one in your practical instructions, before I
can answer it in any way, I ought to know how far the Sermons which
it comprises are _selected_ from a number, or whether they are the
whole, or such as the whole, which have been published of the
author's. I assure you, or at least I trust, that, if it is ever
clearly brought home to me that I have been wrong in what I have said
on this subject, my public avowal of that conviction will only be a
question of time with me.

"If, however, you saw our Church as we see it, you would easily
understand that such a change of feeling, did it take place, would
have no necessary tendency, which you seem to expect, to draw a
person from the Church of England to that of Rome. There is a divine
life among us, clearly manifested, in spite of all our disorders,
which is as great a note of the Church, as any can be. Why should we
seek our Lord's presence elsewhere, when He vouchsafes it to us where
we are? What _call_ have we to change our communion?

"Roman Catholics will find this to be the state of things in time to
come, whatever promise they may fancy there is of a large secession
to their Church. This man or that may leave us, but there will be no
general movement. There is, indeed, an incipient movement of our
_Church_ towards yours, and this your leading men are doing all they
can to frustrate by their unwearied efforts at all risks to carry off
individuals. When will they know their position, and embrace a larger
and wiser policy?"

The last letter, which I have inserted, is addressed to my dear
friend, Dr. Russell, the present President of Maynooth. He had,
perhaps, more to do with my conversion than any one else. He called
upon me, in passing through Oxford in the summer of 1841, and I think
I took him over some of the buildings of the University. He called
again another summer, on his way from Dublin to London. I do not
recollect that he said a word on the subject of religion on either
occasion. He sent me at different times several letters; he was
always gentle, mild, unobtrusive, uncontroversial. He let me alone.
He also gave me one or two books. Veron's Rule of Faith and some
Treatises of the Wallenburghs was one; a volume of St. Alfonso
Liguori's Sermons was another; and to that the letter which I have
last inserted relates.

Now it must be observed that the writings of St. Alfonso, as I knew
them by the extracts commonly made from them, prejudiced me as much
against