vidence, as for him, so for me; for I was one of the
editors. What I said even as an Anglican, it is not strange that I
said when I was not. Indeed I have been milder in my thoughts of the
Establishment ever since I have been a Catholic than before, and for
an obvious reason:--when I was an Anglican, I viewed it as repressing
a higher doctrine than its own; and now I view it as keeping out a
lower and more dangerous.

Then as to my Lectures on Anglican Difficulties. Neither were these
formally directed against the National Church. They were addressed to
the "Children of the Movement of 1833," to impress upon them, that,
whatever was the case with others, their duty at least was to become
Catholics, since Catholicism was the real scope and issue of that
Movement. "There is but one thing," I say, "that forces me to
speak.... It will be a miserable thing for you and for me, if I have
been instrumental in bringing you but half-way, if I have co-operated
in removing your invincible ignorance, but am able to do no
more."--p. 5. Such being the drift of the volume, the reasoning
directed against the Church of England goes no further than this,
that it had no claims whatever on such of its members as were
proceeding onwards with the Movement into the Catholic Church.

Lastly, as to Loss and Gain: it is the story, simply ideal, of the
conversion of an Oxford man. Its drift is to show how little there is
in Anglicanism to satisfy and retain a young and earnest heart. In
this tale, all the best characters are sober Church-of-England
people. No Tractarians proper are introduced: and this is noted in
the advertisement: "No _proper_ representative is intended in this
tale, of the religious opinions, which had lately so much influence
in the University of Oxford." There _could_ not be such in the tale,
without the introduction of friends, which was impossible in its very
notion. But, since the scene was to be laid during the very years,
and at the head-quarters, of Tractarianism, some expedient was
necessary in order to meet what was a great difficulty. My expedient
was the introduction of what may be called Tractarians _improper_;
and I took them the more readily, because, though I knew that such
there were, I knew none of them personally. I mean such men as I used
to consider of "the gilt-gingerbread school," from whom I expected
little good, persons whose religion lay in ritualism or architecture,
and who "played at Popery" or at