essed itself upon me: speaking of cases of
disobedience to ecclesiastical authority, he says, "A man does not
deceive that Bishop whom he sees, but he practises rather upon the
Bishop Invisible, and so the question is not with flesh, but with
God, who knows the secret heart." I wished to act on this principle
to the letter, and I may say with confidence that I never consciously
transgressed it. I loved to act in the sight of my bishop, as if I
was, as it were, in the sight of God. It was one of my special
safeguards against myself and of my supports; I could not go very
wrong while I had reason to believe that I was in no respect
displeasing him. It was not a mere formal obedience to rule that I
put before me, but I desired to please him personally, as I
considered him set over me by the Divine Hand. I was strict in
observing my clerical engagements, not only because they _were_
engagements, but because I considered myself simply as the servant
and instrument of my bishop. I did not care much for the bench of
bishops, except as they might be the voice of my Church: nor should I
have cared much for a Provincial Council; nor for a Diocesan Synod
presided over by my Bishop; all these matters seemed to me to be
_jure ecclesiastico_, but what to me was _jure divino_ was the voice
of my bishop in his own person. My own bishop was my pope; I knew no
other; the successor of the apostles, the vicar of Christ. This was
but a practical exhibition of the Anglican theory of Church
Government, as I had already drawn it out myself. This continued all
through my course; when at length in 1845 I wrote to Bishop Wiseman,
in whose Vicariate I found myself, to announce my conversion, I could
find nothing better to say to him, than that I would obey the Pope as
I had obeyed my own Bishop in the Anglican Church. My duty to him was
my point of honour; his disapprobation was the one thing which I
could not bear. I believe it to have been a generous and honest
feeling; and in consequence I was rewarded by having all my time for
ecclesiastical superior a man, whom had I had a choice, I should have
preferred, out and out, to any other Bishop on the Bench, and for
whose memory I have a special affection, Dr. Bagot--a man of noble
mind, and as kind-hearted and as considerate as he was noble. He ever
sympathised with me in my trials which followed; it was my own fault,
that I was not brought into more familiar personal relations with him
than it was