I
have no antecedent difficulty in the matter. He who floated the
Ark on the surges of a world-wide sea, and enclosed in it all
living things, who has hidden the terrestrial paradise, who said
that faith might move mountains, who sustained thousands for
forty years in a sterile wilderness, who transported Elias and
keeps him hidden till the end, could do this wonder also.'
Here, whatever else there may be, there is certainly no trace of
a desire to deceive. Could a state of mind, in fact, be revealed
with more absolute transparency?
When Newman was a child he 'wished that he could believe the
Arabian Nights were true'. When he came to be a man, his wish
seems to have been granted.
Tract No. 90 was officially condemned by the authorities at
Oxford, and in the hubbub that followed, the contending parties
closed their ranks; henceforward, any compromise between the
friends and the enemies of the Movement was impossible.
Archdeacon Manning was in too conspicuous a position to be able
to remain silent; he was obliged to declare himself, and he did
not hesitate. In an archidiaconal charge, delivered within a few
months of his appointment, he firmly repudiated the Tractarians.
But the repudiation was not deemed sufficient, and a year later
he repeated it with greater emphasis. Still, however, the horrid
rumours were afloat.
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