Untitled - Electric Scotland

1841] THE FOUR TUTORS PROTEST 83
upon the publication
of the Protest. It is not to that
document, by itself, that the conflagration can be reason
ably ascribed. The four Tutors did but lay a match to
the tinder which had been long preparing. Tait had, at all
times, the courage of his opinions, nor was he ever afraid
to become the spokesman of those who shared his views.
Few impartial critics, whatever their personal opinions
may be, will deny that the Protest itself is a calm and
reasonable document, giving expression to apprehensions
which the event showed to be well founded. To the end
of his life Archibald Tait used to be taunted with having
"
hounded Newman out of Oxford," and the Protest has
been again and again described as bigoted, narrow, and
unfair. Dr. Newman himself never so regarded it On
the first page of his letter to Dr. Jelf, published five
days after the Protest had been issued, he thus describes
it:
"Four gentlemen, Tutors of their respective Colleges, have
published a Protest against the Tract in question. I have no
cause at all to complain of their so doing, though, as I shall
directly say, I think they have misunderstood me. They do not,
I trust, suppose that I feel any offence or soreness at their pro
ceeding; of course I naturally think that I am right and they
are wrong; but this persuasion is quite consistent both with my
honouring their zeal for Christian truth and their anxiety for the
welfare of our younger members, and with my very great con
sciousness that, even though I be right in my principle, I may
have advocated truth in a wrong way. Such acts as theirs, when
done honestly, as they have done them, must benefit all parties,
and draw them nearer to each other in good-will, if not in
opinion." l
Similarly, Mr. Ward, writing in warm support
Tract, refers to
;
of the
the remarkably temperate and Christian tone of the Paper
1
"A Letter addressed to the Rev. R. W. Jelf, D.D., in Explanation of
No. 90, by the Author," p. 5.