All this was changed when Froude’s outspoken views were adopted by the leaders. “Out came _Froude_,” writes Mr. Ward to Dr. Pusey, “of which it is little to say that it delighted me more than any book of the kind I ever read.” “He found in Froude’s _Remains_,” continues Lord Blachford, “a good deal of his own Radicalism (though nothing at all of his own Utilitarianism or Liberalism), and it seemed literally to make him jump for joy.” ‘… There was a good deal in Froude’s open speech and direct intellect which resembled Mr. Ward’s own characteristics, different as the two men were, in many respects. Newman describes him as “brimful and overflowing with ideas and views”; as having “an intellect as critical and logical as it was speculative and bold”; as “professing openly his admiration for Rome, and his hatred of the Reformers”; as “delighting to think of the Saints,” “having a vivid appreciation of the idea of sanctity, its possibilities and its heights”; “embracing the principle of penance and mortification”; “being powerfully drawn to the Mediæval Church, but not to the Primitive.” All this might be said, with great truth, of Mr. Ward himself. The boldness and completeness, the uncompromising tone of the _Remains_, took hold of Mr. Ward’s imagination. A clear, explicit rule of faith was thus substituted for perplexing and harassing speculation. There was no temporising, or stopping short. Mr. Ward’s dislike of the current system was echoed in the plain statement which he was for ever quoting. “At length, under Henry VIII., the Church of England fell. Will she ever rise again?”[319] Froude’s writing, then, recommended itself to Mr. Ward as having the attribute of Lord Strafford’s Irish policy: it was thorough. And in opposition to this, Arnold’s system stopped short at every turn. Froude’s picture of the Mediæval Church was that of an absolute, independent, spiritual authority, direct, uncompromising, explicit in its decrees, in contrast with the uncertain voice of the English Church, with its hundred shades of opinions differing from, and even opposed to, each other. Instead of groping with the feeble light of human reason amid texts of uncertain signification, he interpreted Scripture by the aid of constant tradition, and of the Church’s divine illumination. The stand for moral goodness against vice and worldliness was witnessed in the highest and most ideal types of sanctity in Church history. The personal struggle of the ordinary Christian against his evil inclinations was systematised and brought to perfection in Catholic ascetic works. The doctrine of a supernatural world and supernatural influences was not minimised, as though one feared to tax human powers of belief: it was put forth in the fullest and most fearless manner. Angels and Saints, as ministers of supernatural help, were recognised; and their various offices in aiding and protecting us, and listening to our prayers on all