etter, let me know. The truth is this--our good
friends do not read the Fathers; they assent to us from the common
sense of the case: then, when the Fathers, and we, say _more_ than
their common sense, they are dreadfully shocked.

"The Bishop of London has rejected a man, 1. For holding _any_
Sacrifice in the Eucharist. 2. The Real Presence. 3. That there is a
grace in Ordination.[4]

"Are we quite sure that the Bishops will not be drawing up some
stringent declarations of faith? is this what Moberly fears? Would
the Bishop of Oxford accept them? If so, I should be driven into the
Refuge for the Destitute [Littlemore]. But I promise Moberly, I would
do my utmost to catch all dangerous persons and clap them into
confinement there."

Christmas Day, 1841. "I have been dreaming of Moberly all night.
Should not he and the like see, that it is unwise, unfair, and
impatient to ask others, What will you do under circumstances, which
have not, which may never come? Why bring fear, suspicion, and
disunion into the camp about things which are merely _in posse_?
Natural, and exceedingly kind as Barter's and another friend's
letters were, I think they have done great harm. I speak most
sincerely when I say, that there are things which I neither
contemplate, nor wish to contemplate; but, when I am asked about them
ten times, at length I begin to contemplate them.

"He surely does not mean to say, that _nothing_ could separate a man
from the English Church, _e.g._ its avowing Socinianism; its holding
the Holy Eucharist in a Socinian sense. Yet, he would say, it was not
_right_ to contemplate such things.

"Again, our case is [diverging] from that of Ken's. To say nothing of
the last miserable century, which has given us to _start_ from a much
lower level and with much less to _spare_ than a Churchman in the
17th century, questions of _doctrine_ are now coming in; with him, it
was a question of discipline.

"If such dreadful events were realised, I cannot help thinking we
should all be vastly more agreed than we think now. Indeed, is it
possible (humanly speaking) that those, who have so much the same
heart, should widely differ? But let this be considered, as to
alternatives. _What_ communion could we join? Could the Scotch or
American sanction the presence of its Bishops and congregations in
England, without incurring the imputation of schism, unless indeed
(and is that likely?) they denounced the English as heretical?

"I