"That I have been an unjust steward my conscience does not bear
witness. At times blundering, at times negligent, Heaven knows: but,
on the whole, I have done that which I felt able and called upon to
do; and I have done it without looking to the right or to the left;
seeking no man's favor, fearing no man's disfavor.

"But what is it that I have been doing? In the end one's conceptions
should form a whole, though only parts may have found utterance, as
occasion arose; now do these exhibit harmony and mutual connexion? In
one's zeal much of the old gets broken to pieces; but has one made
ready something new, fit to be set in the place of the old?

"That they merely destroy without reconstructing, is the especial
charge, with which those who work in this direction are constantly
reproached. In a certain sense I do not defend myself against the
charge; but I deny that any reproach is deserved.

"I have never proposed to myself to begin outward construction;
because I do not believe that the time has come for it. Our present
business is with inward preparation, especially the preparation of
those who have ceased to be content with the old, and find no
satisfaction in half measures. I have wished, and I still wish, to
disturb no man's peace of mind, no man's beliefs; but only to point
out to those in whom they are already shattered, the direction in
which, in my conviction, firmer ground lies."[1]

So wrote one of the protagonists of the New Reformation--and a
well-abused man if ever there was one--a score of years since, in the
remarkable book in which he discusses the negative and the positive