And here comes in another point for explanation. While I was fighting <in Oxford> for the Anglican Church [in Oxford], then indeed I was very glad to make converts, and, though I never broke away from that rule of my mind, (as I may call it,) of which I have already spoken, of finding disciples rather than seeking them, yet, that I made advances to others in a special way, I have no doubt; this came to an end, however, as soon as I fell into misgivings as to the true ground to be taken in the controversy. <For> Then, when I gave up my place in the Movement, I ceased from any such proceeding<s>: and my utmost endeavour was to tranquillize such persons, especially those who belonged to the new school, as were unsettled in their religious views, and, as I judged, hasty in their conclusions. This went on till 1843; but, at that date, as soon as I turned my face Romeward, I gave up [altogether and in any shape], as far as ever was possible, the thought of <in any respect and in any shape> acting upon others. Then I myself was simply my own concern. How could I in any sense direct others, who had to be guided in so momentous a matter myself? How could I be considered in a position, even to say a word to them one way or the other? How could I presume to unsettle them, as I was unsettled, when I had no means of bringing them out of such unsettlement? And, if they were unsettled already, how could I point to them a place of refuge, which I was not sure that I should choose ¹⁵³ for myself? My only line, my only duty, was to keep simply to my own case. I recollected Pascal’s words, “Je mourrai seul.” I deliberately put out of my thoughts all other works and claims, and said nothing to any one, unless I was obliged.

But this brought upon me a great trouble. In the newspapers there were continual reports about my intentions; I did not answer them; presently strangers or friends wrote, begging to be allowed to answer them; and, if I still kept to my resolution and said nothing, then I was thought to be mysterious, and a prejudice was excited against me. But, what was far worse, there were a number of tender, eager hearts, of whom I knew nothing at all, who were watching me, wishing to think as I thought, and to do as I did, if they could but find it out; who in consequence were distressed, that, in so solemn a matter, they could not see what was coming, and who heard reports about me this way or that, on a first day and on a second; and felt the weariness of waiting, and the sickness of delayed hope, and did not understand that I was as perplexed as themselves ¹⁵⁴, and, being of more sensitive complexion of mind than myself, were made ill by the suspense. And they too of course for the time thought me mysterious and inexplicable. I ask their pardon as far as I was really unkind to them. There was a gifted and deeply earnest lady, who in a parabolical account of that time, has described both my conduct as she felt it, and that of such as herself. In a singularly graphic, amusing vision of pilgrims, who were making their way across a bleak common in great discomfort, and who were ever warned against, yet continually nearing, “the king’s highway” on the right, she says, “All my fears and disquiets were speedily renewed by seeing the most daring of our leaders, (the same who had first forced his way through the palisade, and in whose courage and sagacity we all put implicit trust,) suddenly stop short, and declare that he would go on no further. He did not, however, take the leap at once, but quietly sat down on the top of the fence with his feet hanging towards the road, as if he meant to take his time about it, and let himself down easily.” I do not wonder at all that I thus seemed so unkind to a lady, who at that time had never seen me. We were both in trial in our different ways. I am far from denying that I was acting selfishly both towards them and towards others ¹⁵⁵; but it was a religious selfishness. Certainly to myself my own duty seemed clear. They that are whole can heal others; but in my case it was, “Physician, heal thyself.” My own soul was my first concern, and it seemed an absurdity to my reason to be converted in partnership. I wished to go to my Lord by myself, and in my own way, or rather His way. I had neither wish, nor, I may say, thought of taking a number with me. <Moreover, it is but the truth to say, that it had ever been an annoyance to me to seem to be the head of a party; and that even from fastidiousness of mind, I could not bear to find a thing done elsewhere, simply or mainly because I did it myself, and that, from distrust of myself, I shrank from the thought, whenever it was brought home to me, that I was influencing others.> But nothing of this could be known to others ¹⁵⁶.

The following three letters are written to a friend, who had every claim upon me to be frank with him ¹⁵⁷:—it will be seen that I disclose the real state of <my> mind [to him,] in proportion as he presses me.

1. “October 14, 1843. I would tell you in a few words why I have resigned St. Mary’s, as you seem to wish, were it possible to do so. But it is most difficult to bring out in brief, or even in extenso, any just view of my feelings and reasons.

“The nearest approach I can give to a general account of them is to say, that it has been caused by the general repudiation of the view, contained in No. 90, on the part of the Church. I could not stand against such an unanimous expression of opinion from the Bishops, supported, as it has been, by the concurrence, or at least silence, of all classes in the Church, lay and clerical. If there ever was a case, in which an individual teacher has been put aside and virtually put away by a community, mine is one. No decency has been observed in the attacks upon me from authority; no protests have been offered against them. It is felt,—I am far from denying, justly felt,—that I am a foreign material, and cannot assimilate with the Church of England.

“Even my own Bishop has said that my mode of interpreting the Articles makes them mean any thing or nothing. When I heard this delivered, I did not believe my ears. I denied to others that it was said … Out came the charge, and the words could not be mistaken. This astonished me the more, because I published that Letter to him, (how unwillingly you know,) on the understanding that I was to deliver his judgment on No. 90 instead of him. A year elapses, and a second and heavier judgment came forth. I did not bargain for this,—nor did he, but the tide was too strong for him.

“I fear that I must confess, that, in proportion as I think the English Church is showing herself intrinsically and radically alien from Catholic principles, so do I feel the difficulties of defending her claims to be a branch of the Catholic Church. It seems a dream to call a communion Catholic, when one can neither appeal to any clear statement of Catholic doctrine in its formularies, nor interpret ambiguous formularies by the received and living Catholic sense, whether past or present. Men of Catholic views are too truly but a party in our Church. I cannot deny that many other independent circumstances, which it is not worth while entering into, have led me to the same conclusion.

“I do not say all this to every body, as you may suppose; but I do not like to make a secret of it to you.”

2. “Oct. 25, 1843. You have engaged in a dangerous correspondence; I am deeply sorry for the pain I shall give you.

“I must tell you then frankly, (but I combat arguments which to me, alas, are shadows,) that it is not from disappointment, irritation, or impatience, that I have, whether rightly or wrongly, resigned St. Mary’s; but because I think the Church of Rome the Catholic Church, and ours not part of the Catholic Church, because not in communion with Rome; and because I feel that I could not honestly be a teacher in it any longer.

“This thought came to me last summer four years … I mentioned it to two friends in the autumn … It arose in the first instance from the Monophysite and Donatist controversies, the former of which I was engaged with in the course of theological study to which I had given myself. This was at a time when no Bishop, I believe, had declared against us, <2 ¹⁵⁸> and when all was progress and hope. I do not think I have ever felt disappointment or impatience, certainly not then; for I never looked forward to the future, nor do I realize it now.

“My first effort was to write that article on the Catholicity of the English Church; for two years it quieted me. Since the summer of 1839 I have written little or nothing on modern controversy … You know how unwillingly I wrote my letter to the Bishop in which I committed myself again, as the safest course under circumstances. The article I speak of quieted me till the end of 1841, over the affair of No. 90, when that wretched Jerusalem Bishopric (no personal matter) revived all my alarms. They have increased up to this moment. At that time I told my secret to another person in addition.

“You see then that the various ecclesiastical and quasi-ecclesiastical acts, which have taken place in the course of the last two years and a half, are not the cause of my state of opinion, but are keen stimulants and weighty confirmations of a conviction forced upon me, while engaged in the course of duty, viz. that theological reading to which I had given myself. And this last-mentioned circumstance is a fact, which has never, I think, come before me till now that I write to you.

“It is three years since, on account of my state of opinion, I urged the Provost in vain to let St. Mary’s be separated from Littlemore; thinking I might with a safe conscience serve the latter, though I could not comfortably continue in so public a place as a University. This was before No. 90.

“Finally, I have acted under advice, and that, not of my own choosing, but what came to me in the way of duty, nor the advice of those only who agree with me, but of near friends who differ from me.

“I have nothing to reproach myself with, as far as I see, in the matter of impatience; i.e. practically or in conduct. And I trust that He, who has kept me in the slow course of change hitherto, will keep me still from hasty acts<,> or resolves with a doubtful conscience.

“This I am sure of, that such interposition as yours, kind as it is, only does what you would consider harm. It makes me realize my own views to myself; it makes me see their consistency; it assures me of my own deliberateness; it suggests to me the traces of a Providential Hand; it takes away the pain of disclosures; it relieves me of a heavy secret.

“You may make what use of my letters you think right.”

<3.> My correspondent wrote to me once more, and I replied thus: “October 31, 1843. Your letter has made my heart ache more, and caused me more and deeper sighs than any I have had a long while, though I assure you there is much on all sides of me to cause sighing and heartache. On all sides<:—> I am quite haunted by the one dreadful whisper repeated from so many quarters, and causing the keenest distress to friends. You know but a part of my present trial, in knowing that I am unsettled myself.

“Since the beginning of this year I have been obliged to tell the state of my mind to some others; but never, I think, without being in a way obliged, as from friends writing to me as you did, or guessing how matters stood. No one in Oxford knows it or here” [Littlemore [^97]], “but one <near> friend whom I felt I could not help telling the other day. But, I suppose, [very] many <more> suspect it.”

On receiving these letters, my correspondent, if I recollect rightly, at once communicated the matter of them to Dr. Pusey, and this will enable me to state ¹⁵⁹ as nearly as I can<,> the way in which <he first became aware of> my changed state of opinion [was made known to him].

I had from the first a great difficulty in making Dr. Pusey understand such differences of opinion as existed between himself and me. When there was a proposal about the end of 1838 for a subscription for a Cranmer Memorial, he wished us both to subscribe together to it. I could not, of course, and wished him to subscribe by himself. That he would not do; he could not bear the thought of our appearing to the world in separate positions, in a matter of importance. And, as time went on, he would not take any hints, which I gave him, on the subject of my growing inclination to Rome. When I found him so determined, I often had not the heart to go on. And then I knew, that, from affection to me, he so often took up and threw himself into what I said, that I felt the great responsibility I should incur, if I put things before him just as I might view them <myself>. And, not knowing him so well as I did afterwards, I feared lest I should unsettle him. And moreover, I recollected well, how prostrated he had been with illness in 1832, and I used always to think that the start of the Movement had given him a fresh life. I fancied that his physical energies even depended on the presence of a vigorous hope and bright prospects for his imagination to feed upon; so much so, that when he was so unworthily treated by the authorities of the place in 1843, I recollect writing to the late Mr. Dodsworth to state my anxiety, lest, if his mind became dejected in consequence, his health would ¹⁶⁰ suffer seriously also. These were difficulties in my way; and then again, another difficulty was, that, as we were not together under the same roof, we only saw each other at set times; others indeed, who were coming in or out of my rooms freely, and as there might be need at ¹⁶¹ the moment, knew all my thoughts easily; but for him to know them well, formal efforts were necessary. A common friend of ours broke it all to him in 1841, as far as matters had gone at that time, and showed him clearly the logical conclusions which must lie in propositions to which I had committed myself; but somehow or other in a little while, his mind fell back into its former happy state, and he could not bring himself to believe that he and I should not go on pleasantly together to the end. But that affectionate dream needs must have been broken at last; and two years afterwards, that friend to whom I wrote the letters which I have just now inserted, set himself, as I have said, to break it. Upon that, I too begged Dr. Pusey to tell in private to any one he would, that I thought in the event I should leave the Church of England. However, he would not do so; and at the end of 1844 had almost relapsed into his former thoughts about me, if I may judge from a letter of his which I have found. Nay, at the Commemoration of 1845, a few months before I left the Anglican Church, I think he said about me to a friend, “I trust after all we shall keep him.”

In that autumn of 1843, at the time that I spoke to Dr. Pusey, I asked another friend also to communicate [to others] in confidence<, to whom he would,> the prospect which lay before me.

To another friend<, Mr. James Hope, now Mr. Hope Scott,> I gave the opportunity of knowing it, if he would, in the following Postscript to a letter:—

“While I write, I will add a word about myself. You may come near a person or two who, owing to circumstances, know more exactly my state of feeling than you do, though they would not tell you. Now I do not like that you should not be aware of this, though I see no reason why you should know what they happen to know. Your wishing it [otherwise] would be a reason.”

I had a dear and old friend, near his death; I never told him my state of mind. Why should I unsettle that sweet calm tranquillity, when I had nothing to offer him instead? I could not say, “Go to Rome;” else I should have shown him the way. Yet I offered myself for his examination. One day he led the way to my speaking out; but, rightly or wrongly, I could not respond. My reason was, “I have no certainty on the matter myself. To say ‘I think’ is to tease and to distress, not to persuade.”

I wrote to him on Michaelmas Day, 1843: “As you may suppose, I have nothing to write to you about, pleasant. I could tell you some very painful things; but it is best not to anticipate trouble, which after all can but happen, and, for what one knows, may be averted. You are always so kind, that sometimes, when I part with you, I am nearly moved to tears, and it would be a relief to be so, at your kindness and at my hardness. I think no one ever had such kind friends as I have.”

The next year, January 22, I wrote to him: “Pusey has quite enough on him, and generously takes on himself more than enough, for me to add burdens when I am not obliged; particularly too, when I am very conscious, that there are burdens, which I am or shall be obliged to lay upon him some time or other, whether I will or no.”

And on February 21: “Half-past ten. I am just up, having a bad cold; the like has not happened to me (except twice in January) in my memory. You may think you have been in my thoughts, long before my rising. Of course you are so continually, as you well know. I could not come to see you; I am not worthy of friends. With my opinions, to the full of which I dare not confess, I feel like a guilty person with others, though I trust I am not so. People kindly think that I have much to bear externally, disappointment, slander, &c. No, I have nothing to bear, but the anxiety which I feel for my friends’ anxiety for me, and their perplexity. This [letter] is a better Ash-Wednesday than birthday present;” [his birthday was the same day as mine; it was Ash-Wednesday that year [^101]]; “but I cannot help writing about what is uppermost. And now<, my dear A.,> all kindest and best wishes to you, my oldest friend, whom I must not speak more about, and with reference to myself, lest you should be angry.” It was not in his nature to have doubts: he used to look at me with anxiety, and wonder what had come over me.

On Easter Monday: “All that is good and gracious descend upon you and yours from the influences of this Blessed Season; and it will be so, (so be it!) for what is the life of you all, as day passes after day, but a simple endeavour to serve Him, from whom all blessing comes? Though we are separated in place, yet this we have in common, that you are living a calm and cheerful time, and I am enjoying the thought of you. It is your blessing to have a clear heaven, and peace around, according to the blessing pronounced on Benjamin<3 ¹⁶²>. So it is, <my dear A.,> and so may it ever be.”

He was in simple good faith. He died in September that ¹⁶³ year. I had expected that his last illness would have brought light to my mind, as to what I ought to do. It brought none. I made a note, which runs thus: “I sobbed bitterly over his coffin, to think that he left me still dark as to what the way of truth was, and what I ought to do in order to please God and fulfil His will.” I think I wrote to Charles Marriott to say, that at that moment, with the thought of my friend before me, my strong view in favour of Rome remained just what it was. On the other hand, my firm belief that grace was to be found <with>in the Anglican Church remained too ¹⁶⁴. I wrote to a friend upon his death ¹⁶⁵:—

“Sept. 16, 1844. I am full of wrong and miserable feelings, which it is useless to detail, so grudging and sullen, when I should be thankful. Of course, when one sees so blessed an end, and that, the termination of so blameless a life, of one who really fed on our ordinances and got strength from them, and see the same continued in a whole family, the little children finding quite a solace of their pain in the Daily Prayer, it is impossible not to feel more at ease in our Church, as at least a sort of Zoar, a place of refuge and temporary rest, because of the steepness of the way. Only, may we be kept from unlawful security, lest we have Moab and Ammon for our progeny, the enemies of Israel.”

I could not continue in this state, either in the light of duty or of reason. My difficulty was this: I had been deceived greatly once; how could I be sure that I was not deceived a second time? I [then] thought myself right <then>; how was I to be certain that I was right now? How many years had I thought myself sure of what I now rejected? how could I ever again have confidence in myself? As in 1840 I listened to the rising doubt in favour of Rome, now I listened to the waning doubt in favour of the English ¹⁶⁶ Church. To be certain is to know that one knows; what <inward> test had I, that I should not change again, after that I had become a Catholic? I had still apprehension of this, though I thought a time would come, when it would depart. However, some limit ought to be put to these vague misgivings; I must do my best and then leave it to a higher power ¹⁶⁷ to prosper it. So, <at the end of 1844,> I determined to write ¹⁶⁸ an Essay on Doctrinal Development; and then, if, at the end of it, my convictions in favour of the Roman Church were not weaker, to make up my mind to seek ¹⁶⁹ admission into her fold. [I acted upon this resolution in the beginning of 1845, and worked at my Essay steadily into the autumn.]

[I told my resolution to various friends at the beginning of the year; indeed, it was at that time known generally.]

<By this time the state of my mind was generally known, and I made no great secret of it. I will illustrate it by letters of mine which have been put into my hands.

<“November 16, 1844. I am going through what must be gone through; and my trust only is that every day of pain is so much taken from the necessary draught which must be exhausted. There is no fear (humanly speaking) of my moving for a long time yet. This has got out without my intending it; but it is all well. As far as I know myself, my one great distress is the perplexity, unsettlement, alarm, scepticism, which I am causing to so many; and the loss of kind feeling and good opinion on the part of so many, known and unknown, who have wished well to me. And of these two sources of pain it is the former that is the constant, urgent, unmitigated one. I had for days a literal ache all about my heart; and from time to time all the complaints of the Psalmist seemed to belong to me.

<“And as far as I know myself, my one paramount reason for contemplating a change is my deep, unvarying conviction that our Church is in schism, and that my salvation depends on my joining the Church of Rome. I may use argumenta ad hominem to this person or that ¹⁷⁰; but I am not conscious of resentment, or disgust, at any thing that has happened to me. I have no visions whatever of hope, no schemes of action, in any other sphere more suited to me. I have no existing sympathies with Roman Catholics; I hardly ever, even abroad, was at one of their services; I know none of them, I do not like what I hear of them.

<“And then, how much I am giving up in so many ways! and to me sacrifices irreparable, not only from my age, when people hate changing, but from my especial love of old associations and the pleasures of memory. Nor am I conscious of any feeling, enthusiastic or heroic, of pleasure in the sacrifice; I have nothing to support me here.

<“What keeps me yet is what has kept me long; a fear that I am under a delusion; but the conviction remains firm under all circumstances, in all frames of mind. And this most serious feeling is growing on me; viz. that the reasons for which I believe as much as our system teaches, must lead me to believe more, and that not to believe more is to fall back into scepticism.

<“A thousand thanks for your most kind and consoling letter; though I have not yet spoken of it, it was a great gift.”

<Shortly after> I wrote to a friend ¹⁷¹ thus:—

“My intention is, if nothing comes upon me, which I cannot foresee, to remain quietly in statu quo for a considerable time, trusting that my friends will kindly remember me and my trial in their prayers. And I should give up my fellowship some time before any thing further took place.”

[One very dear friend, now no more, Charles Marriott, sent me a letter at the beginning of the next year, from which, from love of him, I quote some sentences:—

[“January 15, 1845. You know me well enough to be aware, that I never see through any thing at first. Your letter to B. casts a gloom over the future, which you can understand, if you have understood me, as I believe you have. But I may speak out at once, of what I see and feel at once, and doubt not that I shall ever feel: that your whole conduct towards the Church of England and towards us, who have striven and are still striving to seek after God for ourselves, and to revive true religion among others, under her authority and guidance, has been generous and considerate, and, were that word appropriate, dutiful, to a degree that I could scarcely have conceived possible, more unsparing of self than I should have thought nature could sustain. I have felt with pain every link that you have severed, and I have asked no questions, because I felt that you ought to measure the disclosure of your thoughts according to the occasion, and the capacity of those to whom you spoke. I write in haste, in the midst of engagements engrossing in themselves, but partly made tasteless, partly embittered by what I have heard; but I am willing to trust even you, whom I love best on earth, in God’s Hand, in the earnest prayer that you may be so employed as is best for the Holy Catholic Church.”]

There was a lady, who was very anxious on the subject, and I wrote to her the following letters:—

[1. “October, 1844. What can I say more to your purpose? If you will ask me any specific questions, I will answer them, as far as I am able.”]

2. ¹⁷² “November 7, 1844. I am still where I was; I am not moving. Two things, however, seem plain, that every one is prepared for such an event, next, that every one expects it of me. Few indeed, who do not think it suitable, fewer still, who do not think it likely. However, I do not think it either suitable or likely. I have very little reason to doubt about the issue of things, but the when and the how are known to Him, from whom, I trust, both the course of things and the issue come. The expression of opinion, and the latent and habitual feeling about me, which is on every side and among all parties, has great force. I insist upon it, because I have a great dread of going by my own feelings, lest they should mislead me. By one’s sense of duty one must go; but external facts support one in doing so.”

3. ¹⁷³ “January 8, 1845. <What am I to say in answer to your letter? I know perfectly well, I ought to let you know more of my feelings and state of mind than you do know. But how is that possible in a few words? Any thing I say must be abrupt; nothing can I say which will not leave a bewildering feeling, as needing so much to explain it, and being isolated, and (as it were) unlocated, and not having any thing with it to show its bearings upon other parts of the subject.>

<“At present,> My full belief is, in accordance with your letter, that, if there is a move in our Church, very few persons indeed will be partners to it. I doubt whether one or two at the most among residents at Oxford. And I don’t know whether I can wish it. The state of the Roman Catholics is at present so unsatisfactory. This I am sure of, that nothing but a simple, direct call of duty is a warrant for any one leaving our Church; no preference of another Church, no delight in its services, no hope of greater religious advancement in it, no indignation, no disgust, at the persons and things, among which we may find ourselves in the Church of England. The simple question is, Can I (it is personal, not whether another, but can I) be saved in the English Church? am I in safety, were I to die tonight? Is it a mortal sin in me, not joining another communion? P.S. I hardly see my way to concur in attendance, though occasional, in the Roman Catholic chapel, unless a man has made up his mind pretty well to join it eventually. Invocations are not required in the Church of Rome; somehow, I do not like using them except under the sanction of the Church, and this makes me unwilling to admit them in members of our Church.”

4. ¹⁷⁴ “March 30. Now I will tell you more than any one knows except two friends. My own convictions are as strong, as I suppose they can become: only it is so difficult to know whether it is a call of reason or of conscience. I cannot make out, if I am impelled by what seems clear, or by a sense of duty. You can understand how painful this doubt is; so I have waited, hoping for light, and using the words of the Psalmist, ‘Show some token upon me.’ But I suppose I have no right to wait for ever for this. Then I am waiting, because friends are most considerately bearing me in mind, and asking guidance for me; and, I trust, I should attend to any new feelings which came upon me, should that be the effect of their kindness. And then this waiting subserves the purpose of preparing men’s minds. I dread shocking, unsettling people. Any how, I can’t avoid giving incalculable pain. So, if I had my will, I should like to wait till the summer of 1846, which would be a full seven years from the time that my convictions first began to fall on me. But I don’t think I shall last so long.

“My present intention is to give up my Fellowship in October, and to publish some work or treatise between that and Christmas. I wish people to know why I am acting, as well as what I am doing; it takes off that vague and distressing surprise, ‘What can have made him?’”

5. ¹⁷⁵ “June 1. What you tell me of yourself makes it plain that it is your duty to remain quietly and patiently, till you see more clearly where you are; else you are leaping in the dark.”

In the early part of this year, if not before, there was an idea afloat that my retirement from the Anglican Church was owing to the feeling that I had so been thrust aside, without any one’s taking my part. Various measures were, I believe, talked of in consequence of this surmise. Coincidently with it was ¹⁷⁶ an exceedingly kind article about me in a Quarterly, in its April number. The writer praised me in feeling and beautiful language far above my deserts. In the course of his remarks, he said, speaking of me as Vicar of St. Mary’s: “He had the future race of clergy hearing him. Did he value and feel tender about, and cling to his position? … Not at all … No sacrifice to him perhaps, he did not care about such things.”

<There was a censure implied, however covertly, in these words; and> This was the occasion of my writing ¹⁷⁷ [to a very intimate friend] the following letter<, addressed to a very intimate friend>:—

“April 3, 1845 … Accept this apology, my dear C<hurch>, and forgive me. As I say so, tears come into my eyes,—that arises from the accident of this time, when I am giving up so much I love. Just now I have been overset by A. B.’s ¹⁷⁸ article in the C. D. ¹⁷⁹; yet really, my dear C<hurch>, I have never for an instant had even the temptation of repenting my leaving Oxford. The feeling of repentance has not even come into my mind. How could it? How could I remain at St. Mary’s a hypocrite? how could I be answerable for souls, (and life so uncertain,) with the convictions, or at least persuasions, which I had upon me? It is indeed a responsibility to act as I am doing; and I feel His hand heavy on me without intermission, who is all Wisdom and Love, so that my heart and mind are tired out, just as the limbs might be from a load on one’s back. That sort of dull aching pain is mine; but my responsibility really is nothing to what it would be, to be answerable for souls, for confiding loving souls, in the English Church, with my convictions. My love to Marriott, and save me the pain of sending him a line.”

In July a Bishop thought it worth while to give out to the world that “the adherents of Mr. Newman are few in number. A short time will now probably suffice to prove this fact. It is well known that he is preparing for secession; and, when that event takes place, it will be seen how few will go with him.”

<I am now close upon the date of my reception into the Catholic Church; and have reserved for this place some sentences from a letter addressed to me at the beginning of the year by a very dear friend, now no more, Charles Marriott. I quote them for the love which I bear him, and the value that I set on his good word.

<“January 15, 1845. You know me well enough to be aware, that I never see through any thing at first. Your letter to Badeley casts a gloom over the future, which you can understand, if you have understood me, as I believe you have. But I may speak out at once, of what I see and feel at once, and doubt not that I shall ever feel: that your whole conduct towards the Church of England and towards us, who have striven and are still striving to seek after God for ourselves, and to revive true religion among others, under her authority and guidance, has been generous and considerate, and, were that word appropriate, dutiful, to a degree that I could scarcely have conceived possible, more unsparing of self than I should have thought nature could sustain. I have felt with pain every link that you have severed, and I have asked no questions, because I felt that you ought to measure the disclosure of your thoughts according to the occasion, and the capacity of those to whom you spoke. I write in haste, in the midst of engagements engrossing in themselves, but partly made tasteless, partly embittered by what I have heard; but I am willing to trust even you, whom I love best on earth, in God’s Hand, in the earnest prayer that you may be so employed as is best for the Holy Catholic Church.”>

All this time I was hard at ¹⁸⁰ my Essay on Doctrinal Development ¹⁸¹ <in the first months of 1845, and I was hard at it all through the year till October>. As I advanced, my view so cleared that instead of speaking any more of “the Roman Catholics,” I boldly called them Catholics. Before I got to the end, I resolved to be received, and the book remains in the state in which it was then, unfinished.

<One of my friends at Littlemore had been received into the Church on Michaelmas Day, at the Passionist House at Aston, near Stone, by Father Dominic, the Superior. At the beginning of October the latter was passing through London to Belgium; and, as I was in some perplexity what steps to take for being received myself, I assented to the proposition made to me that the good priest should take Littlemore in his way, with a view to his doing for me the same charitable service as he had done to my friend.>

On October <the> 8th I wrote to a number of friends the following letter:—

“Littlemore, October 8<th>, 1845. I am this night expecting Father Dominic, the Passionist, who, from his youth, has been led to have distinct and direct thoughts, first of the countries of the North, then of England. After thirty years’ (almost) waiting, he was without his own act sent here. But he has had little to do with conversions. I saw him here for a few minutes on St. John Baptist’s day last year. <He is a simple, holy man; and withal gifted with remarkable powers.> He does not know of my intention; but I mean to ask of him admission into the one ¹⁸² Fold of Christ …

“I have so many letters to write, that this must do for all who choose to ask about me. With my best love to dear Charles Marriott, who is over your head, &c., &c.

“P.S. This will not go till all is over. Of course it requires no answer.”

For a while after my reception, I proposed to betake myself to some secular calling. I wrote thus in answer to a very gracious letter of congratulation <sent me by Cardinal Acton>:—

“Nov. 25, 1845. I hope you will have anticipated, before I express it, the great gratification which I received from your Eminence’s letter. That gratification, however, was tempered by the apprehension, that kind and anxious well-wishers at a distance attach more importance to my step than really belongs to it. To me indeed personally it is of course an inestimable gain; but persons and things look great at a distance, which are not so when seen close; and, did your Eminence know me, you would see that I was one, about whom there has been far more talk for good and bad than he deserves, and about whose movements far more expectation has been raised than the event will justify.

“As I never, I do trust, aimed at any thing else than obedience to my own sense of right, and have been magnified into the leader of a party without my wishing it or acting as such, so now, much as I may wish to the contrary, and earnestly as I may labour (as is my duty) to minister in a humble way to the Catholic Church, yet my powers will, I fear, disappoint the expectations of both my own friends, and of those who pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

“If I might ask of your Eminence a favour, it is that you would kindly moderate those anticipations. Would it were in my power to do, what I do not aspire to do! At present certainly I cannot look forward to the future, and, though it would be a good work if I could persuade others to do as I have done, yet it seems as if I had quite enough to do in thinking of myself.”

Soon, Dr. Wiseman, in whose Vicariate Oxford lay, called me to Oscott; and I went there with others; afterwards he sent me to Rome, and finally placed me in Birmingham.

I wrote to a friend:—

“January 20, 1846. You may think how lonely I am. ‘Obliviscere populum tuum et domum patris tui,’ has been in my ears for the last twelve hours. I realize more that we are leaving Littlemore, and it is like going on the open sea.”

I left Oxford for good on Monday, February 23, 1846. On the Saturday and Sunday before, I was in my House at Littlemore simply by myself, as I had been for the first day or two when I had originally taken possession of it. I slept on Sunday night at my dear friend’s, Mr. Johnson’s, at the Observatory. Various friends came to see the last of me; Mr. Copeland, Mr. Church, Mr. Buckle, Mr. Pattison, and Mr. Lewis. Dr. Pusey too came up to take leave of me; and I called on Dr. Ogle, one of my very oldest friends, for he was my private Tutor, when I was an Undergraduate. In him I took leave of my first College, Trinity, which was so dear to me, and which held on its foundation so many who have ¹⁸³ been kind to me both when I was a boy, and all through my Oxford life. Trinity had never been unkind to me. There used to be much snapdragon growing on the walls opposite my freshman’s rooms there, and I had for years taken it as the emblem of my own perpetual residence even unto death in my University.

On the morning of the 23rd I left the Observatory. I have never seen Oxford since, excepting its spires, as they are seen from the railway. ¹⁸⁴

Footnotes

1. Part VI] Chapter IV ↩

2. to me] into my hands ↩

3. letters] others ↩

4. of my own] which I made ↩

5. her] its service ↩

6. a portion of the dogmatic foundation of the Church] so revealed ↩

7. but] though ↩

8. Via Media; from] Via Media:—if its … ground. From ↩

9. , as I did … Oxford] (as I did … Oxford) ↩

10. was] is ↩

11. that] the ↩

12. Footnote in 1865. <1 Matt. xxiv. 15.> ↩

13. Footnote in 1865. <2 Vide Note C. Sermon on Wisdom and Innocence.> ↩

14. appear, though … priesthood at all;] appear (though … at all), ↩

15. Footnote. 1 As I am not writing controversially, I will only here remark upon this argument, that there is a great difference between a command, which implies a physical<, material, and political> conditions, and one which is moral. To go to Jerusalem was a matter of the body, not of the soul. 1] 3 a implies] presupposes ↩

16. a Magazine] the Christian Observer, Mr. Wilkes, ↩

17. without] without ↩

18. would view] persisted in viewing ↩

19. A. B.] Charles Marriott ↩

20. Footnote in 1865. <4 As things stand now, I do not think he would have objected to his opinion being generally known.> ↩

21. These are the Author’s [ ] ↩

22. There was one very] An ↩

23. such movements] doctrinal inquiries ↩

24. :—Mr. Oakeley The name was not given in the original pamphlet. ↩

25. of their path] in which their path lay ↩

26. author 1864] mother 1864 (another copy), Mother 1865. ↩

27. its application to others] to others its application ↩

28. rich] munificent ↩

29. sort] kind ↩

30. saints] Saints ↩

31. Roman Church] cause of Rome ↩

32. force in] force as ↩

33. I] my head ↩

34. clearness] strength ↩

35. touched] troubled ↩

36. made to eat] forced to recognize ↩

37. had had] had been in possession of ↩

38. reply] meet them to my satisfaction ↩

39. have taken 1864] had taken 1864 (another copy), 1865. ↩

40. in] perhaps from ↩

41. easiness] laziness ↩

42. is what I said] was written ↩

43. part of] taken from ↩

44. A. B. 1864] A. 1865, Ward 1873 ↩

45. it gave] that perplexity gained for ↩

46. there?] there! ↩

47. that I used] in which I expressed it ↩

48. did not believe, and for which they got] disbelieved, by virtue of a ↩

49. 1.] 2. ↩

50. 2.] 4. ↩

51. 3.] 6. ↩

52. 4.] 7. ↩

53. a Catholic Prelate] Cardinal Wiseman, then Vicar Apostolic ↩

54. worst] worse ↩

55. to have the reversion of] on a vacancy to succeed to ↩

56. for me] in my behalf ↩

57. common] Common ↩

58. formally] formerly ↩

59. March 7] March 8 ↩

60. thought] might consider ↩

61. in the North], Mr. Stanley Faber Edition subsequent to 1875 ↩

62. 1850] the latter year ↩

63. character] notes ↩

64. from] by ↩

65. The last letter, which I have inserted] The letter which I have last inserted ↩

66. the letter which I have last inserted] my letter to Dr. Russell ↩

67. was an omission of one passage] were omissions in one Sermon ↩

68. certainly] luminously ↩

69. the effect produced upon me by this] what I gained from the ↩

70. all events] least ↩

71. upon] produced on ↩

72. later of] later by studying ↩

73. matter of] matter consisting in ↩

74. angels and saints] Angels and Saints ↩

75. spoken] made mention ↩

76. but it had been a favourite subject with me all along] nor had I ever lost sight of it in my speculations ↩

77. that celebrated] the ↩

78. the Anglican theory] Anglicanism ↩

79. steadily] attentively ↩

80. Faith] Creed ↩

81. others] metaphysicians ↩

82. came to the conclusion … same nature, as] found a corroboration of the fact of the logical connexion of Theism with Catholicism in a consideration parallel to ↩

83. third part] first chapter ↩

84. all] these ↩

85. about the same kind of probability] still all of them one and the same in nature of proof, as being probabilities—probabilities of a special kind ↩

86. bestows on us a certitude] carries us on, … to a certitude ↩

87. proceeding, not by] not proceeding on ↩

88. inclusive] included ↩

89. they have been sufficiently explained] their plain meaning has been satisfactorily brought out ↩

90. about them, which I have not said before] in addition to my former remarks upon them ↩

91. saying out] saying out ↩

92. believed to be true] believed at the time when I made them ↩

93. speak ill against … without a good reason] speak it out, unless I was really justified, not only in believing ill, but in speaking ill ↩

94. good reason for saying it] just cause for saying out what I believed ↩

95. I said] that to say out ↩

96. , in order to defend ourselves; I considered that] for self-defence. It was impossible to let it alone: ↩

97. defended] satisfactorily maintained ↩

98. bringing charges against the Church of Rome] assailing the Roman ↩

99. it] that abuse ↩

100. said] observe ↩

101. done it] used strong language ↩

102. But there was … used:—first,] I was in a humour, certainly, to bite off their ears. ↩

103. properly] by right ↩

104. retire from] abandon ↩

105. critically] cautiously ↩

106. miscalculations; and] miscalculations. But ↩

107. secondly] in the next place ↩

108. cause of] reason for ↩

109. wrote] published ↩

110. went on to say] presently wrote to him ↩

111. get] got ↩

112. , were] was ↩

113. addressed a letter] wrote ↩

114. about retiring from] upon ↩

115. seeking] tending ↩

116. as the] since the ↩

117. will] may ↩

118. being given to the world by] proceeding from ↩

119. parts] numbers ↩

120. one of the authors of] the author of one of ↩

121. “will be] would “be ↩

122. is] was ↩

123. volume] number ↩

124. was ever put into] ever appeared in ↩

125. hot-headed boys] “hot-headed fanatic young men” ↩

126. of the mature age which I have stated] in 1844 past forty ↩

127. Footnote in 1865. <1 Vide Note D, Lives of the English Saints.> ↩

128. aided] was kind enough to aid ↩

129. as Walter Scott has applied the text] to borrow a Scriptural image from Walter Scott ↩

130. this sketch has to treat of them] is necessary for a sketch such as this is ↩

131. more] final ↩

132. make;] accomplish, ↩

133. that] That ↩

134. what I had … close upon my submission] the conclusions at which I had already arrived. That further step, imperative when such certitude was attained, was my submission ↩

135. But two years … events; during which] new paragraph: This submission did not take place till two full years after the resignation of my living in September 1843; nor could I have made it at an earlier day, without doubt and apprehension, that is, with any true conviction of mind or certitude.

     In the interval, of which it remains to speak, viz. between the autumns of 1843 and 1845, ↩

136. communion in] communion with ↩

137. do] reveal ↩

138. mentioned it] made it known ↩

139. it is] it was ↩

140. I believe I had not that] Of that I believe I was not possessed ↩

141. three times preceding: was] had been ↩

142. did] had done ↩

143. but I did not succeed in my attempt] I thought in 1843 that perhaps I need not forfeit my existing relations towards it ↩

144. bear] submit ↩

145. there] in serving it ↩

146. Indeed,] Perhaps ↩

147. were] had been ↩

148. felt as] felt it ↩

149. taking the initiative in] initiating any direct act for the sake of ↩

150. it] my state of mind ↩

151. seemed to leave] should otherwise have been leaving ↩

152. about me] on every side of them ↩

153. which … choose] when … choose it ↩

154. themselves] they were ↩

155. towards them and towards others] in her case and in that of others ↩

156. others] the world ↩

157. him 1864, 1865] him, Archdeacon Manning 1873 ↩

158. Footnote in 1865. <2 I think Sumner, Bishop of Chester, must have done so already.> ↩

159. state] describe. ↩

160. would] should ↩

161. as there might be need at] according to the need of ↩

162. Footnote in 1865. <3 Deut. xxxiii. 12.> ↩

163. that] of the same ↩

164. <4> On this subject, vid. my Third Lecture on “Anglican Difficulties”<, also Note E, Anglican Church>. (This footnote did not appear in the original pamphlet.) ↩

165. a friend upon his death] another friend thus ↩

166. English] Anglican ↩

167. power] Power ↩

168. determined to write] came to the resolution of writing ↩

169. to make up my mind to seek] of taking the necessary steps for ↩

170. Footnote in 1865. <5 Vide supr. p. 311, &c. Letter of Oct. 14, 1843, compared with that of Oct. 25.> ↩

171. a friend] the same friend ↩

172. 2.] 1. ↩

173. 3.] 2. ↩

174. 4.] 3. ↩

175. 5.] 4. ↩

176. was] appeared ↩

177. This was the occasion of my writing] it is alluded to in ↩

178. A. B. 1864] A. 1865, James Mozley Edition subsequent to 1875. ↩

179. C. D.] Christian Remembrancer ↩

180. All this time I was hard at] I had begun ↩

181. Doctrinal Development] the Development of Doctrine ↩

182. one] One ↩

183. have] had ↩

184. [At length Dr. Newman visited Oxford on Feb. 26, 1878, after he had been made Honorary Fellow of Trinity.] ↩