eelings of personal
kindness, from a sense of justice, from a sense of interest--some in a
frank and generous spirit, others with contemptuous indifference. But
the debt of the Tractarians to their Liberal friends in 1845 was not so
great as Dean Stanley, thinking of the Liberal party as what it had
ultimately grown to be, supposed to be the case. The Liberals of his
school were then still a little flock: a very distinguished and a very
earnest set of men, but too young and too few as yet to hold the balance
in such a contest. The Tractarians were saved by what they were and what
they had done, and could do, themselves. But it is also true, that out
of these feuds and discords, the Liberal party which was to be dominant
in Oxford took its rise, soon to astonish old-fashioned Heads of Houses
with new and deep forms of doubt more audacious than Tractarianism, and
ultimately to overthrow not only the victorious authorities, but the
ancient position of the Church, and to recast from top to bottom the
institutions of the University. The 13th of February was not only the
final defeat and conclusion of the first stage of the movement. It was
the birthday of the modern Liberalism of Oxford.

But it was also a crisis in the history of many lives. From that moment,
the decision of a number of good and able men, who had once promised to
be among the most valuable servants of the English Church, became clear.
If it were doubtful before, in many cases, whether they would stay with
her, the doubt existed no longer. It was now only a question of time
when they would break the tie and renounce their old allegiance. In the
bitter, and in many cases agonising struggle which they had gone through
as to their duty to God and conscience, a sign seemed now to be given
them which they could not mistake. They were invited, on one side, to
come; they were told sternly and scornfully, on the other, to go. They
could no longer be accused of impatience if they brought their doubts to
an end, and made up their minds that their call was to submit to the
claims of Rome, that their place was in its communion.

Yet there was a pause. It was no secret what was coming. But men
lingered. It was not till the summer that the first drops of the storm
began to fall. Then through the autumn and the next year, friends, whose
names and forms were familiar in Oxford, one by one disappeared and were
lost to it. Fellowships, livings, curacies, intended careers, wer