He had a doctrine to propound, a gospel to preach.

"The Reformation," he said, "was the hinge on which all modern history turned,"* and he regarded the Reformation as a revolt of the laity against the clergy, rather than a contest between two sets of rival dogmas for supremacy over the human mind.

That is the key of the historical position which he took up from the first, and always defended.

He held the Church of Rome to have been the enemy of human freedom, and of British independence.

He was devoid of theological prejudice, and never reviled Catholicism as Newman reviled it before his conversion.