emnation in a letter to the Bishop of
Oxford. I impute nothing whatever to him, he was ever most kind to
me. Also, they said they could not answer for what individual Bishops
might perhaps say about the Tract in their own charges. I agreed to
their conditions. My one point was to save the Tract.

Not a scrap of writing was given me, as a pledge of the performance
on their side of the engagement. Parts of letters from them were read
to me, without being put into my hands. It was an "understanding." A
clever man had warned me against "understandings" some six years
before: I have hated them ever since.

In the last words of my letter to the Bishop of Oxford I thus
resigned my place in the Movement:--

"I have nothing to be sorry for," I say to him, "except having made
your Lordship anxious, and others whom I am bound to revere. I have
nothing to be sorry for, but everything to rejoice in and be thankful
for. I have never taken pleasure in seeming to be able to move a
party, and whatever influence I have had, has been found, not sought
after. I have acted because others did not act, and have sacrificed a
quiet which I prized. May God be with me in time to come, as He has
been hitherto! and He will be, if I can but keep my hand clean and my
heart pure. I think I can bear, or at least will try to bear, any
personal humiliation, so that I am preserved from betraying sacred
interests, which the Lord of grace and power has given into my
charge."

Footnote

[2] For instance, let candid men consider the form of Absolution
contained in that Prayer Book, of which all clergymen, Evangelical
and Liberal as well as high Church, and (I think) all persons in
University office declare that "it containeth _nothing contrary to
the Word of God_."

I challenge, in the sight of all England, Evangelical clergymen
generally, to put on paper an interpretation of this form of words,
consistent with their sentiments, which shall be less forced than the
most objectionable of the interpretations which Tract 90 puts upon
any passage in the Articles.

"Our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath left _power_ to His Church to
absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in Him, of His great
mercy forgive thee thine offences; and by _His authority committed to
me, I absolve thee from all thy sins_, in the Name of the Father, and
of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."

I subjoin the Roman form, as used in England and elsewhere "Dominus
noster Jesu