let him get into a court of law
for libel; and let him be convicted; and let him still fancy that his
libel, though a libel, was true, and let us then see whether he will not
in such a case "yield outwardly," without assenting internally; and then
again whether we should please him, if we called him "deceitful and
double-dealing," because "he did as much as he could, not more than he
ought to do." But Tract 90 will supply a real illustration of what I
meant. I yielded to the Bishops in outward act, viz. in not defending
the Tract, and in closing the Series; but, not only did I not assent
inwardly to any condemnation of it, but I opposed myself to the
proposition of a condemnation on the part of authority. Yet I was then
by the public called "deceitful and double-dealing," as this Writer
calls me now, "because I did as much as I felt I could do, and not more
than I felt I could honestly do." Many were the publications of the day
and the private letters, which accused me of shuffling, because I closed
the Series of Tracts, yet kept the Tracts on sale, as if I ought to
comply not only with what my Bishop asked, but with what he did not ask,
and perhaps did not wish. However, such teaching, according to this
Writer, was likely to make young men "suspect, that truth was not a
virtue for its own sake, but only for the sake of the spread of
'Catholic opinions,' and the 'salvation of their own souls;' and that
cunning was the weapon which heaven had allowed to them to defend
themselves against the persecuting Protestant public."--p. 16.

And now I draw attention to a further point. He says, "How was I to know
that the preacher ... did not foresee, that [fanatic and hot-headed
young men] would think that they obeyed him, by becoming affected,
artificial, sly, shifty, ready for concealments and _equivocations_?"
"How should he know!" What! I suppose that we are to think every man a
knave till he is proved not to be such. Know! had he no friend to tell
him whether I was "affected" or "artificial" myself? Could he not have
done better than impute _equivocations_ to me, at a time when I was in
no sense answerable for the _amphibologia_ of the Roman casuists? Had he
a single fact which belongs to me personally or by profession to couple
my name with equivocation in 1843? "How should he know" that I was not
sly, smooth, artificial, non-natural! he should know by that common
manly frankness, by which we put confidence in others, till th