to the Bishop:--

"I hope your Lordship will believe me when I say, that statements
about me, equally incorrect with that which has come to your
Lordship's ears, are from time to time reported to me as credited and
repeated by the highest authorities in our Church, though it is very
seldom that I have the opportunity of denying them. I am obliged
by your Lordship's letter to Dr. Pusey as giving me such an
opportunity." Then I added, with a purpose, "Your Lordship will
observe that in my Letter I had no occasion to proceed to the
question, whether a person holding Roman Catholic opinions can in
honesty remain in our Church. Lest then any misconception should
arise from my silence, I here take the liberty of adding, that I see
nothing wrong in such a person's continuing in communion with us,
provided he holds no preferment or office, abstains from the
management of ecclesiastical matters, and is bound by no subscription
or oath to our doctrines."

This was written on March 7, 1843, and was in anticipation of my own
retirement into lay communion. This again leads me to a remark; for
two years I was in lay communion, not indeed being a Catholic in my
convictions, but in a state of serious doubt, and with the probable
prospect of becoming some day, what as yet I was not. Under these
circumstances I thought the best thing I could do was to give up duty
and to throw myself into lay communion, remaining an Anglican. I
could not go to Rome, while I thought what I did of the devotions she
sanctioned to the Blessed Virgin and the Saints. I did not give up
my fellowship, for I could not be sure that my doubts would not be
reduced or overcome, however unlikely I thought such an event. But I
gave up my living; and, for two years before my conversion, I took no
clerical duty. My last sermon was in September, 1843; then I remained
at Littlemore in quiet for two years. But it was made a subject of
reproach to me at the time, and is at this day, that I did not leave
the Anglican Church sooner. To me this seems a wonderful charge;
why, even had I been quite sure that Rome was the true Church, the
Anglican Bishops would have had no just subject of complaint
against me, provided I took no Anglican oath, no clerical duty, no
ecclesiastical administration. Do they force all men who go to their
Churches to believe in the 39 Articles, or to join in the Athanasian
Creed? However, I was to have other measure dealt to me; great
authorities rule