“I am, faithfully yours,
(Signed) “WILLIAM. J. IRONS.
“To Arthur Ellis, Esq., R.N.”
In the foregoing Correspondence between Dr. Irons and myself it will be seen, that I addressed him under the conviction that he was one with the “Tractarian” party, and that his statement about “six of one and half-a-dozen of the other,” was offered as a kind of defence of his friends.
In the answers of Dr. Irons to my communications, it is quite evident, that he never thought of denying his identity with the “Tractarian” party; the tenor of his letters is not to shew that he is not a Tractarian “in any sense,” but to defend “Tractarianism” from the charge of being the primary cause of the many secessions to Rome from amongst his clerical brethren.
Compare the letters of the Rev. Doctor with his more recent statement of not being a Tractarian “in any sense,” and there can be no doubt as to what must be the verdict.
There are, however, some points in both the letters of Dr. Irons to which I would allude more fully, and comment upon more at length.
The Rev. Doctor states that he is anxious to get a list of the “ascertainable and presentable names of the Converts.”
If such a list would have given so formidable an array of Evangelical Churchmen and Dissenters, I can hardly suppose but Dr. Irons (giving him all credit for not wishing to cast stones at others), would have procured it, from the desire to shew me and other of his parishioners, that the real cause of these perversions was in the “unsound religious education received amongst the ‘Low Church People and Dissenters,’” and that “Tractarian” teaching and principles had nothing to do in the matter.
When Dr. Irons can make good his position by an “ascertainable and presentable list,” or by any other evidence equally convincing, I feel assured, that many who are now under the conviction that “Tractarianism” is the Broad Road to Rome, will acknowledge their error, and confess that they have done the “Tractarian” party much injustice.
In the second letter of Dr. Irons I would especially draw attention to what he says in reference to the praise so lavishly bestowed upon the “Tractarian” party by Cardinal Wiseman.