]. But I promise Moberly, I would do my
utmost to catch all dangerous persons and clap them into confinement
there."

[11] As things stand now, I do not think he would have objected to his
opinion being generally known.

[12] I cannot prove this at this distance of time; but I do not think it
wrong to introduce here the passage containing it, as I am imputing to
the Bishop nothing which the world would think disgraceful, but, on the
contrary, what a large religious body would approve.

Christmas Bay, 1841. "I have been dreaming of Moberly all night. Should
not he and the like see, that it is unwise, unfair, and impatient to ask
others, What will you do under circumstances, which have not, which may
never come? Why bring fear, suspicion, and disunion into the camp about
things which are merely _in posse_? Natural, and exceedingly kind as
Barter's and another friend's letters were, I think they have done great
harm. I speak most sincerely when I say, that there are things which I
neither contemplate, nor wish to contemplate; but, when I am asked about
them ten times, at length I begin to contemplate them.

"He surely does not mean to say, that _nothing_ could separate a man
from the English Church, e.g. its avowing Socinianism; its holding the
Holy Eucharist in a Socinian sense. Yet, he would say, it was not
_right_ to contemplate such things.

"Again, our case is [diverging] from that of Ken's. To say nothing of
the last miserable century, which has given us to _start_ from a much
lower level and with much less to _spare_ than a Churchman in the 17th
century, questions of _doctrine_ are now coming in; with him, it was a
question of discipline.

"If such dreadful events were realized, I cannot help thinking we should
all be vastly more agreed than we think now. Indeed, is it possible
(humanly speaking) that those, who have so much the same heart, should
widely differ? But let this be considered, as to alternatives. _What_
communion could we join? Could the Scotch or American sanction the
presence of its Bishops and congregations in England, without incurring
the imputation of schism, unless indeed (and is that likely?) they
denounced the English as heretical?

"Is not this a time of strange providences? is it not our safest course,
without looking to consequences, to do simply _what we think right_ day
by day? shall we not be sure to go wrong, if we attempt to trace by
anticipation the course of divine Providence?