Perhaps you will pronounce this opinion arrogant and harsh, considering who are the writers. But in a case such as the present the public have a right _to judge the work itself_, _independently of the __writers_, of whose individual characters few readers can be supposed to know any thing. I judge as one of the public,—I look at the “Tracts” apart from their authors, and my conviction is, that no personal worth, no amiable qualities, no piety, no erudition can vindicate the estimable authors of these “Tracts” from having done, with whatever purity of intention, great injury to the Protestant cause. Here is Popery, indirectly at least, promoted by the professors of a university, whose name has hitherto been regarded as the symbol of pure orthodoxy. The times are fearful when the whisper goes forth, even among the most devoted friends of the church—“_Popery at Oxford_!” From another section of churchmen, scarcely less danger is to be apprehended: they are smoothing the way for popish ascendancy. I mean those whose _ultra-liberalism_ embraces every interest but that of their own communion—whose latitudinarian candour regards with complacency every erroneous form of doctrine or worship, as if, all that we tolerate we were bound in duty to approve,—who look with special favour on every deviation from the sound orthodoxy of the church,—who hail _every irregularity_ as a commendable exercise of freedom,—and who reserve their censures and their frowns for those who conscientiously adhere to “_the good old way_.” By this anomalous order of churchmen—the growth of modern days—all the assailants of the sacred cause are held in honour for their presumed freedom from prejudice,—all its defenders are condemned as mercenaries or bigots. Of this description of persons, it may be presumed, many are prepared to sit down, quite at ease, under the _mild_ sovereignty of the papacy. Their special predilection for that _persecuted_ race of patriots and Christians, who are agitating for an Italian despot and the Holy Inquisition, is only preparatory to their own sworn allegiance to Rome, the moment that haughty power obtains dominion and can command submission. They are waiting for the flood-tide. To say the least, the men whose liberalism can rejoice in Popery, can have no motives for becoming martyrs to Protestant truth and liberty.