still I had
good and true friends around me of the old sort, in and out of Oxford
too. But on the other hand, though I neither was so fond of the
persons, nor of the methods of thought, which belonged to this new
school, excepting two or three men, as of the old set, though I could
not trust in their firmness of purpose, for, like a swarm of flies,
they might come and go, and at length be divided and dissipated, yet
I had an intense sympathy in their object and in the direction of
their path, in spite of my old friends, in spite of my old life-long
prejudices. In spite of my ingrained fears of Rome, and the decision
of my reason and conscience against her usages, in spite of my
affection for Oxford and Oriel, yet I had a secret longing love of
Rome the author of English Christianity, and I had a true devotion to
the Blessed Virgin, in whose College I lived, whose altar I served,
and whose immaculate purity I had in one of my earliest printed
Sermons made much of. And it was the consciousness of this bias in
myself, if it is so to be called, which made me preach so earnestly
against the danger of being swayed by our sympathy rather than our
reason in religious inquiry. And moreover, the members of this new
school looked up to me, as I have said, and did me true kindnesses,
and really loved me, and stood by me in trouble, when others went
away, and for all this I was grateful; nay, many of them were in
trouble themselves, and in the same boat with me, and that was a
further cause of sympathy between us; and hence it was, when the new
school came on in force, and into collision with the old, I had not
the heart, any more than the power, to repel them; I was in great
perplexity, and hardly knew where I stood; I took their part: and,
when I wanted to be in peace and silence, I had to speak out, and I
incurred the charge of weakness from some men, and of mysteriousness,
shuffling, and underhand dealing from the majority.

Now I will say here frankly, that this sort of charge is a matter
which I cannot properly meet, because I cannot duly realise it. I
have never had any suspicion of my own honesty; and, when men say
that I was dishonest, I cannot grasp the accusation as a distinct
conception, such as it is possible to encounter. If a man said to me,
"On such a day and before such persons you said a thing was white,
when it was black," I understand what is meant well enough, and I can
set myself to prove an alibi or to expla