iticism. After quoting a number of passages from my writings against
the Church of Rome, which I withdrew, I ended thus:--"If you ask me how
an individual could venture, not simply to hold, but to publish such
views of a communion so ancient, so wide-spreading, so fruitful in
Saints, I answer that I said to myself, 'I am not speaking my own words,
I am but following almost a _consensus_ of the divines of my own Church.
They have ever used the strongest language against Rome, even the most
able and learned of them. I wish to throw myself into their system.
While I say what they say, I am safe. Such views, too, are necessary for
our position.' Yet I have reason to fear still, that such language is to
be ascribed, in no small measure, to an impetuous temper, a hope of
approving myself to persons I respect, and a wish to repel the charge of
Romanism."

These words have been, and are, again and again cited against me, as if
a confession that, when in the Anglican Church, I said things against
Rome which I did not really believe.

For myself, I cannot understand how any impartial man can so take them;
and I have explained them in print several times. I trust that by this
time their plain meaning has been satisfactorily brought out by what I
have said in former portions of this Narrative; still I have a word or
two to say in addition to my former remarks upon them.

In the passage in question I apologize for _saying out_ in controversy
charges against the Church of Rome, which withal I affirm that I fully
_believed_ at the time when I made them. What is wonderful in such an
apology? There are surely many things a man may hold, which at the same
time he may feel that he has no right to say publicly, and which it may
annoy him that he has said publicly. The law recognizes this principle.
In our own time, men have been imprisoned and fined for saying true
things of a bad king. The maxim has been held, that, "The greater the
truth, the greater is the libel." And so as to the judgment of society,
a just indignation would be felt against a writer who brought forward
wantonly the weaknesses of a great man, though the whole world knew that
they existed. No one is at liberty to speak ill of another without a
justifiable reason, even though he knows he is speaking truth, and the
public knows it too. Therefore, though I believed what I said against
the Roman Church, nevertheless I could not religiously speak it out,
unless I was really