a; I abandoned that old ground,
and took another. I said, "Much as Roman Catholics may denounce us at
present as schismatical, they could not resist us if the Anglican
communion had but that one note of the Church upon it--sanctity." I was
pleased with my new view, but my friends were naturally offended at a
novel line of argument which substituted a sort of methodistic
self-contemplation for the plain and honest tokens of a divine mission
in the Anglican Church.

In spite of my ingrained fears of Rome, in spite of my affection for
Oxford and Oriel, yet I had a secret longing love of Rome, the Mother of
English Christianity. It was the consciousness of this bias in myself
which made me preach so earnestly against the danger of being swayed in
religious inquiry by our sympathy rather than by our reason. I was in
great perplexity, and hardly knew where I stood; I incurred the charge
of weakness from some men, and of mysteriousness and underhand dealing
from the majority. But I have never had any suspicion of my own honesty.

In July, 1844, I wrote to a friend: "I am far more certain, according to
the fathers, that we _are_ in a state of culpable separation than that
developments do _not_ exist under the Gospel, and that the Roman
developments are not the true ones." I then saw that the principle of
development was discernible from the first years of the Catholic
teaching up to the present day. I came to the conclusion that there was
no medium, in true philosophy, between atheism and Catholicity, and that
a perfectly consistent mind must embrace either the one or the other. I
saw that no valid reasons could be assigned for continuing in the
Anglican Church, and that no Valid objections could be taken to joining
the Roman.

In February, 1843, I had made a formal retraction of all the hard things
which I had said against the Church of Rome, and in September I had
resigned the living of St. Mary's, Littlemore included. I began my
"Essay on the Development of Doctrine" in the beginning of 1845, and was
hard at it till October. Before I got to the end, I resolved to be
received into the Catholic Church. Father Dominic came to Littlemore on
October 8, and did for me this charitable service. I left Oxford for
good on February 23, 1846.

_IV.--THE FAITH OF A CATHOLIC_

From the time that I became a Catholic of course I have no further
history of my religious opinions to narrate. I do not mean that I have
given up thinkin