one of which I said that "I
lived, not in Cowley, but at Littlemore, in St. Mary's parish," how
would that prove that I contradicted myself, and that therefore after
all I must be supposed to have been living in Oxford in 1844? The
utmost that would be proved by the discrepancy, such as it was,
would be, that there was some confusion either in me, or in the state
of the fact as to the limits of the parishes. There would be no
confusion about the place or spot of my residence. I should be saying
in 1864, "I did not live in Oxford twenty years ago, because I lived
at Littlemore in the Parish of Cowley." I should have been saying
in 1844, "I do not live in Oxford, because I live in St. Mary's,
Littlemore." In either case I should be saying that my _habitat_ in
1844 was _not_ Oxford, but Littlemore; and I should be giving the
same reason for it. I should be proving an _alibi_. I should be
naming the same place for the _alibi_; but twenty years ago I should
have spoken of it as St. Mary's, Littlemore, and to-day I should have
spoken of it as Littlemore in the Parish of Cowley.

And so as to my Sermon; in January, 1864, I called it a _Protestant_
sermon, and not a Roman; but in 1844 I should, if asked, have called
it an _Anglican_ sermon, and not a Roman. In both cases I should have
denied that it was Roman, and that on the ground of its being
something else; though I should have called that something else, then
by one name, now by another. The doctrine of the _Via Media_ is a
_fact_, whatever name we give to it; I, as a Roman Priest, find it
more natural and usual to call it Protestant: I, as all Oxford Vicar,
thought it more exact to call it Anglican; but, whatever I then
called it, and whatever I now call it, I mean one and the same object
by my name, and therefore not another object--viz. not the Roman
Church. The argument, I repeat, is sound, whether the _Via Media_ and
the Vicar of St. Mary's be called Anglican or Protestant.

This is a specimen of what my accuser means by my "economies;" nay,
it is actually one of those special two, three, or four, committed
after February 1, which he thinks sufficient to connect me with the
shifty casuists and the double-dealing moralists, as he considers
them, of the Catholic Church. What a "Much ado about nothing!"

2. But, whether or not he can prove that I in 1864 have committed any
logical fault in calling my Sermon on Wisdom and Innocence a
Protestant Sermon, he is and has b