they would be doing their duty, and relieving themselves of
the share which they otherwise have in any possible defection of their
brethren.

"St. Stephen's [Day, December 26]. How I fidget! I now fear that the
note I wrote yesterday only makes matters worse by _disclosing_ too
much. This is always my great difficulty.

"In the present state of excitement on both sides, I think of leaving
out altogether my reassertion of No. 90 in my Preface to Volume 6 [of
Parochial Sermons], and merely saying, 'As many false reports are at
this time in circulation about him, he hopes his well-wishers will take
this Volume as an indication of his real thoughts and feelings: those
who are not, he leaves in God's hand to bring them to a better mind in
His own time.' What do you say to the logic, sentiment, and propriety of
this?"

An old friend, at a distance from Oxford, Archdeacon Robert I.
Wilberforce, must have said something to me at this time, I do not know
what, which challenged a frank reply; for I disclosed to him, I do not
know in what words, my frightful suspicion, hitherto only known to two
persons, viz. his brother Henry and Mr. Frederic Rogers,[13] that, as
regards my Anglicanism, perhaps I might break down in the event,--that
perhaps we were both out of the Church. I think I recollect expressing
my difficulty, as derived from the Arian and Monophysite history, in a
form in which it would be most intelligible to him, as being in fact an
admission of Bishop Bull's; viz. that in the controversies of the early
centuries the Roman Church was ever on the right side, which was of
course a _prima facie_ argument in favour of Rome and against
Anglicanism now. He answered me thus, under date of Jan. 29, 1842: "I
don't think that I ever was so shocked by any communication, which was
ever made to me, as by your letter of this morning. It has quite
unnerved me.... I cannot but write to you, though I am at a loss where
to begin.... I know of no act by which we have dissevered ourselves from
the communion of the Church Universal.... The more I study Scripture,
the more am I impressed with the resemblance between the Romish
principle in the Church and the Babylon of St. John.... I am ready to
grieve that I ever directed my thoughts to theology, if it is indeed so
uncertain, as your doubts seem to indicate."

[13] Now Lord Blachford.

While my old and true friends were thus in trouble about me, I suppose
they felt not only anxiety b