who had taken a leap and was actually flying through the air.

Hugh then went off on a long bicycle tour by himself, dressed as a
layman. He visited the Carthusian Monastery of St Hugh, near West
Grinstead, which I afterwards visited in his company. He spent a night
or two at Chichester, where he received the Communion in the cathedral;
but he was in an unhappy frame of mind, probably made more acute by
solitude.

XI

THE DECISION

By this time we all knew what was about to happen. "When a man's mind is
made up," says the old Irish proverb, "his feet must set out on the
way."

Just before my brother made his profession as a Brother of the Mirfield
Community, he was asked by Bishop Gore whether he was in any danger of
becoming a Roman Catholic. My brother said honestly, "Not so far as I
can see." This was in July 1901. In September 1903 he was received into
the Church of Rome. What was it which had caused the change? It is very
difficult to say, and though I have carefully read my brother's book,
the _Confessions of a Convert_, I find it hard to give a decisive
answer. I have no intention of taking up a controversial attitude, and
indeed I am little equipped for doing so. It is clear that my brother
was, and had for some time been, searching for something, let us call it
a certainty, which he did not find in the Church of England. The
surprise to me is that one whose religion, I have always thought, ran
upon such personal and individualistic lines, should not have found in
Anglicanism the very liberty he most desired. The distinguishing feature
of Anglicanism is that it allows the largest amount of personal liberty,
both as regards opinion and also as regards the use of Catholic
traditions, which is permitted by an ecclesiastical body in the world.
The Anglican Church claims and exercises very little authority at all.
Each individual Bishop has a considerable discretionary power, and some
allow a far wider liberty of action than others. In all cases,
divergences of doctrine and practice are dealt with by personal
influence, tact, and compromise, and _force majeure_ is invoked as
little as possible. In the last hundred years, during which there have
been strong and active movements in various directions in the Church of
England both towards Catholic doctrine and Latitudinarianism, such
synodical and legal action as has been taken has generally proved to be
a mistake. It is hard to justify the system logica