How had it happened that this piece of
patchwork had become the receptacle for the august and infinite
mysteries of the Christian Faith? This was the problem with which
Newman and his friends found themselves confronted. Other men
might, and apparently did, see nothing very strange in such a
situation; but other men saw in Christianity itself scarcely more
than a convenient and respectable appendage to existence, by
which a sound system of morals was inculcated, and through which
one might hope to attain to everlasting bliss.
To Newman and Keble it was otherwise. They saw a transcendent
manifestation of Divine power flowing down elaborate and immense
through the ages; a consecrated priesthood, stretching back,
through the mystic symbol of the laying on of hands, to the very
Godhead; a whole universe of spiritual beings brought into
communion with the Eternal by means of wafers; a great mass of
metaphysical doctrines, at once incomprehensible and of
incalculable import, laid down with infinite certitude; they saw
the supernatural everywhere and at all times, a living force,
floating invisible in angels, inspiring saints, and investing
with miraculous properties the commonest material things. No
wonder that they found such a spectacle hard to bring into line
with the institution which had been evolved from the divorce of
Henry VIII, the intrigues of Elizabethan parliaments, and the
Revolution of 1688.
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