Here, whatever else there may be, there is certainly no trace of a desire to deceive. Could a state of mind, in fact, be revealed with more absolute transparency?
When Newman was a child he "wished that he could believe the Arabian Nights were true." When he came to be a man, his wish seems to have been granted.
Tract No. 90 was officially condemned by the authorities at Oxford, and in the hubbub that followed the contending parties closed their ranks; henceforward any compromise between the friends and the enemies of the Movement was impossible. Archdeacon Manning was in too conspicuous a position to be able to remain silent; he was obliged to declare himself, and he did not hesitate. In an archidiaconal charge, delivered within a few months of his appointment, he firmly repudiated the Tractarians. But the repudiation was not deemed sufficient, and a year later he repeated it with greater emphasis. Still, however, the horrid rumours were afloat. The Record began to investigate matters, and its vigilance was soon rewarded by an alarming, discovery: the sacrament had been administered in Chichester Cathedral on a week-day, and "Archdeacon Manning, one of the most noted and determined of the Tractarians, had acted a conspicuous part on the occasion." It was clear that the only way of silencing these malevolent whispers was by some public demonstration whose import nobody could doubt. The annual sermon preached on Guy Fawkes Day before the University of Oxford seemed to offer the very opportunity that Manning required. He seized it; got himself appointed preacher; and delivered from the pulpit of St. Mary's a virulently Protestant harangue. This time there could indeed be no doubt about the matter: Manning had shouted "No Popery!" in the very citadel of the Movement, and every one, including Newman, recognised that he had finally cut himself off from his old friends. Every one, that is to say, except the
