d--how am I to
view my position? What am I witnessing to? What, if need be, is one to
suffer for? A man has no leaning towards Rome, does not feel, as
others do, the strength of her exclusive claims to allegiance, the
perfection of her system, its right so to overbalance all the good
found in ours as to make ours absolutely untrustworthy for a Christian
to rest in, notwithstanding all circumstances of habit, position, and
national character; has such doubts on the Roman theory of the Church,
the Ultramontane, and such instincts not only against many of their
popular religious customs and practical ways of going on, but against
their principles of belief (_e.g._ divine faith = relics), as to repel
him from any wish to sacrifice his own communion for theirs; yet
withal, and without any great right on his part to complain, is set
down as a man who may any day, and certainly will some day, go over;
and he has no lawful means of removing the suspicion:--why is it
_tanti_ to submit to this?

However little sympathy we Englishmen have with Rome, the Western
Churches under Rome are really living and holy branches of the Church
Catholic; corruptions they may have, so may we; but putting these
aside, they are Catholic Christians, or Catholic Christianity has
failed out of the world: we are no more [Catholic] than they. But
this, _public opinion_ has not for centuries, and _does not now_,
realise or allow. So no one can express in reality and detail a
practical belief in their Catholicity, in their equality (setting one
thing against another) with us as Christians, without being suspected
of what such belief continually leads to--disloyalty to the English
Church. Yet such belief is nevertheless well-grounded and right, and
there is no great hope for the Church till it gains ground, soberly,
powerfully, and apart from all low views of proselytising, or fear of
danger. What therefore the disadvantage of those among us who do not
really deserve the imputation of Romanising may be meant for, is to
break this practical belief to the English Church. We may be silenced,
but, without any wish to leave the English Church, we cannot give up
the belief, that the Western Church under Rome is a true, living,
venerable branch of the Christian Church. There are dangers in such a
belief, but they must be provided against, they do not affect the
truth of the belief.

Such se