Only I must answer your question. He was the brother
next above me; we were not brothers only but very intimate friends
until we married, and since then we have only been separated in
the relative sense in which our marriages and my public life in
particular, implied. He was a man of high spirit and uncommon
goodness, and for _him_ I have not a thought that is not perfect
confidence and peace.

_March 1._--Even you could not, I am persuaded, do otherwise than
think me rather a savage on Wednesday evening, for the opinion I
gave about helping a bazaar for the sisters of charity of the
Roman community at some place in England. Let me say what I meant
by it and what I did not mean. I did not mean to act as one under
the influence of violent anti-Roman feeling. I rejoice to think in
community of faith among bodies externally separated, so far as it
extends, and it extends very far; most of all with ancient
churches of the greatest extent and the firmest organisation. But
the proselytising agency of the Roman church in this country I
take to be one of the worst of the religious influences of the
age. I do not mean as to its motives, for these I do not presume
to touch, nor feel in any way called upon to question. But I speak
of its effects, and they are most deplorable. The social misery
that has been caused, not for truth, but for loss of truth, is
grievous enough, but it is not all, for to those who are called
converts, and to those who have made them, we owe a very large
proportion of the mischiefs and scandals within our own communion,
that have destroyed the faith of many, and that are I fear
undermining the very principle of faith in thousands and tens of
thousands who as yet suspect neither the process nor the cause.
With this pernicious agency I for my own part wish to have nothing
whatever to do; although I am one who thinks lightly, in
comparison with most men, of the _absolute_ differences in our
belief from the formal documents of the church of Rome, and who
wish for that church, on her own ground, as for our own, all
health that she can desire, all reformation that can be good for
her. The object, however, of what I have said is not to make an
argument, but only to show that if I spoke strongly, I was not
also speaking lightly on such a subject.

_April 20._--I am