favour of the
Anglican Church. To be certain is to know that one knows; what inward
test had I, that I should not change again, after that I had become a
Catholic? I had still apprehension of this, though I thought a time
would come, when it would depart. However, some limit ought to be put to
these vague misgivings; I must do my best and then leave it to a higher
Power to prosper it. So, at the end of 1844, I came to the resolution of
writing an Essay on Doctrinal Development; and then, if, at the end of
it, my convictions in favour of the Roman Church were not weaker, of
taking the necessary steps for admission into her fold.

By this time the state of my mind was generally known, and I made no
great secret of it. I will illustrate it by letters of mine which have
been put into my hands.

"November 16, 1844. I am going through what must be gone through; and my
trust only is that every day of pain is so much taken from the necessary
draught which must be exhausted. There is no fear (humanly speaking) of
my moving for a long time yet. This has got out without my intending it;
but it is all well. As far as I know myself, my one great distress is
the perplexity, unsettlement, alarm, scepticism, which I am causing to
so many; and the loss of kind feeling and good opinion on the part of so
many, known and unknown, who have wished well to me. And of these two
sources of pain it is the former that is the constant, urgent,
unmitigated one. I had for days a literal ache all about my heart; and
from time to time all the complaints of the Psalmist seemed to belong to
me.

"And as far as I know myself, my one paramount reason for contemplating
a change is my deep, unvarying conviction that our Church is in schism,
and that my salvation depends on my joining the Church of Rome. I may
use _argumenta ad hominem_ to this person or that[18]; but I am not
conscious of resentment, or disgust, at any thing that has happened to
me. I have no visions whatever of hope, no schemes of action, in any
other sphere more suited to me. I have no existing sympathies with Roman
Catholics; I hardly ever, even abroad, was at one of their services; I
know none of them, I do not like what I hear of them.

"And then, how much I am giving up in so many ways! and to me sacrifices
irreparable, not only from my age, when people hate changing, but from
my especial love of old associations and the pleasures of memory. Nor am
I conscious of any feeling, enth