find who looked for himself into the realities of the Roman Church, that though the bad was often as bad as could be, there was still, and there had been all along, goodness of the highest type, excellence both of system and of personal life which it was monstrous to deny, and which we might well admire and envy.  To ignore all this was to fail in the first duty, not merely of Christians, but of honest men; and we at home were not so blameless that we could safely take this lofty tone of contemptuous superiority.  If Rome would only leave us alone, there would be estrangement, lamentable enough among Christians, but there need be no bitterness.  But Rome would not leave us alone.  The moment that there were signs of awakening energy in England, that moment was chosen by its agents, for now it could be done safely, to assail and thwart the English Church.  Doubtless they were within their rights, but this made controversy inevitable, and for controversy the leaders of the movement prepared themselves.  It was an obstacle which they seemed hardly to have expected, but which the nature of things placed in their way.  But the old style of controversy was impossible; impossible because it was so coarse, impossible because it was so hollow.

If the argument (says the writer of Tract 71, in words which are applicable to every controversy) is radically unreal, or (what may be called) rhetorical or sophistical, it may serve the purpose of encouraging those who are really convinced, though scarcely without doing mischief to them, but certainly it will offend and alienate the more acute and sensible; while those who are in doubt, and who desire some real and substantial ground for their faith, will not bear to be put off with such shadows.  The arguments (he continues) which we use must be such as are likely to convince serious and earnest minds, which are really seeking for the truth, not amusing themselves with intellectual combats, or desiring to support an existing opinion anyhow.  However popular these latter methods may be, of however long standing, however easy both to find and to use, they are a scandal; and while they lower our religious standard from the first, they are sure of hurting our cause in the end.

And on this principle the line of argument in The Prophetical Office of the Church was taken by Mr. Newman.  It was certainly no make-believe, or unreal argument.  It was a forcible and original way of putting part of the case against Rome.  It was part of the case, a very important part; but it was not the whole case, and it ought to have been evident from the first that in this controversy we could not afford to do without the whole case.  The argument from the claim of infallibility said nothing of what are equally real parts of the case—­the practical working of the Roman Church, its system of government, the part which it and its rulers have played in the history of the world.  Rome has not such a clean record of history, it has not such a clean