rested on more solid grounds than
heretofore. Yet, curiously enough, it is at this point we come upon
almost the first trace of his stopping seriously to consider the
adverse sentiments of others with regard to any proposed action on
his part. Now that he means to range himself, he turns to look back
at the disorderly host which he is quitting, not so much, or at least
not primarily for the sake of the order and regularity and solidity
of that to which it is opposed, but because a true instinct has
taught him that unity is the external mark of truth, as equilibrium
is the test of a just balance. In his diary of June 11, 1844, after
recording that he has just returned from Boston, where he has seen
the bishop and his coadjutor, Bishop John Bernard Fitzpatrick, and
received from the latter a note of introduction to the president of
Holy Cross College, at Worcester, Mass., he adds:

"I intend to stay there as long as it seems pleasant to me, and then
go on to New York and there unite myself with the Church.

"I sigh, and feel that this step is the most important of my life. My
highest convictions, my deepest wants, lead me to it; and should I
not obey them? There is no room to harbor a doubt about it. My
friends will look upon it with astonishment, and probably use the
common epithets, delusion, fanaticism, and blindness. But so I wish
to appear to minds like theirs; otherwise this would be
unsatisfactory to me. Men call that superstition which they have not
the feeling to appreciate, and that fanaticism which they have not
the spiritual perception to perceive. The Protestant world admires,
extols, and flatters him who will write and speak high-sounding and
heroic words; who will assert that he will follow truth wherever it
leads, at all sacrifices and hazards; but no sooner does he do so
than it slanders and persecutes him for being what he professed to
be. Verily it _has_ separated faith from works.

"This is a heavy task; it is a great undertaking, a serious, sacred,
sincere, and solemn step; it is the most vital and eternal act, and
as such do I feel it in all its importance, weight, and power. O God!
Thou who hast led me by Thy heavenly messengers, by Thy divine grace,
to make this new, unforeseen, and religious act of duty, support me
in the day of trial. Support me, O Lord, in my confessions; give me
strength and purity to speak freely the whole truth without any
equivocation or attempt at justification. O Lord,