hen, unfinished.

On October 8th I wrote to a number of friends the following letter:--

"Littlemore, October 8, 1845. I am this night expecting Father
Dominic, the Passionist, who, from his youth, has been led to have
distinct and direct thoughts, first of the countries of the North,
then of England. After thirty years' (almost) waiting, he was without
his own act sent here. But he has had little to do with conversions.
I saw him here for a few minutes on St. John Baptist's day last year.
He does not know of my intention; but I mean to ask of him admission
into the one Fold of Christ....

"I have so many letters to write, that this must do for all who
choose to ask about me. With my best love to dear Charles Marriott,
who is over your head, etc., etc.

"P.S. This will not go till all is over. Of course it requires no
answer."

For a while after my reception, I proposed to betake myself to some
secular calling. I wrote thus in answer to a very gracious letter of
congratulation:--

"Nov. 25, 1845. I hope you will have anticipated, before I express
it, the great gratification which I received from your Eminence's
letter. That gratification, however, was tempered by the
apprehension, that kind and anxious well-wishers at a distance attach
more importance to my step than really belongs to it. To me indeed
personally it is of course an inestimable gain; but persons and
things look great at a distance, which are not so when seen close;
and, did your Eminence know me, you would see that I was one, about
whom there has been far more talk for good and bad than he deserves,
and about whose movements far more expectation has been raised than
the event will justify.

"As I never, I do trust, aimed at anything else than obedience to my
own sense of right, and have been magnified into the leader of a
party without my wishing it or acting as such, so now, much as I may
wish to the contrary, and earnestly as I may labour (as is my duty)
to minister in a humble way to the Catholic Church, yet my powers
will, I fear, disappoint the expectations of both my own friends, and
of those who pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

"If I might ask of your Eminence a favour, it is that you would
kindly moderate those anticipations. Would it were in my power to do,
what I do not aspire to do! At present certainly I cannot look
forward to the future, and, though it would be a good work if I could
persuade others to do as I have done, yet it