my
disadvantage has rested on the popular mind, as if my conduct towards
the Anglican Church, while I was a member of it, was inconsistent with
Christian simplicity and uprightness. An impression of this kind was
almost unavoidable under the circumstances of the case, when a man, who
had written strongly against a cause, and had collected a party round
him by virtue of such writings, gradually faltered in his opposition to
it, unsaid his words, threw his own friends into perplexity and their
proceedings into confusion, and ended by passing over to the side of
those whom he had so vigorously denounced. Sensitive then as I have ever
been of the imputations which have been so freely cast upon me, I have
never felt much impatience under them, as considering them to be a
portion of the penalty which I naturally and justly incurred by my
change of religion, even though they were to continue as long as I
lived. I left their removal to a future day, when personal feelings
would have died out, and documents would see the light, which were as
yet buried in closets or scattered through the country.

This was my state of mind, as it had been for many years, when, in the
beginning of 1864, I unexpectedly found myself publicly put upon my
defence, and furnished with an opportunity of pleading my cause before
the world, and, as it so happened, with a fair prospect of an impartial
hearing. Taken indeed by surprise, as I was, I had much reason to be
anxious how I should be able to acquit myself in so serious a matter;
however, I had long had a tacit understanding with myself, that, in the
improbable event of a challenge being formally made to me, by a person
of name, it would be my duty to meet it. That opportunity had now
occurred; it never might occur again; not to avail myself of it at once
would be virtually to give up my cause; accordingly, I took advantage of
it, and, as it has turned out, the circumstance that no time was allowed
me for any studied statements has compensated, in the equitable judgment
of the public, for such imperfections in composition as my want of
leisure involved.

* * * * *

It was in the number for January 1864, of a magazine of wide
circulation, and in an Article upon Queen Elizabeth, that a popular
writer took occasion formally to accuse me by name of thinking so
lightly of the virtue of Veracity, as in set terms to have countenanced
and defended that neglect of it which