they repeated the Athanasian Creed, they meant it. Even, when
they subscribed to the Thirty-nine Articles, they meant it-or at
least they thought they did. Now such a state of mind was
dangerous--more dangerous indeed-- than they at first realised.
They had started with the innocent assumption that the Christian
Religion was contained in the doctrines of the Church of England;
but, the more they examined this matter, the more difficult and
dubious it became. The Church of England bore everywhere upon it
the signs of human imperfection; it was the outcome of revolution
and of compromise, of the exigencies of politicians and the
caprices of princes, of the prejudices of theologians and the
necessities of the State. How had it happened that this piece of
patchwork had become the receptacle for the august and infinite
mysteries of the Christian Faith? This was the problem with which
Newman and his friends found themselves confronted. Other men
might, and apparently did, see nothing very strange in such a
situation; but other men saw in Christianity itself scarcely more
than a convenient and respectable appendage to existence, by
which a sound system of morals was inculcated, and through which
one might hope to attain to everlasting bliss.

To Newman and Keble it was otherwise. They saw a transcendent
manifestation of Divine power flowing down elaborate and immense
through the ages; a consecrated priesthood, stretching back,
through the mystic symbol of the laying on of hands, to the very
Godhead; a whole universe of spiritual beings brought into
communion with the Eternal by means of wafers; a great mass of
metaphysical doctrines, at once incomprehensible and of
incalculable import, laid down with infinite certitude; they saw
the supernatural everywhere and at all times, a living force,