ctual movement among their disciples, and one went
over to Rome, and then another, the worst anticipations and the worst
judgments which had been formed of them received their justification.
And, lastly, when men first had said of me, "You will see, _he_ will
go, he is only biding his time, he is waiting the word of command
from Rome," and, when after all, after my arguments and denunciations
of former years, at length I did leave the Anglican Church for the
Roman, then they said to each other, "It is just as we said: I told
you so."

This was the state of mind of masses of men twenty years ago, who
took no more than an external and common-sense view of what was going
on. And partly the tradition, partly the effect of that feeling,
remains to the present time. Certainly I consider that, in my own
case, it is the great obstacle in the way of my being favourably
heard, as at present, when I have to make my defence. Not only am I
now a member of a most un-English communion, whose great aim is
considered to be the extinction of Protestantism and the Protestant
Church, and whose means of attack are popularly supposed to be
unscrupulous cunning and deceit, but besides, how came I originally
to have any relations with the Church of Rome at all? did I, or my
opinions, drop from the sky? how came I, in Oxford, _in gremio
Universitatis_, to present myself to the eyes of men in that
full-blown investiture of Popery? How could I dare, how could I have
the conscience, with warnings, with prophecies, with accusations
against me, to persevere in a path which steadily advanced towards,
which ended in, the religion of Rome? And how am I now to be trusted,
when long ago I was trusted, and was found wanting?

It is this which is the strength of the case of my accuser against
me;--not his arguments in themselves, which I shall easily crumble
into dust, but the bias of the court. It is the state of the
atmosphere; it is the vibration all around which will more or less
echo his assertion of my dishonesty; it is that prepossession against
me, which takes it for granted that, when my reasoning is convincing
it is only ingenious, and that when my statements are unanswerable,
there is always something put out of sight or hidden in my sleeve; it
is that plausible, but cruel conclusion to which men are so apt to
jump, that when much is imputed, something must be true, and that it
is more likely that one should be to blame, than that many should