But in the meantime, the respectability of the authors of that volume had attracted to their work an increasing share of notice. An able article in the 'Westminster Review' first aroused public attention. A still abler in the 'Quarterly' awoke the Church to a sense of the enormity of the offence which had been committed. It was not that _danger_ was apprehended. There could be but one opinion as to the essential impotence of the attack. But the circumstances which aroused public indignation were twofold. First,--Here was a _conspiracy_ against the Faith. Seven Critics had _avowedly combined_ "to illustrate the advantage derivable to the cause of Religious and Moral Truth from a free handling, in a becoming spirit, of" what they were pleased to characterize as "subjects peculiarly liable to suffer by the repetition of conventional language, and from traditional modes of treatment[5]." They prefixed to their joint labours the expression of a "hope that their volume would be received as an attempt" to do this. That their allusion was to the Creeds, Articles, Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments,--was obvious. Equally obvious was the _un_-becoming spirit, the arrogance and the hostility,--with which all those sacred things were handled by those seven writers. Secondly,--"Essays and Reviews" attracted notice because six of its authors were _Ministers of the Church of England_. Here were six Clergymen openly making light of their sacred profession, and apparently worse than regardless of their Ordination vows. As an infidel but certainly in this instance most truthful as well as able Reviewer, remarked concerning the work in question,--"In their ordinary, if not plain sense, there has been discarded the Word of GOD, the Creation, the Fall, the Redemption, Justification, Regeneration, and Salvation, Miracles, Inspiration, Prophecy, Heaven and Hell, Eternal punishment and a Day of Judgment, Creeds, Liturgies, and Articles, the truth of Jewish History and of Gospel narrative; a sense of doubt thrown over even the Incarnation, the Resurrection, and Ascension, the Divinity of the Second Person, and the personality of the Third. It may be that this is a _true_ view of Christianity; but we insist, in the name of common sense, that it is a _new_ view. Surely it is waste of time to argue that it is agreeable to Scripture, and not contrary to the Canons[6]!"