Page:Vaticanism (Gladstone, 1875).djvu/9

 I. INTRODUCTION.

number and quality of the antagonists, who have been drawn into the field on the occasion offered by my tract on the Vatican Decrees, and the interest in the subject which has been manifested by the public of this and of many other countries, appear to show that it was not inopportune. The only special claim to attention with which I could invest it was this, that for thirty years I had striven hard, together with others, to secure a full measure of civil justice for my Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen, and that I still retained the convictions by which these efforts had been prompted. Knowing well the general indisposition of the English mind, amidst the pressing demands of our crowded daily life, to touch any subject comparatively abstract and remote, I was not surprised when many journals of great influence, reflecting this indisposition, condemned the publication of the Tract, and inspired Roman authorities among us with the vain conception that the discussion was not practical