It must be remembered that the year 1858 was the last of a term during
which the peace of the Church of England was singularly unbroken. Between
1844, when "Vestiges of Creation" appeared, and 1859, when "Essays and
Reviews" marked the commencement of that storm which raged until many
years afterwards, there was not a single book published in England that
caused serious commotion within the bosom of the Church. Perhaps
Buckle's "History of Civilisation" and Mill's "Liberty" were the most
alarming, but they neither of them reached the substratum of the reading
public, and Ernest and his friends were ignorant of their very existence.
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.
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