disowning Anglican pretensions; to them it _is_ credulity, to them it
_is_ satire; but it is not so in me. What they think exaggeration, I
think truth. I am not speaking of the Anglican Church in any disdain,
though to them I seem contemptuous. To them of course it is "Aut
Caesar aut nullus," but not to me. It may be a great creation, though
it be not divine, and this is how I judge of it. Men, who abjure the
divine right of kings, would be very indignant, if on that account
they were considered disloyal. And so I recognise in the Anglican
Church a time-honoured institution, of noble historical memories, a
monument of ancient wisdom, a momentous arm of political strength, a
great national organ, a source of vast popular advantage, and, to a
certain point, a witness and teacher of religious truth. I do not
think that, if what I have written about it since I have been a
Catholic, be equitably considered as a whole, I shall be found to
have taken any other view than this; but that it is something sacred,
that it is an oracle of revealed doctrine, that it can claim a share
in St. Ignatius or St. Cyprian, that it can take the rank, contest
the teaching, and stop the path of the Church of St. Peter, that it
can call itself "the Bride of the Lamb," this is the view of it which
simply disappeared from my mind on my conversion, and which it would
be almost a miracle to reproduce. "I went by, and lo! it was gone; I
sought it, but its place could no where be found;" and nothing can
bring it back to me. And, as to its possession of an episcopal
succession from the time of the apostles, well, it may have it, and,
if the holy see ever so decided, I will believe it, as being the
decision of a higher judgment than my own; but, for myself, I must
have St. Philip's gift, who saw the sacerdotal character on the
forehead of a gaily-attired youngster, before I can by my own wit
acquiesce in it, for antiquarian arguments are altogether unequal to
the urgency of visible facts. Why is it that I must pain dear friends
by saying so, and kindle a sort of resentment against me in the
kindest of hearts? but I must, though to do it be not only a grief to
me, but most impolitic at the moment. Anyhow, this is my mind; and,
if to have it, if to have betrayed it, before now, involuntarily by
my words or my deeds, if on a fitting occasion, as now, to have
avowed it, if all this be a proof of the justice of the charge
brought against me of having "turned