‘There were other reasons, besides Mr. Rose’s state of health, which hindered those who so much admired him from availing themselves of his close co-operation in the coming fight. United as both he and they were in the general scope of the Movement, they were in discordance with each other, from the first, in their estimate of the means to be adopted for attaining it. Mr. Rose had a position in the Church, a name, and serious responsibilities; he had direct ecclesiastical superiors; he had intimate relations with his own University, and a large clerical connection through the country. Froude and I were nobodies, with no characters to lose, and no antecedents to fetter us. Rose could not go ahead across country, as Froude had no scruples in doing. Froude was a bold rider: as on horseback, so also in his speculations. After a long conversation with him on the logical bearing of his principles, Mr. Rose said of him, with quiet humour, that “he did not seem to be afraid of inferences.” It was simply the truth. Froude had that strong hold of first principles, and that keen perception of their value, that he was comparatively indifferent to the revolutionary action which would attend on their application to a given state of things; whereas, in the thoughts of Rose, as a practical man, existing facts had the precedence of every other idea, and the chief test of the soundness of a line of policy lay in the consideration whether it would work. This was one of the first questions which, as it seemed to me, on every occasion occurred to his mind. With Froude, Erastianism, that is, the union (so he viewed it) of Church and State, was the parent, or if not the parent, the serviceable and sufficient tool of Liberalism. Till that union was snapped, Christian doctrine never could be safe; and while he well knew how high and unselfish was the temper of Mr. Rose, yet he used to apply to him an epithet, reproachful in his mouth: Rose was “a conservative.” By bad luck, I brought out this word to Mr. Rose in a letter of my own, which I wrote to him in criticism of something he had inserted in his Magazine: I got a vehement rebuke for my pains; for though Rose pursued a conservative line, he had as high a disdain as Froude could have of a worldly ambition, and an extreme sensitiveness of such an imputation. But there was another reason still, and a more elementary one, which severed Mr. Rose from the Oxford Movement. Living movements do not come of committees, nor are great ideas worked out through the post, even though it had been the penny post. This principle deeply penetrated both Froude and myself from the first, and recommended to us the course which things soon took spontaneously, and without set purpose of our own. * * * * *