y of tradition
with Laud, consent of Fathers with Beveridge, a visible Church with
Bramhall, dogma with Bull, the authority of the Pope with Thorndike,
penance with Taylor, prayers for the dead with Ussher, celibacy,
asceticism, ecclesiastical discipline with Bingham. I am going to a
Church, which in these, and a multitude of other points, is nearer the
Apostolic Church than any existing one; which is the continuation of the
Apostolic Church, if it has been continued at all. And _seeing_ it to be
_like_ the Apostolic Church, I _believe_ it to be the _same_. Reason has
gone first, faith is to follow."

He stopped, and Carlton did not reply; a silence ensued, and Charles at
length broke it. "I repeat, it's no use arguing; I have made up my mind,
and been very slow about it. I have broken it to my mother, and bade her
farewell. All is determined; I cannot go back."

"Is that a nice feeling?" said Carlton, half reproachfully.

"Understand me," answered Reding; "I have come to my resolution with
great deliberation. It has remained on my mind as a mere intellectual
conclusion for a year or two; surely now at length without blame I may
change it into a practical resolve. But none of us can answer that those
habitual and ruling convictions, on which it is our duty to act, will
remain before our consciousness every moment, when we come into the
hurry of the world, and are assailed by inducements and motives of
various kinds. Therefore I say that the time of argument is past; I act
on a conclusion already drawn."

"But how do you know," asked Carlton, "but what you have been
unconsciously biassed in arriving at it? one notion has possessed you,
and you have not been able to shake it off. The ability to retain your
convictions in the bustle of life is to my mind the very test, the
necessary test of their reality."

"I do, I do retain them," answered Reding; "they are always upon me."

"Only at times, as you have yourself confessed," objected Carlton:
"surely you ought to have a very strong conviction indeed, to set
against the mischief you are doing by a step of this kind. Consider how
many persons you are unsettling; what a triumph you are giving to the
enemies of all religion; what encouragement to the notion that there is
no such thing as truth; how you are weakening our Church. Well, all I
say is, that you should have very strong convictions to set against all
this."

"Well," said Charles, "I grant, I maintain, that th