rtain for him the limits of each opinion as he
held it, and the inter-relations of opinion with opinion. He had not yet
given names to these opinions, much less had they taken a theological
form; nor could they, under his circumstances, be expressed in
theological language; but here he was, a young man of twenty-two,
professing in an hour's conversation with a friend, what really were the
Catholic doctrines and usages of penance, purgatory, councils of
perfection, mortification of self, and clerical celibacy. No wonder that
all this annoyed Carlton, though he no more than Charles perceived that
all this Catholicism did in fact lie hid under his professions; but he
felt, in what Reding put out, the presence of something, as he expressed
it, "very unlike the Church of England;" something new and unpleasant to
him, and withal something which had a body in it, which had a momentum,
which could not be passed over as a vague, sudden sound or transitory
cloud, but which had much behind it, which made itself felt, which
struck heavily.

And here we see what is meant when a person says that the Catholic
system comes home to his mind, fulfils his ideas of religion, satisfies
his sympathies, and the like; and thereupon becomes a Catholic. Such a
person is often said to go by private judgment, to be choosing his
religion by his own standard of what a religion ought to be. Now it need
not be denied that those who are external to the Church must begin with
private judgment; they use it in order ultimately to supersede it; as a
man out of doors uses a lamp in a dark night, and puts it out when he
gets home. What would be thought of his bringing it into his
drawing-room? what would the goodly company there assembled before a
genial hearth and under glittering chandeliers, the bright ladies and
the well-dressed gentlemen, say to him if he came in with a great-coat
on his back, a hat on his head, an umbrella under his arm, and a large
stable-lantern in his hand? Yet what would be thought, on the other
hand, if he precipitated himself into the inhospitable night and the war
of the elements in his ball-dress? "When the king came in to see the
guests, he saw a man who had not on a wedding-garment;" he saw a man who
determined to live in the Church as he had lived out of it, who would
not use his privileges, who would not exchange reason for faith, who
would not accommodate his thoughts and doings to the glorious scene
which surrounded him,