of English Churchmen.... Three years have passed
since I said plainly that in subscribing the Articles I renounce no
Roman doctrine; yet I retain my fellowship which I hold on the tenure
of subscription, and have received no ecclesiastical censure in any
shape.[121]

There was much to learn from the book; much that might bring home to the
most loyal Churchman a sense of shortcomings, a burning desire for
improvement; much that might give every one a great deal to think about,
on some of the deepest problems of the intellectual and religious life.
But it could not be expected that such a challenge, in such sentences as
these, should remain unnoticed.

The book came out in the Long Vacation, and it was not till the
Univ