of course, in so grave a step one has to consider its effects on those around one, in the sense, but only in the sense, that it ought to make one as sure as one has the right to feel before taking such a step. That is to say it ought to hold one back from any hasty action, but surely no responsibility to anyone else can make fidelity to conscience, or what one believes to be the truth, less binding. There are moments in life when our Lord's words have a very terrible and literal meaning: 'He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me,' and the other side of these words in that other saying: 'There is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethen, or wife, or children, for the Kingdom of God's sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting."

These words are an encouragement. God will make up to us for any sacrifice made for His sake, even in this world. But you know all this as well as I do. You did make one very real sacrifice and God blessed it. But I doubt if you really feel convinced that you ought to take the step. If you felt convinced I am sure you would take it. It seems to me, now, strange that one can believe a Church which gives no rest to heart or reason can be the true Church. In Rome, no doubt, there is the human side and the narrowness of individuals is often trying—yet one feels the vast difference between the irritating ways of individuals and the actions and utterances of the body. Bring the English Church face to face with its constituted authorities-the Bishops-and no one can doubt what it is. You may get out of it by saying the Bishops are not true to the Prayer Book, but after all that means to your interpretation of the Prayer Book. A book needs an interpreter, and throwing oneself back upon the 'undivided Church' as the

interpreter of the Prayer Book is only a subtle form of private judgment. How do you know [that] what you believe is what the Church believed before the Eastern break? Take, for instance, devotion to the Blessed Virgin. How do you know it stopped just where you stop? Only because you are told so, or because your education and feeling tells you to go no further. So in regard to the Papacy. I once thought as you do, now I feel confident I was wrong. Before, I drew the line under the natural guidance of my education and prejudice and the teaching of those I trusted, but in other points I went beyond my instructors -in fact I believed what appealed to me as trueand what so appealed I found in the 'Early Church.' There must be a guide to whom one bows and submits as divine, and that guide must not be a sublimated form of one's own bias.

49

To the Same

October 27, 1899.

I think what you feel is quite natural, but the question of the truth or untruth of Rome, you must remember, stands upon its own feet, whether St. Bartholomew's stands or falls. If it were undergoing all the trials of a bitter persecution, or if it were in a condition of the most triumphant success Rome is equally true or untrue, and once you are convinced she is true, nothing would justify your remaining longer in the English Church-not even to see St. Bartholomew's safe through a crisis, or to avoid being considered as deserting it in the hour of need, nor on the other hand in the hour of victory, and when all the associations with it are dearest. And on the other hand,

remember the Bishops' protestantising of the English Church doesn't make Rome right. If all the Bishops were to forbid everything you care for and to deny the Real Presence and to force the clergy into submissionall this wouldn't make Rome right, nor justify you in being received, except on the ground that she, and she alone, is the Church of Christ. You must keep the issues clear; in a time of trouble one is apt to get mixed. To lose all faith in the English Church is quite a different act from believing in the Roman Catholic Church; it is a positive, not a negative act. I am sure if you did believe that Rome was the one true Church you would come to her. Keep it, therefore, clearly before your mind that the English Bishops' depriving the English Church of everything you hold dear does not make Rome any more the true Church than she was before. Nor would St. Bartholomew's passing through ever so sore a trial justify your delay to see her safe out of it, if once you did believe Rome's claim to be true. That claim is simple:- the necessity of being in union with the See of Peter, the impossibility of a breach in the outward unity, and the claim that it is as necessary to have a voice that speaks with authority as to have hands to minister Sacraments. Again the lives of Roman Catholics may also be below their standard; they may be narrow, worldly, uninteresting, and uninterested in works of charity: that does not affect the claims of the Church. The movement of the English Church is sixty years old; the Catholic Church is not under the stimulus of such a movement, she has gone on through the ages. . . It's natural that an especial earnestness should show itself amongst those just awaking to Sacraments, etc., but all these things are no tests. One thing I know that the Roman Catholic Church produces what Anglicanism can't produce in the great penitential orders-a type

of sanctity out of her reach-and, besides, a Priesthood throughout the world who voluntarily give up the happiness of domestic life. Compare not individuals but the broad products of Rome and the English Church in the religious life. Missions abroad, the demands of obedience freely given-the surrender of many plans and ideas-the great ascetic ordersthe vast number of convents of men and women, and I think the result speaks for itself.

50

To the Same

February 1, 1900.

Thank you for the magazines. It seems to me that the things said about the Church are like a miasmic mist that ever hangs about her clear and beautiful light-invented by the devil to keep men back. Much the same happened with our Lord Himself and He practically foretold it: 'If they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household.'

It seems amazing that such things should be believed, but they always bring to me if I needed it-an additional proof that Rome is the Church of the ages. The same kind of things were said from the first days of Christianity on. They are said about no other body. The unmistakable supernatural power of the Church, like that of our Lord, is attributed to any other rather than the true source, ' He casteth out devils by Beelzebub.' Yet almost everything the Church does the English Church tries to do, but with her it is all right. The constant breath of scandal that hovers around the Church, misrepresenting her ways and doings was one of the great prophecies-the very first-the serpent

bruising her heel. Standing within, it seems to me amazing that people should be found to believe such things. Yet it is just what one should expect if the Church is our Lord's Presence on earth.

51

To the Same

February 19, 1900.

I really think you take Mivart's affair to heart far more than it is worth.

I have scarcely seen or heard one paper or one person support him-even the Record considered that he was quite rightly treated, and most of the secular papers expressed themselves strongly against what he said-even the Times, being unable to support him, has kept a significant silence. What would you have?

If you are shocked at a man saying such outrageous things and calling himself a Catholic, so am I, and I think the sooner he ceases to call himself a Catholic the better. If it is a token of disunion in the Church then I am afraid that kind of disunion began soon after the Church's birth and will continue to the end. But no one can deny that it shows that Rome does all she can to protect the Faith, and does it as the Catholic Church always does-by rejecting from her body those who refuse to accept her Creed. I should have thought that the whole incident told very well for Rome, and showed in strong relief the contrast of her methods to those of the English Church where Mivart might have continued a member and said all he liked. The assertion he makes about numbers of good Catholics who go to Communion and deny the Incarnation I confess I simply don't believe. But anyone who does so, does it certainly secretly; and who can prevent