eny 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, 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 realise 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