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THE SECRET HISTORY

OF

THE OXFORD MOVEMENT

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SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LTD.

PATERNOSTER SQUARE, E.C.

1899

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PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION.

HE Church Times, in its issues of September 9th,

TH

16th, and 23rd, 1898, devoted a considerable portion of its space to a criticism of this book, and has now reprinted these articles as a pamphlet of thirty-two pages. It is generally understood that this is the recognised reply of the Ritualistic party, and therefore it has been thought well that I should answer it in these pages.

I freely admit, at the outset, that if personal insult, libels, and vituperation could kill a book, The Secret History of the Oxford Movement could not survive the attack of The Church Times. But I venture to submit that the thinking men and women of England view with natural distrust a cause which cannot exist without descending to tactics of this kind. They require something more than outbursts of anger, and an exhibition of vexation and annoyance, to convince them that my book cannot be relied on. The Public care little or nothing as to what my personal views may be. What they want to know is,-Did the Tractarians and Ritualists really utter the words cited in the book, and

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