Meanwhile events were progressing in the English Church and producing their reflex action in this country. On the one hand, the Oxford movement was still going forward under new leaders, and on the other, the Protestant character of the Anglican Establishment and its American colony was exhibiting itself every day more and more decisively. The first great wave that had rolled toward Catholicity had cast up those who were foremost on its crest on the Rock of Peter. Another wave was rolling forward in the same direction, which was destined to bear on its summit still more of those who floated on the great sea of doubt and error to the same secure refuge. The first converts were given up to obloquy, and their influence in every possible way lowered or destroyed, by belittling their character, if that was possible, or, if not, by inventing specious reasons to show that the course they had taken was the result of some personal idiosyncrasy, and not the just consequence of their Catholic principles. It was stoutly asserted that the movement was not responsible for them, and that it did not of itself lead to Rome. It began again afresh with new men, new books, new projects. Again there was an advanced party; and in due time this advanced party began to move Romeward, denying as before that it would ever actually arrive at Rome. Nevertheless, many of its members, some of very high character and position, did eventually follow the earlier converts over to the Catholic Church. Others, especially those who were in stations of dignity and authority, began to recoil and retract, and call back their followers to the safer ground of the old High Church. {83} In this country there was a sad lack of earnestness and reality on the part of the majority of those who had yielded themselves to Oxford influences, and these influences were but faintly felt by the laity. Mr. Baker was, however, deeply and sadly in earnest. He had schooled himself into submission to his _soi-disant_ Church and bishop, and resolutely determined to believe that he could think, act, and live up to Catholic doctrines and laws where he was. He had thrown himself anew into Anglicanism, putting faith in its new leaders and the old ones who remained, and confiding in the reality and success of their efforts. Long and wearily he struggled to hold out in this course, in spite of the daily increasing evidence that it was delusive and hopeless. For long years he was tossed backward and forward on the waves of doubt and uncertainty, sometimes almost gaining a foothold on the Rock, and then dashed again backward into the sea.