d with any
reconciliation to the Church on the part of the presiding Bishop;
thereby giving some sort of formal recognition to the doctrines which
such congregations maintain:

"And whereas the dioceses in England are connected together by so close
an intercommunion, that what is done by authority in one, immediately
affects the rest:

"On these grounds, I in my place, being a priest of the English Church
and Vicar of St. Mary the Virgin's, Oxford, by way of relieving my
conscience, do hereby solemnly protest against the measure aforesaid,
and disown it, as removing our Church from her present ground and
tending to her disorganization.

"John Henry Newman.

"November 11, 1841."

* * * * *

Looking back two years afterwards on the above-mentioned and other acts,
on the part of Anglican Ecclesiastical authorities, I observed: "Many a
man might have held an abstract theory about the Catholic Church, to
which it was difficult to adjust the Anglican,--might have admitted a
suspicion, or even painful doubts about the latter,--yet never have been
impelled onwards, had our Rulers preserved the quiescence of former
years; but it is the corroboration of a present, living, and energetic
heterodoxy, that realizes and makes such doubts practical; it has been
the recent speeches and acts of authorities, who had so long been
tolerant of Protestant error, which has given to inquiry and to theory
its force and its edge."

As to the project of a Jerusalem Bishopric, I never heard of any good or
harm it has ever done, except what it has done for me; which many think
a great misfortune, and I one of the greatest of mercies. It brought me
on to the beginning of the end.

CHAPTER IV.

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS FROM 1841 TO 1845.

Sec. 1.

From the end of 1841, I was on my death-bed, as regards my membership
with the Anglican Church, though at the time I became aware of it only
by degrees. I introduce what I have to say with this remark, by way of
accounting for the character of this remaining portion of my narrative.
A death-bed has scarcely a history; it is a tedious decline, with
seasons of rallying and seasons of falling back; and since the end is
foreseen, or what is called a matter of time, it has little interest for
the reader, especially if he has a kind heart. Moreover, it is a season
when doors are closed and curtains drawn, and when the sick man neither
cares nor is able