The bitterness of the disruption
in Scotland is well-nigh exhausted, though the controversy enlisted
at the time all the fervid power of a Chalmers; men honour the memory
of the champions, while hoping to see the once sharp differences
composed for ever. But the "Catholic Revival," initiated under the
leadership of Newman, Pusey, and Keble, has proved to be no transient
disturbance: and no figure has in relation to the Church history of
the half-century the same portentous importance as that of John Henry
Newman, whose powerful magnetism, as it attracted or repelled, drew
men towards Romanism or drove them towards Rationalism, his logical
art, made more impressive by the noble eloquence with which he
sometimes adorned it, seeming to leave those who came under his spell
no choice between the two extremes. When he finally decided on
withdrawing himself from the Anglican and giving in his adhesion to
the Roman communion, he set an example that has not yet ceased to be
imitated, to the incalculable damage of the English Establishment.
Happily the massive Nonconformity of the country was hardly touched
either by his influence or his example.
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