They were laymen, or in the place of laymen. I
kept some of them back for several years from being received into the
Catholic Church. Even when I had given up my living, I was still bound
by my duty to their parents or friends, and I did not forget still to do
what I could for them. The immediate occasion of my resigning St.
Mary's, was the unexpected conversion of one of them. After that, I felt
it was impossible to keep my post there, for I had been unable to keep
my word with my Bishop.

The following letters refer, more or less, to these men, whether they
were actually with me at Littlemore or not:--

1. "March 6, 1842. Church doctrines are a powerful weapon; they were not
sent into the world for nothing. God's word does not return unto Him
void: If I have said, as I have, that the doctrines of the Tracts for
the Times would build up our Church and destroy parties, I meant, if
they were used, not if they were denounced. Else, they will be as
powerful against us, as they might be powerful for us.

"If people who have a liking for another, hear him called a Roman
Catholic; they will say, 'Then after all Romanism is no such bad thing.'
All these persons, who are making the cry, are fulfilling their own
prophecy. If all the world agree in telling a man, he has no business in
our Church, he will at length begin to think he has none. How easy is it
to persuade a man of any thing, when numbers affirm it! so great is the
force of imagination. Did every one who met you in the streets look hard
at you, you would think you were somehow in fault. I do not know any
thing so irritating, so unsettling, especially in the case of young
persons, as, when they are going on calmly and unconsciously, obeying
their Church and following its divines, (I am speaking from facts,) as
suddenly to their surprise to be conjured not to make a leap, of which
they have not a dream and from which they are far removed."

2. 1843 or 1844. "I did not explain to you sufficiently the state of
mind of those who were in danger. I only spoke of those who were
convinced that our Church was external to the Church Catholic, though
they felt it unsafe to trust their own private convictions; but there
are two other states of mind; 1. that of those who are unconsciously
near Rome, and whose _despair_ about our Church would at once develope
into a state of conscious approximation, or a _quasi_-resolution to go
over; 2. those who feel they can with a safe consci