under which he acted, and so
forth; but those, who have cultivated a loyal feeling towards their
superiors, are the most loving servants, or the most zealous
protestors. If others became so too, if the clergy of Chester
denounced the heresy of their diocesan, they would be doing their
duty, and relieving themselves of the share which they otherwise have
in any possible defection of their brethren."

"St. Stephen's [December 26]. How I fidget! I now fear that the note
I wrote yesterday only makes matters worse by _disclosing_ too much.
This is always my great difficulty.

"In the present state of excitement on both sides, I think of leaving
out altogether my reassertion of No. 90 in my Preface to Volume 6,
and merely saying, 'As many false reports are at this time in
circulation about him, he hopes his well-wishers will take this
Volume as an indication of his real thoughts and feelings: those who
are not, he leaves in God's hand to bring them to a better mind in
His own time.' What do you say to the logic, sentiment, and propriety
of this?"

There was one very old friend, at a distance from Oxford, afterwards
a Catholic, now dead some years, who must have said something to me,
I do not know what, which challenged a frank reply; for I disclosed
to him, I do not know in what words, my frightful suspicion, hitherto
only known to two persons, as regards my Anglicanism, perhaps I might
break down in the event, that perhaps we were both out of the Church.
He answered me thus, under date of Jan. 29, 1842: "I don't think that
I ever was so shocked by any communication, which was ever made to
me, as by your letter of this morning. It has quite unnerved me.... I
cannot but write to you, though I am at a loss where to begin ... I
know of no act by which we have dissevered ourselves from the
communion of the Church Universal.... The more I study Scripture, the
more am I impressed with the resemblance between the Romish principle
in the Church and the Babylon of St. John.... I am ready to grieve
that I ever directed my thoughts to theology, if it is indeed so
uncertain, as your doubts seem to indicate."

While my old and true friends were thus in trouble about me, I
suppose they felt not only anxiety but pain, to see that I was
gradually surrendering myself to the influence of others, who had not
their own claims upon me, younger men, and of a cast of mind
uncongenial to my own. A new school of thought was rising, as is
usual