her, and were changed;
again how I conducted myself towards them, and how, and how far,
and for how long a time, I thought I could hold them
consistently with the ecclesiastical engagements which I had
made and with the position which I held. I must show,--what is
the very truth,--that the doctrines which I held, and have held
for so many years, have been taught me (speaking humanly) partly
by the suggestions of Protestant friends, partly by the teaching
of books, and partly by the action of my own mind: and thus I
shall account for that phenomenon which to so many seems so
wonderful, that I should have left "my kindred and my father's
house" for a Church from which once I turned away with
dread;--so wonderful to them! as if forsooth a Religion which
has flourished through so many ages, among so many nations, amid
such varieties of social life, in such contrary classes and
conditions of men, and after so many revolutions, political and
civil, could not subdue the reason and overcome the heart,
without the aid of fraud in the process and the sophistries of
the schools.

[1] This was done in the Appendix, of which the more important
parts are preserved in the Notes.

* * * * *

What I had proposed to myself in the course of half-an-hour, I
determined on at the end of ten days. However, I have many
difficulties in fulfilling my design. How am I to say all that
has to be said in a reasonable compass? And then as to the
materials of my narrative; I have no autobiographical notes to
consult, no written explanations of particular treatises or of
tracts which at the time gave offence, hardly any minutes of
definite transactions or conversations, and few contemporary
memoranda, I fear, of the feelings or motives under which, from
time to time I acted. I have an abundance of letters from
friends with some copies or drafts of my answers to them, but
they are for the most part unsorted; and, till this process has
taken place, they are even too numerous and various to be
available at a moment for my purpose. Then, as to the volumes
which I have published, they would in many ways serve me, were I
well up in them: but though I took great pains in their
composition, I have thought little about them, when they were
once out of my hands, and for the mos