THE ULTRAMONTANE ^j

The contest between Manning the convert and
the old Catholics led by Errington was to decide,
as Manning said, " whether or no the Church in
England "shall content and confine itself to a
better administration of Sacraments to the small
communion of Catholic sojourners in England or
shall mingle itself in the life of the English people,
act upon its intelligence by a mature Catholic
culture, upon its will by a larger and more
vigorous exercise of the powers which are set in
motion by the restoration of the hierarchy.* * The
old Catholics were perfectly content to be an
inconsiderable minority, tolerated because they
made little or no attempt at proselytising. From
the beginning of.his Roman Catholic career
Manning, on the other hand, had the conversion
of England always in his mind, and as one means
towards that conversion he was eager that the
Roman Catholic Church should exercise the fullest
possible influence in every aspect of the nation's
life. Because he was so characteristically English
in so many of his qualities, he was truculently
Catholic. Because he was truculently Catholic,
hungry for progress, for numbers, and for power,
he was ultramontane, for he realised that single-
ness of authority and complete subjection to it
are necessary if an army, whether it be of the
king or of the Lord, is to be assured of victory.