The
Evangelical movement, with the exception to which I shall revert
presently, had become almost a matter of ancient history.
Tractarianism had subsided into a tenth day's wonder; it was at
work, but it was not noisy. The "Vestiges" were forgotten before
Ernest went up to Cambridge; the Catholic aggression scare had lost
its terrors; Ritualism was still unknown by the general provincial
public, and the Gorham and Hampden controversies were defunct some
years since; Dissent was not spreading; the Crimean war was the one
engrossing subject, to be followed by the Indian Mutiny and the
Franco-Austrian war. These great events turned men's minds from
speculative subjects, and there was no enemy to the faith which
could arouse even a languid interest. At no time probably since the
beginning of the century could an ordinary observer have detected less
sign of coming disturbance than at that of which I am writing.
I need hardly say that the calm was only on the surface. Older
men, who knew more than undergraduates were likely to do, must have
seen that the wave of scepticism which had already broken over Germany
was setting towards our own shores, nor was it long, indeed, before it
reached them.
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