all was progress and hope. I do not think I
have ever felt disappointment or impatience, certainly not then; for I
never looked forward to the future, nor do I realize it now.

"My first effort was to write that article on the Catholicity of the
English Church; for two years it quieted me. Since the summer of 1839 I
have written little or nothing on modern controversy.... You know how
unwillingly I wrote my letter to the Bishop in which I committed myself
again, as the safest course under circumstances. The article I speak of
quieted me till the end of 1841, over the affair of No. 90, when that
wretched Jerusalem Bishopric (no personal matter) revived all my alarms.
They have increased up to this moment. At that time I told my secret to
another person in addition.

"You see then that the various ecclesiastical and quasi-ecclesiastical
acts, which have taken place in the course of the last two years and a
half, are not the _cause_ of my state of opinion, but are keen
stimulants and weighty confirmations of a conviction forced upon me,
while engaged in the _course of duty_, viz. that theological reading to
which I had given myself. And this last-mentioned circumstance is a
fact, which has never, I think, come before me till now that I write to
you.

"It is three years since, on account of my state of opinion, I urged the
Provost in vain to let St. Mary's be separated from Littlemore; thinking
I might with a safe conscience serve the latter, though I could not
comfortably continue in so public a place as a University. This was
before No. 90.

"Finally, I have acted under advice, and that, not of my own choosing,
but what came to me in the way of duty, nor the advice of those only who
agree with me, but of near friends who differ from me.

"I have nothing to reproach myself with, as far as I see, in the matter
of impatience; i.e. practically or in conduct. And I trust that He, who
has kept me in the slow course of change hitherto, will keep me still
from hasty acts, or resolves with a doubtful conscience.

"This I am sure of, that such interposition as yours, kind as it is,
only does what _you_ would consider harm. It makes me realize my own
views to myself; it makes me see their consistency; it assures me of my
own deliberateness; it suggests to me the traces of a Providential Hand;
it takes away the pain of disclosures; it relieves me of a heavy secret.

"You may make what use of my letters you think right."

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