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YALE
UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT

BOOKS BY THE VERY REV. MONSIGNOR
ROBERT HUGH BENSON

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LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
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CONFESSIONS of
A CONVERT

BY
ROBERT HUGH BENSON

NEW IMPRESSION

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK
LONDON, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
1914

COPYRIGHT, I913, BY
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
First Edition, March, 1913
Reprinted, January, 1914

NORWOOD* MASS-U'S-A
THE. PLIMPTON. PRESS

DEDICATED TO
FATHER REGINALD BUCKLER, O.P.
WHOSE HAND UNLOCKED FOR ME THE GATE OF THE
CITY OF GOD AND LED ME IN

PREFACE
The following chapters were first pubhshed, in
substance, in the American Cathohc magazine, the
"Ave Maria," in 1906-1907, and it is by the kind
permission of the Editor, Father Hudson, that they
are now reprinted, with a few additions and correc
tions. During the time that has elapsed since their
serial appearance, the writer has received a very
large number of appUcations that they should be
issued in book form; and after long hesitation, he
has acceded to these requests. He hesitated partly
because it appeared to him really doubtful whether
their issue would be of any real service at aU, partly
because he occasionaUy contemplated adding con
siderably to them, and annexing to them further
"confessions of a convert" since his conversion.
This latter idea, however, he has abandoned for
the present, o'wing to the extraordinary difi&culty he
has f oimd in drawing any real comparisons between
the rapidly fading impression of Anglicanism upon
his memory, and the continuaUy deepening experi-

vm

PREFACE

ences of the CathoUc reUgion. Cardinal Newman
compares, somewhere, the sensations of a convert
from AngUcanism to those of a man in a fairy story,
who, after wandering aU night in a city of enchant
ment, turns after sunrise to look back upon it, and
finds to his astonishment that the bmldings are no
longer there; they have gone up Uke -wraiths and
mists imder the light of the risen day. So the pres
ent writer has found. He no longer, as in the first
months of his conversion, is capable of comparing
the two systems of beUef together, since that which
he has left appears to him no longer a coherent
system at aU. There are, of course, associations?
memories, and emotions stUl left in his mind —
some of them very sacred and dear to his heart;
he StiU is happy in numbering among his friends
many persons who stUl find amongst those associa
tions and memories a system which they believe to
be the reUgion instituted by Jesus Christ; yet he
himseU can no longer see in them anything more
than hints and fragments and aspirations detached
from their centre and reconstructed into a purely
human edifice -without foundation or soUdity. Yet
he is conscious of no bitterness at aU — at the worst
he experiences sometimes a touch of impatience
merely at the thought of ha-ving been delayed so

PREFACE ix
long by shadows from the possession of divine
substance. He cannot, however, with justice, com
pare the two systems at aU; one cannot, adequately,
compare a dream with a reaUty. He has abandoned,
therefore, the attempt — which lack of leisure in
any case would make practicaUy useless — to place
side by side -with his drowsy memories of AngUcanism
the story of his vivid adventures under the sunUght
of Eternal Truth. And he pubUshes the history of
that long-drawn process whereby he passed from
the one to the other, purely on the ad-vice of numer
ous friends and inquirers. He is conscious of the
appaUing egotism of such pages as these; yet he
has StiU to learn how an autobiography can be
written without it. ROBERT HUGH BENSON
Edinburgh, November, 19 12.

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT

When one stands at last upon high ground, it is
extraordinarily difificult to trace the road behind
by which one has approached: it -winds, rises, faUs,
broadens, and narrows, imtU the mind is be-wUdered.
Nor indeed do the comments of friends and critics
shouted from below tend to clear the situation.
§1. I have been told that I became a CathoUc
because I was dispirited at faUure and because I
was elated at success; because I was imaginative
and because I was imperceptive; because I was not
hopeful enough and because I was too hopeful, faith
less and too trusting, too ardent and too despair
ing, proud and pusiUanimous. I have even been
told, since the first pubUcation of these papers, that
I have never truly imderstood the Church of Eng
land. Of course that is possible; but, if so, it is
certainly not for lack of opportimity. I was
brought up, as wiU be seen presently, in an ecclesias
tical household for twenty-five years; I was a
clergyman for nine years, in town and country and
a ReUgious House. My father was the spiritual

4 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
head of the AngUcan communion; my mother,
brothers, and sister are stUl members of it, as weU
as a large number of my friends. I was prepared
for orders by the most eminent EvangeUcal of his
day. I ended by becoming a conAonced High
Churchman. It seems, further, now that I have my
pen in my hand, that I never before really attempted
to disentangle the strands, and that it is rash of
me to attempt it now. It is fuU of danger. It is
extremely easy to deceive oneself, and it is extremely
hard not to be self-conscious and complacent, not
to see only what one would wish to see; and, above
everything, one is afraid that, after aU, it is boimd
to be very uncon-vincing to other people. For
you cannot trace the guidance of the Spirit of
God or diagnose His operations in the secret rooms
of the soul: He seems at times to let good go and
to bring instead good out of e-vil, and Ught into
voluntary darkness. . . .
At the best, therefore, aU that is possible is to
describe the external features of the coimtry through
which the soul has passed — the crossroads, the
obstacles, the ra-vines — and to give some sort of
account of the consultations held by the way.
Faith, after aU, is a di-vine operation wrought in the
dark, even though it may seem to be embodied in

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 5
inteUectual arguments and historical facts; for it
is necessary to remember that two equaUy sincere
and inteUigent souls may encounter the same ex
ternal e-vidences and draw mutuaUy exclusive con
clusions from them. The real heart of the matter
Ues somewhere else. . . . Catechumens, therefore,
must remember that while on the one side they
must of course clear the ground by the action of the
inteUect, on the other side it is far more -vital that
they should pray, purify motives, and yield them
selves to God.
§ 2. First, I think, it wUl be as weU to describe,
so far as is possible, my original reUgious education
and position.
I was brought up in the moderate High Church
school of thought, and naturaUy accepted that
position as the one most truly representative of the
AngUcan communion. I learned — that is to say,
so far as I could understand them — the tenets of
the Caroline di-vines; I was taught to be reverent,
sober-minded, anti-Roman; to beUeve in the Real
Presence -without defining it; to appreciate state-
liness, dignity, and beauty in worship; to study first
the Bible in general and later the Greek Testament.
It seems to me, if I may say it without impertinence,
that my religious education was excellently wise.

6 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
I was interested in reUgion; I worshipped in dig
nified cathedrals and churches; I was aUowed to
go out before the sermon; I was told the stories of
Dr. Neale and the aUegories of Dr. WUberforce and
the histories of the early Christian martyrs; and
the -virtues held up to me as the most admirable
were those of truthfulness, courage, honour, obedi
ence, and reverence. I do not think that I loved
God consciously, but at least I was never frightened
at the presentation of Him or terrified by the threat
of heU. I think I accepted Him quite unemotion-
aUy as a universal Parental Presence and Authority.
The Person of Our Lord I apprehended more from
the Gospels than from spiritual experience; I thought
of Him in the past and the future tenses, seldom in
the present.
My father's influence upon me was always so
great that I despair of describing it. I do not
think that he imderstood me very weU; but his
personality was so dominant and insistent that
the lack of this understanding made very Uttle
diEEerence; he formed and moulded my -views on
reUgious matters in such a manner that it would
have seemed to me, whUe he Uved, a kind of blas
phemy to have held other opinions than his. Certain
points in his system of beUef puzzled me then, and

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 7
they puzzle me stiU; yet these no more produced
in my mind any serious question as to the soundness
and truth of his faith than inteUectual diflficulties
in God's Revelation produce doubts in my mind
at the present time. He was, in the main, a High
Churchman of the old school; he had an intense love
of dignity and splendour in divine worship, a great
sense of Church authority, and a firm orthodoxy
with regard to the main foundations of the Christian
Creed. Yet while he would say, partly humorously,
yet with a great deal of seriousness too, that he
ought reaUy to have been a canon in a French
cathedral, while he would recite scrupulously every
day the mornmg and evening prayer of the Church
of England, while he had an intense love of Church
history and a deep knowledge both of that and of
Christian Uturgies and the -writings of the Fathers,
yet, in quite unexpected points he would fail, as it
seemed to me, in carrying out his principles. For
example, there is no custom more deeply rooted in
antiquity or more expUcitly enjoined in the Book of
Common Prayer than that of the Friday fast; there
is scarcely any ecclesiastical discipline more primitive
than that which forbids the marriage of a man who
has already received Major Orders; there is nothing
more clear, I should have thought, among the dis-

8 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
puted questions of matrimony, than that the release
of one partner, -with leave to marry again, simul
taneously releases the other partner from the bond.
Yet I am stUl whoUy unable to understand, re
membering his enthusiastic love of what I may caU
Church principles, how my father justified — as I
am con-vinced he did justify — his attitude to those
three points, for I never remember his abstaining
from meat on a Friday or any other day, though I
know that he denied himself instead in other ways;
he raised no objections, except on purely private
grounds, to AngUcan clergy or bishops contracting
marriage; and he held, I know, that while the
giulty party, when a divorce had been pronounced
by the law of the land, must not seek the blessing
of the Church upon a subsequent union, the "inno
cent party ' ' was perfectly at Uberty to do so. Again,
I never understood, and do not understand now,
how my father interpreted the words "I beUeve in
the Holy CathoUc Church." He would rule out,
I know, from external unity those bodies of Christians
that do not even claim to possess episcopal succes
sion; he hesitated, as I shaU relate presently, as
to whether or no the Church of Rome had forfeited,
through her profession of what he beUeved to be
heretical doctrines, her place in the body of Christ*

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 9
yet he showed the greatest sympathy -with and care
for certain groups of Eastern Christians whose
tenets have been explicitly condemned by Councils
which he himself would acknowledge as ecumenical.
Again, I have never really understood his attitude
towards such doctrines as those of the Sacrament
of Penance. He held firmly in theory that Jesus
Christ has given authority to His ministers to "de
clare and pronounce to his people, being penitent,
the absolution and remission of their sins"; and, as
a matter of practice, he himself, at a certain crisis
in my Ufe, recommended to me, when I told him
that I -wished to go to Confession, a "discreet and
learned" clergyman to whom I had better apply;
yet he never urged the practice, so far as I am aware,
upon anyone, and never went to Confession him
self. He beUeved, then, in the Power of the Keys;
yet he seemed to hold simultaneously that this
reUef was to be sought only if peace of mind could
not be obtained by other means, unless, indeed, he
held, as I think possible, that the Power was effec
tively exercised hi the pubUc "absolutions" uttered
in the course of the Church services. He appears,
therefore, on the surface, to have held that the
authority given with such extraordinary solemnity
by Christ to His Apostles, was not in the least

lo CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
even normally necessary to the forgiveness of post-
baptismal mortal sin.
Now I am perfectly con-vinced that my father did
not believe himself inconsistent — that he had, in
fact, principles which reconcUed to his o-wn mind
these apparent contradictions. Yet I never knew,
and do not now know, what they were. For, though
he loved nothing better than to be consulted by his
chUdren on reUgious matters, as a matter of fact
he was not very approachable by timid minds.
I used always to be a little afraid of showing igno
rance, and stUl more of shocking him. Never once,
in a genuine difficulty, did I find him anything but
utterly tender and considerate; yet his intense
personaUty and his almost fierce faith continually
produced in me the iUusion that he would think it
unfilial for me to do anything except acquiesce in
stantly in his judgment; the result was that I was
often completely at a loss as to what that judgment
was. Religion at home, then, was always coloured and
¦vi-vified by my father's indi-viduaUty. I remember
even now the sense of finaUty and completeness
which it conveyed. The moming and evening
services, first in the tiny prayer room at Lincoln,
where my father was ChanceUor from my first to my

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT n
fifth year, then in the beautiful minute chapel at
Lis Escop, Truro, where he was Bishop untU after
my thirteenth burthday, and finally in the lovely
chapels at Lambeth and Addington after his eleva
tion to the see of Canterbury — these services, every
detaU of which was thought out by my father and
carried out UturgicaUy and reverently, stUl have
a strange aroma to my mind that I suppose my
memory -wiU never lose.
Other ways in which my father influenced my
reUgion were as foUows.
On Sunday afternoons in the country we would
walk -with him, rather slowly and recoUectedly, for
about an hour and a half; and during these expedi
tions one of us would usuaUy read aloud, or some
times my father himseU would read aloud from some
reUgious book. I do not think that these books
were very weU selected for a boy's point of -view.
The poems of George Herbert were frequently read
on these occasions, and these very peculiar, scholarly,
and ingenious meditations used to produce in me,
occasionaUy, a sudden thriU of pleasure, but far more
commonly a kind of despairing impatience. Or,
again, some interminable life of a saint or a volume
of Church history would be read; or a book of Dean
Stanley's on the Holy Land. Once only can I

12 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
remember, with real deUght, so far back as early in
the eighties, how my father fascinated me for haU
an hour or so by reading aloud, as we walked, the
martyrdom of St. Perpetua and her companions. I
remember, too, the irrepressible awe with which I
discovered presently that he had been translating
aloud and at sight, in perfect English and without
hesitation, from the Latin "Acta Martyrum."
At the close of these Sunday walks, and some
times also on weekdays after breakfast, we would
go to my father's study for Bible-reading or Greek
Testament. It is difficult to describe these lessons.
For the most part my father would comment con
tinuously and brUliantly, though often far above my
capacity to understand, putting questions occasion
aUy, sho-wing great pleasure when we answered
inteUigently, or, stiU more, when we put reasonable
questions of our o-wn, and a rather oppressive dis
appointment when we were listless or stupid. It
was aU extremely stimulating to the inteUect; it
was, also, always somewhat of a strain; but I think
now that its lack consisted in the predominance of
the mind element over the soul. I do not remember
that these lessons made it easier to love God; they
were often interesting, and sometimes absorbing; but
I do not, -with aU reverence to my father's memory.

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 13
even now beUeve that in myself they developed the
spiritual side of reUgion. For himself, with his o-wn
great spirituaUty, it was natural enough that his
soul should find pleasurable activity in the inteUec
tual scholarly plane; for myself there -v\ras a consid
erable tendency to think that inteUectuaUsm and
Greek Testament ought to be the very heart of
reUgion. For a chUd, I beUeve, there are other
moulds more natural than that of the inteUect in
which spiritual Ufe may shape itself: little pieces of
ceremonial, connected, for example, with the saying
of his prayers, actions of reverence, such as the
sign of the cross or the fingering of beads, s)Tiibolic
objects of worship, such as crucifixes or statues,
and, for instruction, an almost endless use of attrac
tive and weU-dra-wn pictures — these, I beUeve,
are a better machinery for the shaping and develop
ment of a chUd's spiritual Ufe than the methods of
the inteUect. I remember, for instance, that whUe
George Herbert's poems usuaUy bored and irritated
me, I fotmd a real attraction in the quaint de-vices
of "Easter -wings" or the "altar" — the outUnes,
that is to say, in which once or t-wice he prints his
verses on the page.
As regards moraUty, I was also a little puzzled
by my father's attitude. He had a very great

14 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
sense of the duty of obedience, and this sense, I
think, rather overpowering in its sternness, tended
to obscure to some extent in my o-wn mind the
various grades of objective wrongdoing. Two or
three sins stood out to me in my childhood, as
supremely -wicked — such things as lying, thie-ving,
and cruelty. But beyond these practically all
other sins seemed to me about the same; to climb
over the -wire fences that bounded the drive at Lis
Escop by putting one's feet anywhere except at
the point where the -wire pierced the upright railings
— (my father bade me always do this to avoid
stretching the wire) — seemed to me about as -wicked
as to lose my temper, to sulk, or to be guUty of mean
ness. In this way, to some degree, one's apprecia
tion of moraUty was, I think, a Uttle duUed: since
to forget an order, or to disregard it in a moment of
blmding excitement, was -visited by my father -with
what appeared to be as much anger as if it had been
a deUberate moral fault. Once, later, at Eton, I was
accused of grave cmelty to another boy and was very
nearly flogged for it. I happened to be mnocent and,
ultimately, cleared myseU entirely of the charge
after a very searching examination by the head
master; but for the time, after the news of the
charge had come to my father m the hoUdays

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 15
¦whUe I was at home, I was very nearly paralyzed
in mind by the appaUing atmosphere of my father's
indignation and whoUy faUed to defend myself
except by tears and sUent despair. Yet aU the time
I was conscious of a faint reUef in the knowledge
that even if I were guUty — and at the time so con
fused was I that I reaUy scarcely knew whether I
were guUty or not — my father could not possibly
be angrier with me than he had been, for instance,
when I threw stones at the goldfish in the pond or
played with my fingers during prayers.
Such, more or less, was my father's influence
upon my reUgious life. I do not, as I have said,
think that he made it easy to love God; but he did,
undoubtedly, estabUsh in my mind an ineradicable
sense of a Moral Government in the universe, of a
tremendous Power behind phenomena, of an austere
and orderly dignity with which this Moral Power
presented itself. He himself was wonderfuUy tender
hearted and lo-ving, intensely desirous of my good,
and, if I had but known it, touchingly covetous of my
love and confidence; yet his very anxiety on my be
half to some degree obscured the fire of his love, or,
rather, caused it to affect me as heat rather than as
Ught. He dominated me completely by his own
forcefulness, and I felt when he died, as a man said

i6 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
to me of his own paraUel experience, as if the roof
were Ufted off the world.
§ 3. At my private school in Clevedon we attended
a church rather more "high" than those to which
I had been accustomed. It contained a dark, mys
tical-looking sanctuary, with iron and brass gates;
the clergy wore coloured stoles, and Gregorian chants
were in use. But I have not the lightest recoUec
tion of being astonished at any difference of doctrine
from that which I had learned; though I was, I
think, a Uttle awed and curious at the minute varia
tions of ritual, and certainly depressed by the species
of plain-song we employed.
At Eton, however, I found myself back again in
the famUiar academic atmosphere of plain dignity,
beautiful singing, and indefiniteness of dogma; and
it was here, I suppose, that I should have received
deep impressions of reUgion. But I did not, nor
did any other boy of my acquaintance, so far as I
am aware. My Confirmation was postponed a year
or two, because I was supposed to be indifferent
to it, as indeed I was. I regarded it as a seemly
ceremony, to be undergone with gra-vity, and to
represent a kind of spiritual coming of age; and I
was reaUy surprised when, upon at last inquirmg
of my father as to when I was to be confirmed, since

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 17
most of my friends already were so, I was told that
I ought to have been confirmed a year before, but
that the rite had been postponed because I had not
seemed to desire it. However, smce I had taken
the initiative at last, it should be as I suggested. I
heard this -with a faint sense of injustice; for I had
become so accustomed to foUow my father's lead in
matters of reUgion that it had never even occurred
to me that in any matter I ought to take the initia
tive myself.
But even Confirmation, combined with very lo-ving
and impressive talks from my father, made no dif
ference to me. For my preparation I went to
"m'tutor," who talked to me about half a dozen
times alone, chiefly on moraUty and the need of being
strenuous. I cannot remember that much was said
about doctrine; it was, rather, taken for granted.
For example, a kind of informal confession was sug
gested to me tentatively, though no word was said
of absolution, and indeed the idea of such a thing
was completely unfamUiar to me. I answered that
I had nothing I -wished to reveal. FinaUy, Dr.
Goulbum's "Personal Religion," a stout, unattrac
tive book, was presented to me. A year or two ago
I found it again, and noticed that the leaves were
stUl uncut. So little impression, in fact, did the

i8 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
whole affair make on me that I cannot remember
even what Bishop it was that performed the cere
mony; though I think it must have been the famous
historian. Dr. Stubbs, of Oxford.
The only incident connected with my confirma
tion that is reaUy clear to my mind is an anxious
consultation held afterwards -with three friends as
to whether it would be decent to play fives in the
afternoon, or whether it would be more proper to
spend the time in decorous sUence. We were not,
I beUeve, in the least h)rpocritical or contemptuous;
we -wished to do what was right in the matter; and
if fives could be reconcUed with it, so much the better.
We decided to play, and did so with a sUghtly
chastened air. My mother also, soon after, gave
me a little sUver Maltese cross, engraved -with the
date of my confirmation — March 26, 1887. I wore
it on my watch chaui for a whUe — for at Eton at
that time there was as Uttle opposition as enthusi
asm towards reUgion — and presently lost it.
On the day of Communion I think I was rather
more impressed. It was all unusual and mysteri
ous; for only once before in my Ufe had I even
attended the service. I vaguely beUeved that I
entered into a closer relationship with my Di-vine
Ruler than ever before; and, although I was sUghtly

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 19
depressed at the thought that in future I must
behave myself better, I beUeved that I sincerely
intended to do so.
Two other incidents I also remember connected
-with reUgion about this time. The first was my
discovery, in a deserted tower-room at Lambeth, of
a copy of Dr. Ken's Prayers for Winchester scholars,
which somehow appealed to my imagination, and
in which my father -with great pleasure wrote my
name when I asked him if I might have the book.
I used this assiduously for a few months, liking, I
think, the EngUsh and a certain gracious formaUty
about the book. Then I dropped my prayers alto
gether and only went to Communion — though
each time, I think, with tolerably good mtentions —
so often as it was necessary to avoid attention.
The second incident was one entirely uncharac
teristic of Eton. The son of an EvangeUcal dig
nitary underwent some sort of a religious crisis at
home and set to work -with praiseworthy zeal upon
his acquaintances. I was one of them, and was
persuaded by him, -with a friend of mine, to attend
a Bible -reading, with prayer, held in his room.
About four other boys assembled, and we sat there
in horror, exchangmg furtive glances whUe our
leader expounded. At the sound of a footstep out-

20 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
side. Bibles vanished as U in conjuring tricks, and
the exercises, I remember, were brought to an end
after two meetings by a sudden irrepressible explosion
of laughter from my o-wn particular friend. He
sat there, scarlet-faced, -with the tears streaming
down his cheeks and laughter bursting from him in
successive explosions, whUe the rest of us giggled
and eyed our instructor alternately. I think that the
whole affair would have been extremely unhealthy
U it had affected us in the slightest. Fortunately
it did not, and we came away -with our opinion un
changed that such zeal was all rather bad form and
of no value.
Our evangelizer, however, was not discouraged,
and his next attempt was more serious. He managed
somehow to persuade an "old boy" to come do-wn to
Eton and address the house, which he did, I regret
to say, in the presence of the house-master. It was
very terrible. He deUvered an emotional speech
that was practicaUy an open confession of his o-wn
e-vU li-ving at school. I do not think I have ever
seen boys more sincerely horrified — not indeed
at the substance of his story, but at the appalling
"bad form" of aUuding to it in a pubUc manner.
This same attitude towards moraUty manifested
itself hi other ways. Chapel ser-vdces at Eton

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 21
counted for very Uttle indeed usuaUy in a religious
direction; they were rather artistic, very academic,
and represented, I think, the same kind of official
homage to Almighty God as cheering the Queen
when she came to see us, or when we, as on the occa
sion of her first JubUee, went to the Castle to see
her, represented our loyalty towards Victoria. You
might or might not be personaUy enthusiastic, but
at least you must pay a seemly deference. Now
and again, however, one clerical master in particu
lar would make an honest attempt to appeal person
aUy in a sermon to the consciences of his hearers,
especiaUy on the subject of purity. Now his
hearers, in the main, had no common code on the
matter at aU. A boy might be fantasticaUy e-vU in
that regard or scrupulously fastidious, without in
the least forfeiting the respect of his feUows; it
was, according to the Eton code of that time,
simply a matter of personal taste. Some things
you must not be: you must not be personaUy dirty,
or a coward, or a buUy, or a thief; but in this other
matter you could choose for yourself -without being
thought either a blackguard or a prude, if you made
the one choice, or if you made the other. These ap
peals, therefore, from the pulpit, made usuaUy with a
great deal of sincere ardour, were merely looked upon

22 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
as sUghtly absurd. The authorities had their -view
on the subject, of course — we knew that — and
we had the other. No kind of impression, therefore,
was ever made by these fervent discourses — since
the preacher was nothing of a real orator — and
no comment ever uttered upon them except an ob
servation, perhaps, that "A  seemed very excited
to-day." In a word, such warmth of feeling upon
a subject on which our minds were completely made
up, one way or the other, seemed to us to be sUghtly
bad form. In any case, too, it was not a subject
for pubUc discussion.
It was the lack of indi-vidual dealing -with the soul,
then, that was accountable for so much evU. Efforts
have been recently made, I beUeve, to remedy this
in some degree; and yet the true and only remedy
is, as a matter of fact, practicaUy impossible. Until
something resembling the business-like system of
CathoUc schools in the encouragement of private
devotion, the regularity of Confession, or at least
the recognition of some such practice as a reasonable
mode of reUef — untU these things in some form
or another find their places in the great Protestant
public schools, I do not understand how the
pubUc formaUties of religion can be anything more
than formaUties. And yet nothing but the peculiar

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 23
safeguards of the CathoUc Confessional can reaUy
meet the case, and these, from the very nature of
the case, are out of the question. A purely volun
tary system of Confession, such as they practised
at the Woodard schools, though better than nothing,
yet has unavoidable drawbacks.
§ 4. It was after lea-ving Eton, and before going
up to Cambridge, that I received what was really
the first touch of personal religion. I was in London
for a year or so, and for a short time I was vaguely
interested by Theosophy; then suddenly I became
entirely absorbed and fascinated by the music and
dignity of worship in St. Paul's Cathedral. The
high celebration there is, indeed, as Gounod is
supposed to have said, one of the most impressive
reUgious functions in Europe. I began to go to
Communion every week and to attend every other
service that I could possibly manage — sometimes
in the organ loft, watching the mysteries of the
keys and stops, sometimes sitting in the staUs. I
did not in the least appreciate the sermons, though
I was vaguely affected by Canon Liddon. It was
the music, first and last, and it was through that
opening that I first began to catch glimpses of the
spiritual world; and my sense of worship was further
developed and directed by an absolute passion that

24 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
I conceived for Mr. Shorthouse's book, ",
Inglesant." I read it again and again, as I
it StiU, though aware of its tendency to Panthe
and even now I know passages of it by heart,
ticularly those dealing -with the Person of Our I
It seemed that I had found at last the secret of t
vague religious ceremonies to which I had ah
conformed -with uninterested equanimity. A
warm friendship or two, also formed at this t
helped me in the same direction.
§ 5. At Cambridge everything receded once n
with the exception of a sudden short and int
interest in Swedenborgianism. Then I lost
interest. I neglected my prayers, except for a v
when my father gave me a beautiful editioi
Bishop Andrews' "Preces Privatae" in Greek
Latin; I almost gave up Communion; and the
thread that was left to attach me in any sens
the supernatural was, once more, music. I
seldom attended my own chapel, but went ins
continually to the evening service at King's, wl
in another way from that of St. Paul's Cathe(
was, and is, quite incomparable. About ha
dozen tunes, too, I attended — -with a recent
vert, also an old Etonian — High Mass at
CathoUc church, where I worked later as a pr

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 25
but it made no impression on me, except one of
vaguely mingled contempt and awe. But I re
member distinctly an agreeable sense of shock and
elation when at the Asperges one day I felt a drop
of holy water on my face. My friend lent to me a
"Garden of the Soul," which I never returned to
him. Twelve years later, when I was myself a
Catholic, I -wrote to remind him of this, observing
that now the book was more mine than ever.
Of course what reUgion I had was very Uttle more
than artistic; it made no sort of difference to my
actions, but it kept me just in touch with things
that were not whoUy of this world.
My relations with regard to religion are very
aptly iUustrated by a Uttle adventure I passed
through in S-witzerland about this time.
One of my brothers and I were ascending the
Piz Palii, a peak of the Bemina range in the Engadine,
and upon reaching the summit after a very laborious
cUmb from a little after midnight untU eight o'clock
in the moming through very hea-vy snow, my heart
suddenly coUapsed. I was dosed -with neat brandy,
but o-wing to very severe training recently undergone
at Cambridge to reduce my steering weight, this
faUed properly to restore me, and for about two
hours I was carried along the arete of the mountain

26 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
apparently unconscious: my brother, indeed, for
the greater part of that time thought me actuaUy
dead. Now although I appeared unconscious, and
for a whUe was so, I was perfectly aware, even when
my senses faUed to act, that I was dying; I even
began to speculate what would be the first phenome
non of the supernatural world that would disclose
itseU to me; and I fancied, owing no doubt to the
suggestion conveyed to me by the vast icy peaks
on which I had closed my eyes, that this would be
a -vision of the Great White Throne Yet never for
one instant was I conscious of the least touch of
apprehensiveness at the thought of meeting God,
nor of the least impulse to make an act of contrition
for my past Ufe. My reUgion, such as it was, was
of so impersonal and un-vital a nature that, whUe
I never doubted the objective tmth of what I had
been taught, I neither feared God nor loved Him:
I felt no sense of responsibiUty towards Him, nor
was I even moved at the prospect of seeing Him.
I acquiesced passively in my beUef that He was
present, but neither shrank from Him in fear nor
aspired towards Him with affection.
And this, I think, was typical of my whole atti
tude towards reUgion in ordinary life. InteUec-
tuaUy I accepted the Christian Creed; but with

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 27
my -wUl and -with my emotion. Except in moments,
or for short periods of superficial excitement, I
was whoUy uninterested. My reUgion had no spark
in it of real -vitaUty.
In fact, my closest friend at this time was an
expUcitly dogmatic atheist — I think the only one
I have met — and I was conscious of no particularly
alarming gulf between us. One other friend of
mine also was a Catholic, and with him I used to
argue sometimes. But I do not think it ever oc
curred to me as even conceivable that his tenets
could be anything but ob-viously absurd, though I
remember being extremely annoyed one day
when my atheist friend, being appealed to as an
arbitrator, declared that, granted Christianity,
CathoUcism was its only possible interpretation.
For the most part, however, I was really indifferent,
spending a good deal of time in h3rpnotism in which
I was tolerably proficient. No person in authority
ever, so far as I can remember, made the sUghtest
effort to approach me on matters of religion.
§ 6. And then — even to this day I do not know
¦why — I decided to become a clergyman. I think
the death of one of my sisters about this time helped
me to the decision. But, for the rest, I suspect that
my motives rose largely from the fact that a clerical

28 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
life seemed to me to offer the line of least resistance.
I am sure that I was not calculating enough to argue
to myself that being my father's son would bring
me emoluments or promotion; for, honestly, these
were no temptation to me at aU; but I think that,
on the natural side at any rate, a lUe spent in an
ecclesiastical household, and the absence of any other
particular interest, seemed to indicate the foUowing
of my father's profession as, on the whole, the
simplest solution of the problems of my future. I
knew, too, that my decision would give him ex
traordinary pleasure, and I valued his approval
very highly indeed.
But I think I was fairly conscientious about it aU.
I StUl had, from time to time, romantic experiences
in spiritual matters and loved, spasmodicaUy and
sentimentaUy, or thought I loved, the Person of
Our Divine Lord, as suggested to me by "John
Inglesant"; and I intended, sincerely enough, to
embrace the clerical life with my heart and wUl,
and to live it as Uttle unworthily as possible. These
intentions too were, as I have said, clinched and
brought to a point by the very keen emotions I
experienced at the death of my sister, and by a
Uttle message she sent to me from her death
bed.

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 29
Things were changed a Uttle then; I began to
read theology and became hiterested in it, especially
in dogma, such as it was, and Church history. But
it did not even enter my head for an instant that
there was anything but the Church of England to
represent Christ's original institution. I did not
in the least hold, as I tried to hold later, that the
AngUcan communion was the "Catholic Church"
in England, and the Roman .communion the Church
of the Continent. In fact I remember once in S-wit
zerland remonstrating -with a High Church lady who
held such -views and acted upon them by hearing
Mass in a CathoUc chapel. The Roman CathoUcs,
I thought, were ob-viously corrupt and decayed,
the RituaUsts were tainted, and the extreme Protes
tants were noisy, extravagant, and -vulgar. Plainly
there was only one reUgious life possible, that of a
quiet country clergyman, -with a beautiful garden,
an exquisite choir, and a sober bachelor existence.
Marriage seemed to me then, as always, quite
inconceivable. § 7. I read for Orders for a year and a half with
Dean Vaughan at Llandaff. He was a very unique
and exceptional man, and it was o-wing no doubt
to his extraordinary charm of personaUty and his
high spirituaUty that my father, in spite of the

30 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
divergence of his -views from those of the Dean,
decided to place me under his charge. I think that
he was in some respects the most remarkable preacher
I have ever heard. He wrote out his sermons with
infinite pains, word for word, destroying, I believe,
the entire manuscript and beginning it aU over again
U he were interrupted during his composition of it;
and then deUvering it word for word from his paper
with scarcely a gesture except quick, sUght glances
and almost timid movements of his head. But
the EngUsh was simply perfect, comparable only,
I think, to that of Ruskin and Ne-wman; his voice
was as smooth and pointed and pliable as the blade
of a rapier; and above aU, he possessed that magnetic
kind of personaUty that affected his educated hearers,
at any rate, like a strain of music. He was a pro
nounced EvangeUcal in his -views: I stiU possess
somewhere a couple of sets of notes that I wrote
for him, under his influence, on the sacraments of
Baptism and the Lord's Supper, in which anything
approaching to sacramental doctrine is expUcitly
denied. Yet his faith was so radiantly strong, his
love of the Person of our Lord so intense, that his
pupUs, I think, whatever their predispositions,
were almost unconscious of the lack of other things.
When we were under his speU it appeared as if no

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 31
more could be necessary than the love and devotion
of our master to God.
His -wife too, a sister of Dean Stanley, was another
great feature in our Ufe. She was a strange old
lady, resembling in face Queen Victoria, and one
of the cleverest women I have ever met. She
taUied and wrote letters brilUantly and wittUy,
and it was a real deUght to be in her company.
When three or four of us were bidden to dinner
at the Deanery, we used to compare our notes of
in-vitation in order to triumph in her variety of ex
pression. Each note was quite different from all
the rest, yet each was vi-vid. I remember the
Dean's gentle pleasure when he discovered that,
during a grave iUness of his, his -wife had, in despair
of his recovery, actually engaged a house to retire
to for her -widowhood. He told us the facts in her
presence, whUe she jerked her features about in
humorous protest. "No, my dear," said the Dean
at last, with his eyes twinkling like stars, "you see
I'm not dead yet, after aU, and I'm afraid you won't
get to your new house just yet."
We led a very harmless life, reading Greek
Testament with the Dean every morning, com
posing a sermon for him once a week, play-
mg a great deal of football, and attendhig the

32 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
cathedral ser-vdces every day. It was one of the
proudest days of my life when I was selected by
a club to play half-back against Cardiff. But
here, in spite of the Dean's strong Evangelical
ism, commended though it was by his charming
and spiritual personaUty, I began to have a glim
mer of more CathoUc -views, and, for the first time
in my Ufe, began to prefer Communion before
breakfast. This was partly through the influence
of a particular man with whom I made great friends.
"John Inglesant" also began again to reassert his
power, and I even made a journey or two here and
there to see houses where I might set up, I imagined,
an institution resembling that of Nicholas Ferrar
at Little Gidding, where, however, women were
to be strictly excluded. We were to lead a very
recondite Ufe, I remember, in a kind of scholarly
soUtude; but I do not remember that self-denial
in any form was to play a part in it. Yet the inten
tion was certainly good, for the chief object of the
life, so far as I contemplated it, was to increase
the union of our souls -with the Person of Our
Blessed Lord.
§ 8. I was ordained deacon in 1894, after a very
strange, soUtary retreat, in which for about a week
aU reUgious sense deserted me. My retreat was

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 33
made near Lincoln, where years ago I had lived as
a chUd. I engaged a couple of rooms m the lodge
of an old park about four or five miles out of the
city and arranged my day in what I thought a
suitable manner, giving certain hours to prayer
and meditation, to the recitation of the Little
Hours, in EngUsh, and to exercise. Of course it
was an impossibly mad thing to do. I was in
a state of tense excitement at the prospect of
my ordination to the ministry; I knew nothing
whatever about my own soul and the dangers of in
trospection, and StiU less about the science of prayer.
The result was such mental agony as I cannot
even now remember without an ache of mind. It
seemed to me, after a day or two, that there was no
truth in reUgion, that Jesus Christ was not God,
that the whole of Ufe was an empty sham, and that
I was, if not the chiefest of sinners, at any rate the
most monumental of fools. I stUl remember the
torment of Advent Sunday. I walked in the dark
of the moming, fasting, into Lincoln, went to
Communion in the Cathedral, and attended the
services later in the day, sittmg in the dusky nave,
like a soul in heU. I stUl cannot read the magnifi
cent coUect for Advent Sunday, as appomted in the
Book of Common Prayer — the roUmg phrases

34 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
about the "works of darkness" and the "armour
of Ught," — or the tramping hymn, "Lo! He comes
-with clouds descending," -without an echo of the
horror coming back to me. It was on this day that
for the first time I set eyes on Bishop King —
even then a bent old man -with a wonderfuUy
spiritual face, walking s-wiftly and swayingly at
the end of the procession — the Bishop who later
was tried in my father's Court at Lambeth on
charges of RituaUsm.
Matters got a Uttle better with me towards the
end of my retreat; a kind of dull luminousness of
faith came back, and at last I went back to Adding
ton for my ordination to the diaconate, though stiU
shaken and, so to speak, stUl spirituaUy hysterical.
The ordination itself distracted and helped me.
It was held by my father in Croydon parish church.
I was selected as "GospeUer"; and Canon Mason,
the late master of Pembroke CoUege, Cambridge,
preached an exceedingly fine and enkindling sermon.
I remember one extremely subtle and witty sen
tence of it. He was speaking of the doctrinal
di-visions in the Church of England; and, seeking
to reassure us on the point, combined geographical
and dogmatic dissension, together -with a fine
aUiterativeness, in one sweeping phrase. "For aU

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 35
our di-visions," he said, "we are yet united in objec
tive truth. One form of words, and one only, is
being uttered to-day in every diocese — from
CarUsle to Canterbury, from Lincoln to Liverpool."
On the foUowing Christmas Day I assisted my
father in the administration of Communion in
Addington church, and then went at once to work
in East London, at the Eton mission; and here, for
the first time. High Church ideas began to take
definite gradual possession of me. The occasion
of it was as foUows.
I received an in-vitation, a month after my ordina
tion, to be present at a retreat at Kemsing, near
Sevenoaks, given by one of the Cowley "Fathers."
I went, in high collars and a white tie, and was
completely taken by storm. For the first time Chris
tian Doctrine, as Father Maturin preached it, dis
played itself to me as an orderly scheme. I saw now
how things fitted on one to the other, how the
sacraments foUowed ine-vitably from the Incarna
tion, how body and spirit were aUke met in the mercy
of God. The preacher was extraordinarUy eloquent
and deep; he preached hour after hour; he caught
up my fragments of thought, my gUmpses of spirit
ual experience, my gropings in the t-wUight, and
showed me the whole, glowing and transfigured m

36 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
an immense scheme whose existence I had not
suspected. He touched my heart also, profoundly,
as well as my head, revealing to me the springs and
motives of my o-wn nature in a completely new
manner. EspeciaUy he preached Confession, show
ing its place in the di-vine economy; but this, very
naturaUy, I strenuously resisted. It was not a
strict retreat, and I talked freely in the afternoon
-with two friends, endeavouring to persuade myself
that Confession was no more than an occasional
medicine for those who felt they needed it. But
the work was done, though I did not know it untU
a year later. This, however, I took away, explicit,
from the retreat — a desire to make my o-wn that
religion which I had heard preached. But there
were certain difficulties before me.
The parish to which my father was sending me
was not run on at aU extreme lines. Confession
was distinctly discouraged and the Communion
was celebrated on Simdays and Thursdays only.
It was an extremely beautiful church, buUt by
Bodley on High Church lines, -with Latm inscrip
tions quite uicomprehensible to the congregation.
The previous -vicar, who had now become Bishop of
Zululand, and was a distmct High Churchman, had
been recently succeeded by a chaplain of my father's

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 37
— the Rev. St. Clair Donaldson, now Archbishop
of Brisbane, whose -views were much more Evangeli
cal. Mr. Donaldson was a magnificent worker;
great men's clubs were in fuU swing, and acti-vities
of every kind — Bands of Hope, Temperance Meet
ings, a ladies' settlement, children's plays, and,
above aU, systematic house to house -visiting —
occupied our time. But the original High Church
methods of Bishop Carter had been largely modified,
the daUy celebration had been abolished, and the
AngUcan sisters, who had pre-viously worked in the
parish, had, thereupon, -withdra-wn. I beUeve that
the Vicar did occasionaUy hear confessions in the
vestry from two or three adherents of the old system,
but he certainly neither preached nor encouraged
the practice in any way.
In spite of his influence, however, the ideas so-wn
in my mind by Father Maturin began to sprout. It
seemed to me then, and it seems to me stUl, even
looking at it from the Anglican point of -view, as if
the only hope of reaUy touching and holding the Uves
of those who Uve under the stress of East London
sordidness and pressure, Ues in what may be caUed
the materialisation of reUgion — I mean the supplying
of acts and images on which religious emotion may
concentrate itself. Extreme definiteness seems neces-

38 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
sary, and that, not only in the bright and impressive
adjuncts of worship, but in the modes in which
individual approach to God is made. Men's clubs,
where reUgious and political conversation is against
the rules (as was the case in ours), furious -visiting,
chUdren's pantomimes, and general acti-vity and
fervour certainly have their place and function;
but unless the indi-vidual understands where and
how he may discharge his penitence or adoration,
not merely as a member of a congregation, but as
an unique soul which God has made and redeemed,
piety can never be more than vague and diffusive.
I dimly felt this, even then, and, since a man's soul
is nearer to himself than any other can be, I began
to see that I must begin with myself.
The end of it was that just before my ordination
as "priest" I made, -with my father's consent, for
the first time, a fuU confession of my whole Ufe
before a clergyman. He was extraordinarily kind
and skUful, though he gave me a penance which
would occupy me half an hour every day untU I
came to him again, three months after. And the
joy that foUowed that confession was simply inde
scribable. I went home in a kind of ecstasy.
My ordination also was an immense happiness,
though I see now that there was a considerable

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 39
feverishness in my emotions. I went into the
Addington woods alone, teUuig myself that I was
now a priest, that I could do for others what had
been recently done for me; and I went back to East
London fuU of enthusiasm.
§ 9. About this time, too, I began to take up
again my acquaintance with the Cambridge friend
-with whom I had had many arguments — now an
Oratorian no-vice — and went to see him several
tirnes; but I do not think it ever seriously entered
my head that his intellectual position could possibly
be anything but ridiculous. Still, he was a charming
man, and, I have no doubt, did much to break down
the waU of misunderstanding that separated my
mind from his. I was perfectly confident, perfectly
content, and perfectly obstinate. So fearless was
I of his influence that I even went to stay with him
on the coast of ComwaU, and whUe there, having
no cassock of my o-wn, borrowed and, in a sort of
joyful excitement, wore his Religious habit in the
pulpit of the Uttle parish church.
In October, 1896, my father suddenly died on his
knees in church during a visit to Mr. Gladstone at
Hawarden. I was superintending the Sunday school
at the Eton Mission when a telegram was put into
my hands announcing the fact. On my way up to

40 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
Hawarden that night I recited as usual the Evening
Prayer appointed for the day, and in the Second
Lesson read the words: "Lord, suffer me first to go
and bury my father and then I wUl foUow Thee."
The days that foUowed were fuU of dignity and
sorrow. It seemed incredible that my father was
dead. He had just returned from Ireland, where
he had paid a kind of semi-official visit to the Irish
Protestant Church; he had seemed fuU of -vitality.
His last written words, found on his dressing-room
table, were a draft of a letter to the "Times" on the
subject of the Pope's BuU, just issued, condemning
AngUcan Orders as nuU and void. I celebrated the
Communion service in Hawarden church before we
left -with the cofifin for Canterbury, and gave Com
munion to Mr. Gladstone. My father's body lay
in its coffin before the altar, covered with the same
paU which afterwards, I believe, lay on the coffin of
Mr. Gladstone himself. The funeral was wonder
fuUy unpressive. A great storm of wmd, rahi, and
thunder raged outside whUe we laid within the
Cathedral, near the west doors, the body of the first
Archbishop to be buried there suice the Reformation.
It StiU seemed mcredible, as we went home, that
we should not find that same vital and eager per
sonaUty to greet us as we came back to Addhigton.

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 41
A week later my health suddenly and completely
broke down and I was ordered to Egypt for the
winter, at a week's notice. My last request to my
Vicar, I remember, before hearing this news, had
been to the effect that we might have a daUy cele
bration in future in the church, in place of the two
weekly ones that had been in use previously. But it
was thought better not.

n
Up to the time of my father's death I do not
think that a doubt had ever crossed my mind as to
the claims of CathoUcism. Once, I remember, in
Birdcage Walk, as my father and I were riding back
to Lambeth, I said to him suddenly that I did not
reaUy understand the phrase of the Creed, "I believe
in the Holy Catholic Church." "For instance,"
I said, "are the Roman Catholics a part of the
Church of Christ?"
My father was sUent for a moment. Then he
said that God only knew for certain who were or
were not 'within the Church: it might be perhaps
that the Roman Catholics had so far erred in their
doctrinal beUefs as to have forfeited their place in
the Body of Christ. I suppose I was satisfied with
his answer; for I do not remember ha-ving considered
the subject any further at the time.
But within six weeks of my father's death,
matters began to appear to me in a new light, and
it was during the five months that I spent in the

44 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
East that for the first time the claims of the Catholic
Church showed themselves to me. It came about
in this way.
§ I. First, I believe, my contentment with the
Church of England suffered a certain shock by my
percei-ving what a very smaU and unimportant
affair the Anglican communion really was. There
we were, traveUmg through France and Italy do-wn
to Venice, seeing in passing church after church whose
worshippers knew nothing of us, or of our claims.
I had often been abroad before, but never since I
had formally identified myseU -with the official side
of the Church of England. Now I looked at things
through more professional eyes, and, behold! we
were nowhere. Here was this vast continent ap
parently ignorant of our existence! I believed
myseU a priest, yet I could not say so to strangers
without qualifying clauses. We arrived at Luxor
at last, and found the usual hotel chaplain in posses
sion; and I occasionaUy assisted him in the services.
But it was aU terribly isolated and provincial.
Besides, he happened to be a strong EvangeUcal,
and I had very Uttle sense of ha-ving much in com
mon with him. He would not have dreamed of
describing himself as a "priest." (He was ultimately
kUled, by the way, with his whole famUy ui the

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 45
earthquake at Messina where he was acting as
EngUsh chaplain.)
§ 2. This growing discomfort was brought to a
point one day when I was riding in the vUlage by
myseU and went, purely by a caprice, into the little
CathoUc church there. It stood among the mud-
houses; there was no atmosphere of any European
protection about it, and it had a singularly unin
viting interior. There was in it a quantity of
muslin and crimped paper and spangles. But I
believe now that it was in there that for the first
time anything resembling explicit CathoUc faith
stirred itself within me. The church was so ob-
¦viously a part of the -vUlage life; it was on a level
with the Arab houses; it was open; it was exactly
Uke every other CathoUc church, apart from its
artistic shortcomings. It was not in the least an
appendage to European life, carried about (Uke an
India rubber bath), for the sake of personal comfort
and the sense of famUiarity. Even if it did not
possess one convert, it was at least looking in the
right direction. I cannot say that I explicitly recog
nized aU this at the time, but I am aware that
here for the first time it occurred to me as seriously
conceivable that Rome was right and we wrong;
and my contempt for the CathoUc Church began to

46 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
take upon it a tinge of respectful fear. For my re
assurance I made great friends with the Coptic
priest and even, after my return to England, sent
him a pair of brass candlesticks for his altar.
I began also to reason -with myself a little and to
fortify myself deUberately in my Anglican position.
WhUe in Cairo I had had two audiences of the
schismatic Coptic Patriarch, and I now wrote to him,
asking that I might be admitted to communion in
the Coptic churches, desiring in some way to assure
myseU that we were not so much isolated as ap
peared. I did not care in the sUghtest whether the
Copts were tainted by heresy or not (for there
was a proverb about glass houses), but I did
care that we Anglicans seemed so lonely and pro-
'vincial. I began, in other words, for the first time
to be aware of an instinct for Catholic communion.
A national church seemed a poor affair abroad.
The Patriarch did not answer, and I was left
shivering. § 3. As I came back alone through Jerasalem
and the Holy Land, my discomfort increased. Here
agam, in the birthplace of Christendom, we were
less than nothing. It is tme that the Anglican
Bishop was extremely kind, asked me to preach in
his chapel, gave me a tiny gold cross (now hangmg

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 47
on an rniage of Our Lady), and obtained permission
for me to celebrate the Communion ui the Chapel
of Abraham. Yet even this was not particularly
reassurmg. We were not aUowed to use the Greek
altar; a table was wheeled in, with the vestments
provided by the AngUcan "Confraternity of the
Blessed Sacrament"; and there, distracted and
unhappy, watched from the doorway by politely
curious Greeks, I celebrated what I believed to be
the di-vine mysteries, weighted down by a sense of
loneliness. In aU the churches it was the same. Every
Eastern heretical and schismatical sect imaginable
took its tum at the altar of the Holy Sepulchre, for
each had at least the respectabUity of some centuries
behind it, — some sort of historical continuity. I saw
strange, uncouth rites in Bethlehem. But the
AngUcan Church, which I had been accustomed to
think of as the sound core of a rotten tree, this had
no pri-vUeges anywhere; it was as if it did not exist;
or, rather, it was recognised and treated by the rest
of Christendom purely as a Protestant sect of
recent origin. In a kind of self-assertion I began
to wear my cassock publicly in the streets, to the
consternation of some Irish Protestants whose ac
quaintance I had made, and with whom, by the

48 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
way, I was distressed to thmk that I was hi fuU
communion. I even had a kind of disputation with
a shopkeeper who said, in spite of my cassock, that
he supposed I was not a priest, but a clergyman.
There were other clergymen in the party with
whom I went up to Damascus, and two or three of
us, every moming before startmg, celebrated the
Communion service in one of the tents. One of
them, an American, a very devout and earnest man,
not only said his Office pubUcly on horseback, but
had actually brought with him vestments, vessels,
candlesticks, and wafers. These I used with a secret
joy. I am happy to add that he, too, has been
received into the Catholic Church and ordained to
the priesthood.
§ 4. At Damascus I received one more blow. I
read in the "Guardian" that the preacher to whom
I owed aU my knowledge of distinctively Catholic
doctrine, who had been the means of bringing me
to my first confession, had made his submission to
Rome. It is impossible to describe the horror and
the shock that this was to me. I wrote to him from
Damascus, — seeing even at the moment a kind of
haU-superstitious omen in the thought of what other
conversion was associated -with that place — a letter
which, I am happy to think now, contained not a

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 49
word of bitterness; but I received no answer. He
has told me since that the unreproachful tone of the
letter astonished him.
It was here, too, that once more my scheme for a
ReUgious House re-vived; and, in a kind of defiance
of the feelings that were beginning to trouble me,
I arranged -with a friend that its constitution and
ceremonial were to be distinctively "English," by
which I meant Caroline. We were to wear no
eucharistic vestments, but fuU surplices and black
scarfs, and were to do nothing in particular.
In this kind of mood I came back to England as
to a haven of peace. There, I knew very weU, I
should not be troubled daUy and hourly by e-vidences
of my isolation, and I should find, moreover, exactly
the atmosphere of peace and beauty for which I
longed. I had been appointed assistant curate at
Kemsing, the -vUlage where I had been initiated for
the first time into the idea of orderly dogma; for
it was necessary for me stUl to have but Ught work,
o-wing to the state of my health.
§ 5. It was an extraordinarUy happy Ufe there
for about a year. The old church had been restored
with exquisite taste, the music was reaUy beautiful,
the ceremonial dignified and "Catholic"; the
vicarage where I Uved with my friend was a charm-

so CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
ing house and always fuU of charming people; and
in this entirely congenial atmosphere my troubles
disappeared. It was here that for the first time, after a second
retreat preached by Father Maturin, my vicar
regularly introduced linen vestments in which we
celebrated the early Communion service every Sun
day. We did not, however, use these or the lights
and wafer bread at the midday celebrations out
of consideration to the very Low Church views
of the squire, who, though himself a most charming
and courteous old man, was something very like a
fanatic on the side of ultra-Protestantism. I often
admired his extraordinary restraint as he entertained
my -vicar and myself in his beautiful old house —
men whom he beUeved in his heart to be enemies of
the Cross of Christ and unconscious co-operators
with the Scarlet Woman of Rome. I did not much
like this plan of presenting one form of worship on
one occasion and another on another, for I grew
daUy in High Church principles and was congratu
lated by the clergyman in London to whom I went
regularly to Confession about four tunes in the year,
on my instmcts for "CathoUcism." I thmk it was
at this period too that I jomed three Ritualistic
societies — the "EngUsh Church Union," the "Con-

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 51
fraternity of the Blessed Sacrament," and the "GuUd
of AU Souls." Meantime I was very happy at
Kemsing. It was quite possible, so long as one resolutely
focused one's eyes to the proper objects, to believe
that the Church of England was what she claimed
to be, the spiritual mother of the English and a
member of the Bride of Christ. I made several
friends, whom, I am thankful to say, I retain to this
day; I began to take pains with preaching: I did
a good deal of work ¦with children. The only re
minders that ever came to me of external facts were
occasional clerical meetings, at which one was
reminded that aU the world was not as Kemsing,
and occasional and piercing little paragraphs in the
newspapers to the effect that this man or that
had been "received into the Roman Catholic
Church." § 6. It was not for about a year, however, that
troubles reappeared, and I cannot remember what
it was exactly which caused them. I used to have
uncomfortable moments now and then, particularly
after singing the choral celebration, when I wondered
whether, after aU, it was possible that I was -wrong
and that the ceremony in which I had taken part,
rendered so beautiful by art and devotion, was no

52 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
more than a subjective effort to assert our claim to
what we did not possess. There was a brass in the
chancel to the memory of one "Thomas de Hoppe,"
a pre-Reformation priest, and I used to ask myself
sometimes what, honestly. Sir Thomas would think
of it aU. But aU thoughts such as these I treated as
temptations; I confessed them as sins; I read books
on the AngUcan side; I did my utmost in one or two
cases to retain waverers; I thought to estabUsh
myseU by contemptuous language against the
"ItaUan Mission" — a phrase, I beUeve, originaUy
coined by my father.
I remember especiaUy one incident which shows
how much these thoughts were in my mind at this
time. I was present on the west front of St. Paul's
Cathedral on the occasion of the Queen's Diamond
JubUee, but I think I was as much interested in the
papal representative as in anyone else. I watched
him eagerly and tried to make myseU believe that
he was impressed by the spectacle of the Church of
England in her fuU glory. It was reaUy an inspiriting
sight, and I looked do-wn with great enthusiasm at
the Archbishops and Bishops, assembled on the
steps, in positive copes. A rumour that they very
nearly had consented to wear mitres as weU caused
great excitement in "Church Times" circles, and at

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 53
least it was pleasant to see their shining head-gear of
various descriptions. The Bishop of London, I
remember, wore a superb gold skuU-cap which was
very nearly as good as a mitre, and I exulted to think
of the tales the Papist would have to teU when he
returned to his own arrogant friends. I was pleased
also, a day or two later, on being told by a clergyman
that he had actuaUy been taken for a Roman priest
in the crowd.
Strangely enough, however, I was not greatly af
fected by the papal decision on Anglican Orders that
had appeared shortly before my leaving England.
It had certainly been a blow, especiaUy as I had
been assured by one of the AngUcan clergy who had
gone to proffer information to the Commission sitting
in Rome, that the decision would be in our favour;
but I was never greatly moved by it. I was con
scious of a certain bruised sensation in my soul
whenever I thought of it, but never hi aU my
AngUcan days was I acutely affected either way by
the condemnation.
It was during this time that I received my first
confession — that of an Eton boy who was staying
near and who became a Catholic a few months later.
I remember my alarm at the thought of being dis
turbed durmg the ceremony, for, although confession

54 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
was occasionaUy preached in the place, it was very
seldom practised. So I locked the church door,
trembling -with excitement, heard the confession,
and then went back to the house with a sense of
a-wful and splendid guUt.
§ 7. I began at last to be reaUy restless. But
even this restlessness, I perceived at the time, lay
rather in the intuitive than the inteUectual region.
Though I read controversial books and comforted
myseU with Dr. Littledale's coUection of sneers,
I knew that this did not reaUy touch the seat of my
trouble: it lay deeper than that. It arose, I think,
chiefly from two things: first, the sense of Anglican
isolation that had been forced upon my notice
abroad, and secondly from the strong case for Roman
continuity with the pre-Reformation Church and
the respective weakness of our own. I was reminded
again of these things during a month in which I
acted as AngUcan chaplain at Cadenabbia. There
was one other chcumstance, besides those I have
mentioned, which tended to hicrease my restless
ness. A few mUes away from us was a convent of AngU
can nuns whose outward practice was simply in
distinguishable from that of a Catholic nunnery.
On feasts unpro-vided for in the Prayer Book, such

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 55
as Corpus Christi and the Assumption, it became
the habit of certain clergy, both from London and
in the country round, to attend the sacred festivities
at this convent, and on half a dozen occasions I
also took part. The Roman Missal was used with
aU its ceremonies; and on the Feast of Corpus Christi
a procession was formed according to the precise
directions of Baldeschi in every detaU. An altar of
repose was set up in the beautiful garden and the
Pange Lingua sung. Now, these nuns were not
playing at the ReUgious Life: they recited the night
Office at night, according to the strictest observance
— using of course the monastic Breviary — and lived
a life of prayer in complete seclusion. But it was
impossible to persuade myself, though of course I
attempted to do so, that the atmosphere bore any
resemblance at aU to that of the Church of England
in general. The public was not admitted to these
functions. I used to argue occasionaUy with the
chaplain, who, as weU as his successor, preceded me
into the CathoUc Church, criticizing certain detaUs;
but his answers, given with considerable learning —
to the effect that, since the Church of England was
CathoUc, she had a right to aU CathoUc pri-vUeges —
did not satisfy me; rather, the fact that Catholic
pri-vUeges were obviously aUen to her character

56 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
seemed to imply that she was not CathoUc; and I
am sure that these -visits, almost more than any
thing else, began to emphasize to my mind the real
guU that separated me from Catholic Christen
dom. I presented a sUver lamp to the statue of
Our Lady in this convent (it stiU hangs there),
in a kind of endeavour to assert my CathoUc
aspirations. § 8. So time went on and my restlessness -with it.
I began to diagnose my o-wn case. I told myself
that the Ufe was too happy to be wholesome, and
I set about future plans. I had learned by this
time a certain effectiveness in preaching; I took
part in a parochial mission, and at last was invited
by the Canon Missioner of the diocese to join him
definitely in mission work. But I had begun to have
thoughts of the Religious Life, and was further dis
mayed to learn that, in the chapel of the house in
Canterbury which we proposed to take, there must
be no such ceremonial as that to which I had become
accustomed. Honestly, I do not think that I was a
mere "RituaUst," but it seemed to me evident that
faith and its expression should go together, and
that it would be an undue strain to preach a reUgion
whose ob-vious and inseparable adjuncts were want-
mg. However, I decided to accept the in-vitation

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 57
and went to see Archbishop Temple on the subject.
He was quite kind and, after half an hour's conversa
tion, quite peremptory. I was declared to be too
young for such work, and I went back to Kemsing
resolved to offer myseU to the Community of the
Resurrection, of whose fame I had heard again and
again. Within a few weeks I had an interview with Dr.
Gore (now Bishop of Oxford) in his canon's house
at Westminster, and was definitely accepted as a
probationer. Dr. Gore was extremely kind and
sympathetic; he seemed to understand my aspira
tions, and I was deeply impressed both by his own
bearing and by the quiet reUgious atmosphere of the
house. It seemed to me now that aU my troubles
were at an end. I was intensely excited and pleased
at the thought of the new life that was opening
before me, and it became easier than ever to treat aU
Roman difficulties as diabolical temptations. I see
now that my attention was distracted and my im
agination fiUed with other -visions; I was not reaUy
settled. But when I went up to Birkenhead for the
annual retreat of the community with which my
probation was to begin, I can sincerely say that no
thought of henceforth ever leaving the AngUcan
communion appeared conceivable. I was to be

58 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
launched in a new sea altogether; I was to Uve as
the friars had Uved five hundred years ago; I was to
reaUze, though in an unexpected fashion, my old
dreams of Llandaff and Damascus; I was to dedicate
myseU to God once and for aU in the highest vocation
open to man.

Ill
§ I. It wiU be impossible for me ever to acknowl
edge adequately the debt of gratitude which I owe
to the Community of the Resurrection, or the ad
miration which I always felt, and stiU feel, toward
their method and spirit. AU that it is possible to
describe is the external aspect of their life and to
hint only at the deep Christian charity and brotherU-
ness and devotion that existed beneath it. It is
true that they -wUl not aUow me to go and stay -with
them again as I should Uke to do, but individuaUy,
they are aU most friendly, and, indeed such a visit
might perhaps be reaUy painful to them. At the
same time one must reflect that for an AngUcan to
become a Catholic is, even from the point of view of
his old friends, a very different thing from the
opposite process. For when a CathoUc leaves the
Church, those from whom he separates himself
regard him as one who has left the Fold of Christ
for the wUderness. It does not at aU signify to what
other body he may attach himself: he has left what
his friends hold to be the One Body of Christ. But

6o CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
when a High Churchman becomes a CathoUc, on
the AngUcan theory aU that he has done is to have
transferred himself from one part of the Church to
another; on the "Branch" theory, he has only
shifted from one bough to the other; on the "Pro-
-vince" theory, to use yet more recent phraseology,
he has only detached himself from Canterbury, not
from the Church of Christ, as Anglicans understand
it. It is true that he has, to their mind, become
"schismatic"; worse, he has denied the validity of
the Orders he once accepted; but it is impossible for
his friends to regard him as an apostate in the simple
sense of the word, and, to do them justice, they very
seldom ever pretend do so. Certainly the Mirfield
Brethren have never manifested to me in any way
at aU such an unjust discourtesy.
Next, before proceeding to give some account of
the life we Uved there, I must remark that I shaU
describe no more of the Life and Rule than could be
observed by any -visitor who stayed hi the house.
Every famUy has its "secrets," its little mthnate
ways and methods of Ufe — I mean no more than
that — and it would not be decent or loyal of me
to treat of these. This inner domestic life, our
relations with one another, our tone and atmosphere,
were, I presume to think, shigularly sweet and

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 6i
Christian. I suppose there must have been diffi
culties now and again, inseparable from the mutual
intimacy of so many and various temperaments;
but of those I have no remembrance at aU. I
remember only the extraordinary kindness and
generosity that I always received.
§ 2. We Uved in a great house standing in its own
gardens, at the top of a hiU above the vaUey of the
Calder. It was a somewhat smoky country; there
were taU chimneys visible aU round us, but the land
that belonged to the house prevented any sensation
of being pressed upon or crowded. Our external
lUe was a modification of the old Religious Rules
and resembled, so far as I understand, a kind of com
bination of the Redemptorist and the Benedictine.
Some of the Brethren were engaged ahnost entirely
in scholars' work — the editmg of Uturgical, hymnal,
expository, and devotional works, and for the use of
these there was a large library of about fifteen
thousand volumes. The rest, who were the majority,
spent about half the year m prayer and study at
home, and the rest of it in evangeUstic and mission
work. Our life ran on very simple and practical lines.
We rose about a quarter past six and went at once
to the chapel for Momhig Prayer with the psahns

62 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
of Prime, and the Communion service; at eight we
breakfasted; at a quarter to nine we said Terce and
made a meditation. UntU ten minutes past one we
worked in the library or our own rooms; then, after
Sext and intercessions, we dined. In the afternoon
we took exercise — walking or gardening; at half-
past four we said None and had tea. We worked
again untU seven, when we sang Evensong; we
supped at the half hour, and, after a Uttle recreation
and work for an hour or two, we said Compline at a
quarter to ten and went to our rooms. On Saturday
mornings a chapter was held, at which, aU kneeling,
made a pubUc confession of external breaches of the
rule. The community Ufe was, when I first went there,
in a somewhat transitional state: the Brethren were
feeling their way in the direction of greater strictness;
and by the time that I left them, four years later, a
considerable development had taken place toward a
more completely ReUgious character. SUence, for
example, was extended graduaUy, untU at last we
did not speak from CompUne in the evening untU
dinner the next day; manual work for so many hours
a week was made an absolute rule; we broke up and
carried coal, cleaned our o-wn boots, and made our
beds. My last manual task at Mirfield was the

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 63
cutting and building of steps in the quarry that
adjomed the house. Here I worked each aftemoon
and revolved meanwhUe my interior difficulties.
The dress of the community, which was at first
rather nondescript, developed more or less stead-
Uy in the dhection of a habit, consisting of a
double-breasted cassock girded with a leather belt.
OrigmaUy, too, the head of the community was
commonly addressed as " Senior," but when Dr. Gore
was appointed Bishop of Birmingham and a new
principal was elected, this title was supplanted by
that of "Superior." The title "Father," which was
at first somewhat discouraged, became later ahnost
universal, although one or two members stiU disliked
its significance. These changes, which the majority,
including myseU, ardently deshed, were not carried
out -without protest on the part of three or four
members; and, although nothing resembling bitter
ness ever made its appearance, one Brother at any
rate found himself compeUed to withdraw at last
at the time of the annual renewal of vows.
It is more difficult to explain these vows. Mr.
George RusseU deUvered more than one genial
blow at them m the "ComhiU Magazine" and
elsewhere. We were supposed to pledge ourselves
to ceUbacy only untU such time as we wanted to

64 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
marry. Roughly speaking, the probation lasted
normaUy for one fuU year — from July to July —
after which, if the probationer received the votes of
the community, he made his profession. This con
sisted of an absolute promise to observe the rule of
the community for thhteen months, and an expres
sion of his deUberate intention to remain in it for Ufe.
Profession, therefore, was not in the least of the
nature of a mere experiment: it meant practicaUy a
life intention, though an escape was pro-vided if the
life for any reason became intolerable. The Rule it-
seU was buUt upon the vows of poverty, chastity, and
obedience, aU three of which were integraUy woven
into it. The Ufe was less rigid, therefore, than that
of the ordinary CathoUc Orders, but more rigid than
that of such Congregations as the Oratorian.
We numbered at that time about fourteen mem
bers, aU of whom were in the fuU Orders of the Church
of England, and aU of whom had had experience of
parish work. We had no lay-brothers, but the neces
sary household duties which we did not do ourselves
were done by three or four servants. Now, however,
the numbers of the community have risen to between
twenty and thirty; a large CoUege of the Resurrec
tion has been buUt hi the grounds for the educatjo>,n
of poor men for the mmistry; a hostel has been

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 65
opened in Leeds and a community house in Johannes
burg; lay-brothers also, I understand, have been tried
as an experiment. A chapel also, I beUeve, is in
course of erection; but whUe I was there we used a
large room in the house, very skUfuUy and beautifuUy
adapted for worship. Our worship was reaUy digni
fied and devotional, but did not in its ritual rise above
the ordinary level of the Anglo-Catholic party in
general. We used vestments, at first of linen, but
later, first by means of a gift made through me to
the community, we began to substitute coloured
vestments. We used incense unceremoniaUy, in
accordance with the Lambeth "opinions," and for
our music sang, for the most part, unaccompanied
plain-song adapted to the Book of Common Prayer.
Frankly, we did not sing weU, but we did our best;
and I shaU not easUy forget the sense of beauty and
mystery at our sung celebrations early on Sunday
mornings. The altar was on the approved EngUsh
type with "riddels"; two candles stood upon the
altar, two more upon the posts of the curtains, and
two more in standards. We had a sanctuary lamp,
which I always disUked, since it did not signify any
thing in particular.
§ 3. It is impossible to describe the happiness
which I enjoyed at Mirfield. For about one year I

66 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
did very Uttle external preachmg and busied myself
almost enthely in theological study and prayer.
My "no-vice master" was a sympathetic and com
petent guide of souls and, although I did not go to
Confession to him, I always felt that he was able
and wiUing to help me. For a whUe there was only
one other probationer besides myself — an Irishman
of great eloquence and fervour, who developed into
an extremely capable mission-preacher, but who,
later, left the community and married. We were
thro-wn together a great deal, and I found in him an
open enthusiasm of faith and confidence in the
Church of England (alternating with depressions,
however) which did much to reassure my own.
When the time of my profession drew near, how
ever, I began somewhat to distrust my suitabUity
for the Ufe. It was not that I was troubled -with
Roman difficulties, for these had practicaUy vanished;
but, o-wing to a certain resolution passed by the
community in view of a crisis in the Church of
England, I began to think that my position was too
"advanced" for my contentment in the house. By
this time I had learned to hold practicaUy aU the
dogmas of the CathoUc Church except that of the
Pope's InfaUibUity. I studied and analyzed Lehm-
kuhl's "Moral Theology," omitting as irrelevant all

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 67
sections deaUng with the Supreme Pontiff. I said
my Rosary regularly; I invoked the samts; I thought
that the word " Transubstantiation " best expressed
the reaUty of Our Lord's presence in the Sacrament;
I held that Penance was the normal means by which
post-baptismal mortal sin was remitted; I used the
word "Mass" freely at home. These doctrines, too,
I preached in veUed language, and found that by
them, and them alone, could I arouse the enthusiasm
of congregations — these doctrines, at least, set
forth round the adorable Person of Christ, which,
remembering the lessons of "John Inglesant," I
endeavoured to make the centre of my teaching.
I remember, for example, being told once by an
indignant curate that my doctrine seemed "a mixture
of Romanism and Wesley anism" — an accusation
that brought me the greatest satisfaction. The
community in general, on the other hand, seemed to
me at that time to be over-cautious, to desire to
dissociate themselves from the extreme party in the
Church of England; and it was to this party that I
now belonged.
The end was that I postponed my profession for
one year, in order to test myself yet further. But
that year removed my difficulties. I began to be
more and more encouraged in mission-work and to

68 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
fiind that my quiet Ufe at Mirfield gave me a power
that I could obtain in no other way. It is hard for
CathoUcs to beUeve it, but it is a fact that as an
AngUcan I had far longer hours in the confessional
than I have ever had in the Catholic Church, though,
of course, this is to be accounted for by the fact that
since becoming a Catholic I have never preached a
regular mission. In one London parish, for instance,
for about four days at the end of a mission, my
brother-missioner and I interviewed people, hearing
confessions and recommending resolutions and rules
of life, for over eleven hours each day; two more
hours were occupied in deUvering sermons to vast
congregations. This, however, was after my profession. Yet
everjrwhere it seemed as if an immense work was
waiting to be done. We came from our quiet life
red-hot with zeal and found everyTvhere men and
women who seemed to have been waiting for us in
an extraordinary manner. We saw conversions
everywhere; we saw sinners changed by the power
of God, chUdren enkindled and taught, the luke
warm set on fire, and the obstinate broken do-wn.
It was impossible to doubt that the grace of God
was at work here; and if the Church of England was
capable of being used as a vessel of so much honour.

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 69
why any longer need one doubt of her di-vine mis
sion? And since that was so, and since also I had
found such extreme happiness and inspiration in
the life at Mirfield, why should I any longer hesi
tate to commit myself to it?
§ 4. Before my profession I was asked by Dr.
Gore, greatly to my surprise, whether I was in any
danger of lapsing to Rome. I honestly told him
"No, so far as I could see," and in July, 1901, I
took the step without alarm. It was an extraor
dinarUy happy day. I obtained a new cassock for
the purpose, which, strangely enough, I am wear
ing at this moment, adapted to the Roman cut.
My mother came up and was present in the tiny
ante-chapel. I was formaUy instaUed; my hand
was kissed by the brethren; I pronounced my vows
and received Communion as a seal and pledge of
stabUity. In the aftemoon I drove out -with my
mother in a kind of ecstasy of contentment.
Then once more I set to work. I think the
most trying part of my extemal work lay in the
strange varieties of doctrine and ceremonial -with
which I became acquainted. As a rule, of course,
we were asked to conduct missions only in parishes
where our standard of belief and preaching was
accepted. (We were not, I beUeve, however, re-

70 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
garded as quite satisfactory by the extreme party
of RituaUsts, and this, no doubt, was partly owmg
to Dr. Gore's position. He was identified, rightly
or wrongly, with the High Liberal School; he was
supposed to be unsound on the doctrine of the In
carnation; his views on Higher Criticism were
considered dangerous; he was thought a Uttle
extravagant on the subject of Christian SociaUsm.
And aU this, of course, was a certain distress to me,
since on those three points I was not at aU one of
his disciples.) But what was far more trying was
my experience of less advanced churches where I
gave an occasional sermon, and where the clergy
man did not feel that the merely passing presence
of a "Brother" would compromise him irreparably.
Here, as weU as in the three churches of Mirfield,
which we attended as we liked on Sunday evenings,
I found aU kinds of teaching and ceremonial. In one
church they would wear elaborate stoles but no
vestments, with doctrine to correspond; in another,
vestments would be used at services to which the
important Protestants did not come; teaching on
the Real Presence would be skiUuUy veUed, and
Penance would be referred to in a hasty aside as
the "Sacrament of reconciUation," or taught ex
pUcitly only to a favoured few at some smaU guUd

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 71
service. And, of course, it must be remembered
that even so we did not experience a tenth of the
further di-visions and schools of thought m the
Church of England — divisions of which, however,
it was impossible to be ignorant.
It was easy after a little experience to diagnose,
almost at a glance at the clergyman or his church,
the exact doctrinal level of the teaching given;
and in less advanced places it was my custom to
preach the love of Jesus Christ or the joy of peni
tence or the Fatherhood of God with aU the fervour
I had, in the hope that these truths would find their
normal outcome some day in those who heard me.
On the only occasion on which I preached in West
minster Abbey I put aU my energies into attempting
to set forth the Person of Jesus Christ as the centre
of aU reUgion, lea-ving aU other doctrines to take
care of themselves. I was not as courageous as
another member of the community, who, in the
same chcumstances, denounced the "dead altars"
of that place of worship! But this was aU very
unsatisfactory, and graduaUy, no doubt, though I
did not realize it at the tune, began to shake my
confidence once more in the Church of England as
a Di-vine Teacher. I used to hurry back to Mir
field as to a refuge; for there at least there was

72 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
peace and tolerable unanhnity. My mteUectual
escape from the difficulty seemed to me, however,
quite convincing. It was as foUows.
§ 5. OrigmaUy, as a "Moderate High Church
man," I had held that the Church of England, m
her appeal and hi her supposed resemblance to the
"Primitive" Church, was the most orthodox body
m Christendom; that Rome and the East on the
one side had erred through excess; and the Non
conformist bodies on the other through defect, and
these, further, through their loss of episcopal succes
sion, had forfeited any corporate place m the Visible
Body of Christ. But this doctrinal position had long
ago broken down under me. First, I had seen the
impossibUity of beUeving that for about a thousand
years the promises of Christ had faUed — between,
that is, the fifth or sixth century and the Reforma
tion period — and that corraption durmg aU this
space of time had marred the orighial purity of the
Gospel. Next, I had begun to perceive that m
the Church of Christ there must be some Li-ving
Voice which, if not actuaUy infaUible, must at least
be taken to be such — some authoritative person
or CouncU who could pass judgment upon new
theories and answer new questions. I had at
tempted, strangely enough, to find this Li-ving

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 73
Voice in the Book of Common Prayer and the
Articles — to seek in them, that is to say, a final
immediate interpreter of remote Primitive and
ApostoUc Faith. But now I had learned the faUacy
of such an attempt, since even these formularies
could be, and were, taken in completely divergent
senses: the RituaUst, for instance, finds that the
Prayer Book Catechism teaches the Objective and
Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament, and the
Low Churchman claims it as teaching Receptionism.
Then, when I had looked despairingly to the only
elements in the Church of England which bear any
resemblance at aU to a Living Voice — the decisions
of Convocation, the resolutions of Pan-AngUcan
Conferences, and the utterances of Bishops — I
found, either that these were di-vided amongst
themselves, or that they refused to answer, or, at
the worst, that they answered in a manner which
I could not reconcUe -with what I was con-vinced
was the Christian Faith. The "Moderate High
Church" theory, then, had broken down so far as
I was concemed, and I had been forced, it seemed
to me, both by logic and the pressure of chcum
stances, to seek some other theory as the founda
tion of my faith. This I found, for the tune, in the
RituaUstic School. It was as foUows.

74 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
The CathoUc Church, I now premised, con
sisted of those bodies of Christians retaining
the CathoUc Creeds and the Apostolic ministry.
Roughly speaking, these comprised Rome, Moscow,
and Canterbury, together with a few detached
bodies, such as the "Old Catholics," of whom I
knew very Uttle. This "Catholic Church," there
fore, did have a speaking voice of a kind: she spoke
through her sUent consensus. Where Rome, Mos
cow, and Canterbury agreed, there was the expUcit
voice of the Holy Spirit; where they dogmaticaUy
disagreed, there was the field for private opinion.
Now Canterbury occasionaUy faltered in her -wit
ness, but it was at least arguable, I thought, that
she had never spoken positive heresy. (I explained
away the statements of the Thirty-Nine Articles
in the manner famiUar to AngUcan controversialists.)
Therefore, where Canterbury was sUent, her sense
must be taken to be that of the rest of "Catholic
Christendom." This was a very convenient theory,
for by it I was able to embrace practicaUy aU the
doctrines of the CathoUc Church proper, except
that of Papal InfaUibiUty and the concurrent neces
sity of extemal communion -with Rome; and I was
able to feel that I had behind me the sUent toleration,
though not necessarUy the expUcit authority, of my

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 75
o-wn communion; and, what was far weightier, the
authority of Christ's Church as a whole.
It wUl be seen, then, that I had traveUed far from
the old Tractarian position of the appeal to the
Ancient Undi-vided Church. On the contrary, di-
-visions made no difference to me; schism was prac
ticaUy impossible so long as the ApostoUc ministry
and Creeds were maintained; and I had traveUed
even farther from my old East London position of
beUeving that the Church of England was the sound
core of a rotten tree. When, therefore, again in the
course of these papers I shaU have occasion to refer
to this theory of mine — which, as a matter of
fact, held me altogether now untU it broke beneath
me suddenly — I shaU caU it by the name of the
"Diffusive Theory." In its shadow I invoked
saints, ha-ving Uttle pictures of them, drawn by
myself, with a statue of Our Lady; adored Christ
in His Sacrament, and, indeed, began to learn for
the first time a real sphit of CathoUc submission.
If once a doctrine could be proposed to me with the
authority of the Church Diffusive behind it, I should
set aside aU my predispositions and accept it whole
heartedly. For a whUe I was puzzled somewhat to interpret
to myself the manner by which this authority actu-

76 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
aUy did speak to the unlearned who were incapable
of research into what was or was not covered by the
theory; but graduaUy I evolved an idea. As the
unlearned Roman Catholic la3Tnan appUes to a
clergyman who acknowledges the authority of the
Roman Pontiff and is in communion -with him, so
the unlearned layman of the Church Diffusive should
apply to a clergyman who acknowledged the author
ity of the Church Diffusive; and it is perfectly
true that if such laymen actuaUy did so, they would,
as a matter of fact, find a very tolerable imanimity.
In one of my last struggles in 1903 I did propose
this -view, as a possible escape, to my Superior; but
I was told that it was impossible. Neither then nor
now do I understand why; for, granted the first
theory, the appUcation of it seems the only logical
or practical conclusion.
§ 6. There, then, I settled down for nearly two
years as a professed member of the comm.unity,
during about one year extremely happy and con
fident — except once or t-wice when my old difficul
ties suddenly recurred for a whUe and then left me
again — finding, as I have said before, a brother
liness and companionship that is beyond apprecia
tion. StUl, in my dreams sometimes I am back at
Mirfield, though never, thank God, as an Anglican!

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 77
Once, I remember, Cardmal Merry del Val had been
appointed Superior and had received the submission
of the community, and I, too, was back there, happy
and exultant, standing in the library and laughing
-with pure joy. Once I was there, I thought, as a
CathoUc priest, and found that, although there
should have been a barrier of shyness between the
community and myself, there was none. We stood
together in the haU and talked as four years ago.
Yet I never have been back there, although I should
Uke to go for a -visit, even -without the Cardinal;
but the community judges otherwise. It was here,
too, that I first began to systematize my devotion
and to attempt the art of meditation, and it was
here that God rewarded me abundantly for my poor
efforts. He was preparing me, as I see now very
weU, for the great decision that He was to set before
me so soon.

IV
§ I. I think that it was in the summer and au
tumn of 1902 that I began to wnite a book caUed
"The Light In-visible." Some stories of my eldest
brother's had put the idea into my mind, and I
began to write these Uttle by Uttle, as I had time.
The stories, which are of a semi-mystical and imagi
native nature, centre round a man whom I caU a
" CathoUc priest," and I have been asked again and
again whether I intended this man to be a CathoUc
or an AngUcan. My only answer is that I intended
him to be neither in particular. My theory of the
Church Diffusive more and more drove me to obUt
erate, in my thoughts as weU as in my preaching,
any distinction between what I beUeved to be merely
various parts of Christ's mystical Body, and in the
"Light In-visible," accordingly, I aimed deUberately
at the water-line. For by this time, too, my dif-
ficiUties were once more recurring, so I tried not to
indicate by the sUghtest hint the communion to
which my hero belonged. This I see now to have
been more significant than I realized at the time:

8o CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
I did not have that supreme confidence in the
Church of England which would naturaUy have
made me content to caU him an AngUcan and have
done with it. i...
Before, during, and after the writing of this book
I was more and more becoming interested in mystical
lines of thought. I put away from me the contem
plation of cold-cut dogma and endeavoured to clothe
it -with the warm reaUties of spiritual experience;
and in the book itself I attempted to embody dogma
rather than to express it expUcitly. I have been
asked whether any of the stories were "true," and
to that I have no answer except that the book itself
does not claim to be anything other than fiction.
I think that to some extent I must have been success
ful in hitting the water-line between CathoUcism and
AngUcanism, since the book stUl seUs weU both
among CathoUcs and Anglicans. Yet I was un
doubtedly stUl deeply affected by AngUcanism; for
when I -wrote a story in the book about a nun's
praying before the Blessed Sacrament, I had in my
mind an AngUcan convent which I knew, and was
staying at the time in the clergy house of St.
Cuthbert's, Kensington, where the Sacrament is
reserved. Yet at the same time I remember dis
sociating myself intemaUy from any actual self-

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 8i
committing as to what I intended; it was not that
I at aU disbeUeved in AngUcan Orders at that time,
yet I never felt that the repudiation of them would
be a serious obstacle to my submission to the
Church. § 2. The popularity of the book — or rather, the
classes of persons who, respectively, like and dislike
the book — appears to me rather significant. It stUl
seUs very considerably amongst Anglicans; and, to
a very much lesser degree, among CathoUcs. It is,
of course, also perfectly natural that a certain type
of AngUcan should enjoy shaking his head over my
sad deterioration, both literary and spiritual, since
I left the Church of England; but, even apart from
this controversial de-vice, it is quite tme that Angli
cans, as a class, prefer it infinitely to anythmg else
that I have ever written; whUe most CathoUcs,
and myself amongst them, think that "Richard
Raynal, SoUtary" is very much better written and
very much more reUgious. In fact, for myself, I
disUke, quite mtensely, "The Light Invisible," from
the spiritual point of view. I wrote it in moods of
great feverishness and in what I now recognize as
a very subtle state of sentimentality; I was stri-ving
to reassure myself of the tmths of religion, and
assume, therefore, a positive and assertive tone that

82 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
was largely insmcere; the very' careful, trimmed
style of the book is an e-vidence of this. Further,
it is, I think, rather a mischievous book in very dis
tinct ways, since it impUes that what I then strove
to beUeve was spiritual intuition — and what is
reaUy nothing but imagination — must be an inte
gral element in reUgious experience; and that " sight "
— or rather personal realization — must be the
mode of sphitual beUef rather than the simple faith
of a soul that receives divine truth from a divine
authority. The Catholic atmosphere is, on the
other hand, something quite apart from all this.
For CathoUcs it is almost a matter of indifference
as to whether or no the soul reaUzes, in such a
manner as to be able to -visualize, the facts of revela
tion and the principles of the spiritual world: the
point is that the WiU should adhere and the Rea
son assert. But for AngUcans, whose theology is
fundamentaUy unreasonable, and amongst whom
Authority is, reaUy, non-existent, it becomes natural
to place the centre of gravity rather in the Emotions,
and to "mistake," therefore, as Mrs. Craigie says
somewhere, "the imagination for the soul." The
Reason, for them, must be continuaUy suppressed
even in its o-wn legithnate sphere; the WiU must be
largely self-centred. There remams then, for them.

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 83
the experience of feeling, only, as the realm in which
sphituaUty operates. My own rather exaggerated
dislike of the book, arises, I suppose, from a reaction
against these unreaUties amongst which I Uved for
so long.
§ 3. Here, although it is something of an anach
ronism, I should Uke to explain how I managed
to hold the apparently unsatisfactory position of
beUeving in AngUcan Orders and yet contemplating
with equanimity the time when I might have to
repudiate them. Later on, when matters were
serious, my Superior told me that he could not
understand it; that I appeared to be indifferent
to spiritual experience; that it was a terrible thing
for me to contemplate repudiating aU the graces
which I had received and bestowed through the
Sacraments of the Church of England. Yet,
honestly, I did not find it a burden.
The way I expressed it to myself was this. There
are two things in the reception of grace — the
fact and the mode. The fact is a matter of spiritual
intuition; the mode, of inteUectual apprehension.
As regarded the former — the actual communica
tions between Our Lord and my soul — granted
above aU at moments of great solemnity, I neither
had nor have the sUghtest doubt. Without any sort

84 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
of hesitation I stUl say that the times of Commun
ion in the chapel at Mhfield and elsewhere, and
of AngUcan Confession, -wUl always be among the
most sacred of my Ufe; to deny reaUty to them would
be indeed to betray Our Lord and repudiate His
love. But the mode is quite another matter.
WhUe I was in the Church of England I accepted,
practicaUy to the very end, her authoritative state
ment that I was a priest, and the consequent deduc
tion that the grace of her ordinances was actuaUy
sacramental. But when I submitted to Rome, I
accepted -with far greater security, with an internal
as weU as an extemal consent, her authoritative
statement that I never was a priest at aU. She has
never asked me to repudiate anything else on the
subject or to assert anything so entirely blasphe
mous and absurd as that which AngUcans occasion
aUy pretend of her — namely, the diabolical or even
iUusive nature of the grace that God bestows on
those who are in good faith. In my Confessions
in the Church of England I, at any rate, made acts
of contrition and did my best to comply -with the
Sacrament of Penance; in my Communions I lifted
up my heart toward the Bread of Life; and, there
fore. Our Lord could not be the Rewarder of those
that seek Him if He had not -visited me in response.

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 85
AU this, I think, I saw quite plainly long before
my submission was imminent; and the fact that
I was told, upon explaining, that I was spUtting
hahs, did not trouble me. I understood that a
hair's breadth is sometimes a great distance. About
Jurisdiction I neither knew nor cared anything.
§ 4. In the summer of 1902 I told my mother,
in a walk, that I had had Roman difficulties, but
that they were gone again; and at the same time
I promised her that, should they recur, I would
teU her at once. Sometime between that and
Christmas I had to redeem my promise. I can
never feel enough gratitude that I did so, and that
she received my confidence in the way that she did.
I kept both her and my Superior informed of every
step of the process through which I went, and
carried out theh recommendations to the letter;
I read aU the books I was given on the AngUcan
side, and consulted aU the U-ving authorities proposed
to me. Both my mother and my Superior treated
me throughout with the utmost kindness and con
sideration. Even from secondary motives I am
thankful that I acted as I did; for both of them,
when my submission had taken place and, as usuaUy
happens in such cases, a flood of accusations as
regarded imderhandedness and deceit poured in,

86 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
informed their correspondents that such accusations
were enthely untrue.
§ 5. I think it must have been in the October
of this year that I reached such a pitch of distress
that, with my Superior's permission, I wrote to a
distinguished priest an account of aU my difficulties.
(I -wUl presently try to indicate what they were.)
His answer was very surprising to me then. It is
less surprising to me now, since the priest in ques
tion has, finaUy, died out of CathoUc communion.
He defined for me very carefuUy the doctrine of
Papal InfaUibUity and the exact sense put upon it
by the general feeling of the Church and advised
me to wait. He told me — what I have since found
to be not the case — that whUe the "minimizers"
seemed to have been -victorious as regards the
wording of the Vatican decree upon Papal InfaUi
biUty, it was the "maxhnizers" who had been -win
ning ever since; and he added that although he
himseU, as a "minimizer," felt himseU indi-viduaUy
justified in remaining where he was, he would not
feel himself justified in officiaUy receiving anyone
into the Church except on the terms that now pre
vaUed, -viz., on "maximizing" principles: he added
that "maximizing " -views were impossible to persons
of reason. The conclusion, therefore, practically,

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 87
was that I had better remain where I was. One
sentence in his letter gave me, I think, an inkling
into the objective disloyalty of his position: I had
asked him to remember me in his Mass and, in return,
he begged to be remembered in mine. After my
reception into the Church he wrote to me again,
asking how I had surmounted the diGficulty
which he had indicated. I answered by saying
that I could not be deterred by such elaborate
distinctions from uniting myseU to what I was
con-vinced was the divinely appointed centre of Unity
and that I had simply accepted the Decree in the
sense in which the Church herself had uttered and
accepted it.
For a Uttle whUe, however, his first letter quieted
and reassured me, and I was only too wUling to
be reassured. My Superior, too, remarked that I
could not very weU have a plainer indication of
God's WiU that I should remahi hi the communion
where He had placed me. The very fact that I had
written to a priest and received an answer of dis
couragement seemed to me then — and to him stiU,
I imagine — an e-vident sign of where my duty lay.
It seemed to show too that even -within the Roman
Church wide divergences of ophiion prevaUed, and
that there was not there that Unity for which I had

88 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
looked. The ultimate history of the priest in ques
tion, his excommunication, and his death outside the
Church showed, of course, that such is not the case,
and that men are not aUowed to represent the
Church who misrepresent, even in good faith, her
teaching. I was reassured, then, for only a very little while.
Almost immediately my doubts recurred. I had
preaching engagements that would naturally occupy
me most of the -winter, and these were now imminent.
I asked leave to -withdraw from them, but my
Superior thought it better not; and, looking back
upon it, it seems to me now that the best chance of
silencing the clamour of my ideas did indeed Ue in
active work.
I preached a mission or two and returned to
Mirfield; I went home for Christmas and once more
came back to the Community. By this time I was
reaUy in sore distress. I had even asked a recent
convert, lately ordamed priest, and a great friend of
mine, who came to stay at my mother's house in
November, to pray for me, and I had put one or
two difficulties to him to see what he would answer.
But my distress quieted again ever so Uttle in the
atmosphere of Mirfield, and once more I was sent
out, very unwUlmgly, to preach a mission or two

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 89
and conduct Holy Week ser-vices and discourses in
a church m the south of England. On Good Friday
I preached the "Three Hours," and on Easter Day
evening for the last time I stood in an Anglican
pulpit and preached on the appearance of Our Lord
to the penitent Magdalene. As I came down the
steps at the end, I think I knew what v/ould happen.
I then retumed to Mirfield, exhausted physicaUy,
mentaUy, and spirituaUy.
§ 6. It does not seem to me that CathoUc con-
troversiaUsts as a body in the least realize what
AngUcans have to go through before they can make
theh submission. I am not speaking of external
sufferings — of the loss of friends, income, position,
and even the barest comforts of Ufe. From such
losses as these I was spared, though it is tme that
the leaving of the Community was about the most
severe extemal trial I have ever undergone — I
kissed, in Greek fashion, the doorposts of my room
as I left it for the last time; yet I did not, I think,
lose the personal friendship of the indi-vidual mem
bers; I StiU see them occasionaUy and hear from
them. I mean rather the purely internal conffict.
One is dra-wn every way at once; the soul aches as
in intolerable pain; the only reUef is found in a kind
of passionless Quietism. To submit to the Church

90 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
seems, in prospect, to be going out from the famiUar
and the beloved and the understood into a huge,
heartless -wUderness, where one -wiU be eyed and
doubted and snubbed. Certainly that is largely
an Ulusion; yet it is, I think, the last emotional
snare spread by Satan; and I think that he is occa
sionaUy aided in spreading it by the carelessness
of CathoUc controversiaUsts.
Two incidents of the kind very nearly put out
the da-wning Ught of faith in me altogether. I wiU
not describe them, but in both cases it was a careless
sentence snapped out by a good, sincere priest in a
pubhc discourse. When a soul reaches a certain pitch
of conffict, it ceases to be absolutely logical; it is
rather a very tender, raw thing, with all its fibres
stretched to agony, shrinking from the lightest
touch, desiring to be dealt with only by Hands that
have been pierced. Then it is handled roughly,
pushed this way and that by a man who under
stands nothing, who Uves in a bright Ught toward
which the sensitive soul of the convert is reaching
out with unutterable pain. Is it any wonder that
again and again the miserable thing creeps back
into the t-wiUght sooner than bear any more, believ
ing that a half-Ught -with charity must be nearer
to God's Heart than the glare of a desert? . . ,

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 91
§ 7. Now, inteUectuaUy considered, the outline
of my difficulties was as foUows — I have -written
out the arguments that especiaUy prevaUed vrith me
in a Uttle pamphlet which I pubUshed soon after
my submission — and it was on these subjects in
particular that, ever since the October of the pre
vious year, I had read steadUy and s-wiftly when
ever I had an opportunity. Now once more I
gave myself up entirely to reading and prayer.
Fhst, there was the general, and what I may caU
the ideal, conception of God's plan. Secondly,
there were the actual reaUstic facts about me in the
world. Let me take the second first, since the
second was prior in time, though not in importance
to my mind. The facts were as foUows:
I accepted Christianity as the Revelation of God.
This was my axiom which I am not concemed now
to defend. I accepted, too, the Bible as an inspired
and a di-vinely safeguarded record of the facts of
this Revelation. But I had come to see, as I have
already explained, the need of a Teaching Church
to preserve and to interpret the truths of Chris
tianity to each succeeding generation. It is only a
dead reUgion to which -written records are sufficient;
a U-ving reUgion must be able to adapt itself to
changing en-vironment without losing its o-wn iden-

92 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
tity. One thing, therefore, is absolutely certain —
that if Christianity is, as I beUeve it, a real Revela
tion, the Teaching Church must at any rate know
her o-wn mind -with regard to the treasure committed
to her care, and supremely on those points on which
the salvation of her children depends. She may be
undecided and permit divergent -views on purely
speculative points; she may aUow her theologians,
for instance, to argue, unchecked, for centuries as
to the modes by which God acts, or as to the best
phUosophical terms for the elucidation of mysteries,
or as to the precise limits of certain of her o-wn
powers and the manners of theh exercise. But in
things that directly and practically affect souls —
•with regard to the fact of grace, its channels, the
things necessary for salvation, and the rest — she
must not only know her mind, but must be constantly
declaring it, and no less constantly sUencing those
who would obscure or misinterpret it.
Now this was not at aU the case with the Com
munion in which I found myseU.
I was an official of a church that did not seem to
know her o-wn mind even on matters directly con
nected -with the salvation of the soul. It was my
duty to preach and practise the system of redemp
tion which God had given through the life and death

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 93
of Jesus Christ, and that system I knew very well
to be a sacramental one. Yet when I looked about
me for a clear statement as to that system I did not
find it. It was true that many indi-viduals taught
and accepted what I did; there were societies to
which I belonged — the "EngUsh Church Union"
and the "Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament"
— that were practicaUy unfaltering in these respects;
but it was impossible to say that the authorities
of my Church were equaUy clear. To take one
single -vital point — the doctrine of Penance. I
was reaUy ignorant as to whether or not it was per
missible to teach that this was, normaUy, essential
to the forgiveness of mortal sin. PracticaUy aU
the Bishops denied this, and a few of them denied
the power of absolution altogether. But, even
granting that my -views were tolerated — which
reaUy they were not in any authoritative way — the
fact that mutuaUy exclusive -views were also toler
ated was an e-vidence that mine were not enjoined.
I was teaching, at the best, my private opinion
upon a pohit that was stUl officiaUy indefinite. I
was teaching as a certainty what was officiaUy
uncertam. It was becoming, then, the clearer I
saw this, more and more impossible to say that the
Church of England required sacramental confession.

94 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
The way in which many clergy escape from this
dUemma is very simple. They appeal not to the
U-ving voice of the Church of England, but to her
written formularies, and they explain those formu
laries in accordance -with their o-wn -views. But I
was finding it hard to do this sincerely, because I
had begun to see that a written formulary can never
be decisive in a church where that formulary can
be taken in more than one sense — as it undoubtedly
is — and the authorities not only wUl not decide as
to which is the true sense, but actually tolerate
senses that are mutuaUy exclusive. More and more
I was beginning to see the absolute need of a U-ving
authority who can continue to speak as new interpre
tations of her former words contend for the mastery.
A church that appeals merely to ancient written
words can be no more at the best than an antiqua
rian society.
Of course I was told to be content with my own
interpretation; but that was hnpossible. My pomt
was that, since my interpretation was disputed,
I could not teach it as authoritative. Dr. Pusey
was held up to me, also Mr. Keble, and others.
But I said that I could not rest on the authority
of indi-viduals however ernment, for there were
other indi-viduals equaUy emment who held oppos-

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 95
ing -views. By one or two ad-visers I was told that
those points were unessential; that the main facts
of the Christian Creed were aU that were absolutely
necessary, and that upon these the AngUcan -witness
was clear enough. My answer was that those points
were the most practical of aU, that they concemed
not remote theological propositions, but the actual
detaUs of Christian Ufe. Might I or might I not
teU penitents that they were bound to confess their
mortal sins before Communion? This is only one
instance out of many, for on aU sides were the same
questions. I saw round me a Church which, even if
tolerable in theory, was intolerable in practice. Her
chUdren Uved and died by tens of thousands actuaUy
ignorant of what I beUeved to be the Catholic Gospel
— ignorant not merely through neglect, but through
the deUberate instruction of men who were as fuUy
accredited ministers as myseU — chUdren of hers,
too, who desired nothing more than to learn and
obey her precepts and who might have had every
opportunity of doing so.
Then on the other side there was the Church of
Rome. Now, I think I had heard at various times
aU the theoretical or historical arguments that could
possibly be brought against her claims; but, re
garded practicaUy, there was no question. Her

96 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
system worked. It might be that it worked me-
chanicaUy and superstitiously, but it was there. I
remember in a private conversation comparing the
rival systems to two differently laid fires. The
AngUcan system was as a man applying a match
to a tumbled heap of fuel: where there was personal
zeal and sincerity, a flame certainly shot up, souls
were warmed and Ughted; but when the personal
influence or the private "Catholic" -views of the
indi-vidual clergyvaen were removed, aU was left
as before. In the Roman system, however, it was
very different; there might be slackness and lack
of piety, but, at any rate, the fire burned quite
apart from the indi-vidual influence, because the
fuel was laid in order. Whether or no a priest was
careless or slothful or even lax in his private -views
made no essential difference; his flock knew what
was necessary for salvation and how to obtain it.
The smaUest Roman CathoUc child knew precisely
how to be reconcUed to God and to receive His
grace. § 8. Secondly, there was the question of Catholic
ity itself. The AngUcan theory was simply bewU-
dering, as I looked at it from a less pro-vincial
standpoint. I had no notion as to who was the
rightful Bishop, say, of Zanzibar; it would depend.

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 97
I thought, chiefly on the question as to which Com
munion, the Roman or the AngUcan, happened to
have landed first on the African coast! In fact.
Jurisdiction was represented to me as a kind of
pious race-game. In Ireland I knew very well that
I was in communion -with persons who, according to
my personal -views, were simply heretics, and out of
communion with persons who believed, so far as
practical religion went, exactly what I myself be
Ueved. On the other hand, the Roman theory
was simpUcity itself. "I am in communion," the
Romanist could say -with St. Jerome, "-with Thy
Blessedness — that is, with the Chair of Peter.
On this rock I know that the Church is built."
The Roman theory worked, the Anglican did not.
Yet, of course, these considerations did not settle
the question. Our Lord, I was told, spoke often in
mysteries; He refused to cut knots by direct and
simple answers. It might very well be that the
golden thread of His di-vine plan ran in these days
through tangled woods and undergrowth, and that
the plain highway was but the monument of man's
impatience and lack of faith.
On these points, then, though they predisposed
me toward the CathoUc Church, it was necessary
to read a great deal. There were, besides, other

98 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
points flowing from them that needed elucidation.
How, for example, was it possible that dogmas
binding now should not have been binding a hundred
years ago? How about the Immaculate Conception
— which, as a matter of private opinion, I was
perfectly ready to accept — and Papal InfaUibUity?
And then, finaUy, after innumerable gropings,
there always remained the old vexed business of
the Petrine Texts and the patristic comments upon
them. § 9. This, then, I began to see more and more
overwhehningly: that it is possible, from the huge
compUcations of history, philosophy, exegesis,
natural law, and the rest — and, in fact, every
smgle method of God's indications of His WiU —
to make out a case for almost any theory under the
sun. The materials from which I was obUged, aU
incompetent, to judge, were as a vast kaleidoscope
of colours. I might say that the mam scheme was
red and that the rest were accidental, or that it was
blue or green or white. Each man, I perceived, had
a natural mclination to one theory and tended to
select it. It was certamly possible to make out a
clahn for AngUcanism or the Papacy or Judaism
or the system of the Quakers. And on this, almost
despahhig, I had to set to work. One thing, how-

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 99
ever, began to emerge ever so slowly; namely, that
inteUect alone could prove very little. The puzzle
which God had flung to me consisted of elements
which needed for their solution not the head only,,
but the heart, the imagination, the intuitions; in
fact, the entire human character had to deal with it.
It was impossible to escape whoUy from natural
prejudice, but I must do my best. I must step
back a Uttle from the canvas and regard the affair
as a whole, not bend over it with a measuring-rod
and seek to test the elusive ethereal whole by but
one faculty of my nature. Yet at the beginning
I only haU-realized this and plunged, therefore,
blindly into the be-wUdering maze of controversy.
I should be sorry to have to make a complete
Ust of aU the controversial works which I read
during the last eight months of my Anglican days.
I devoured everything I could find, on both sides.
I read Dr. Gore's books, Salmon on InfaUibiUty,
Richardson, Pusey, Ryder, Littledale, PuUer, Dar-
weU Stone, Percival, Mortimer, Mallock, Ri-vington.
I studied -with care a brilUant MS. book on
EUzabethan history; I made profuse notes; and,
supremely, I read Newman's "Development" and
Mozley's answer. I also looked up various points
in the Fathers, but with a kind of despair, since I

ICO CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
knew I was whoUy incompetent to decide where
great scholars disagreed. I must confess that I
became be-wUdered and hopeless. Was it not better
for me to reUnquish this dusty search and remain
peacefuUy where God's Pro-vidence had placed me?
After aU, there had been an extraordinary re-vival
of Catholic life in the Church of England and I had,
from the nature of my mission work, been peculiarly
pri-vileged to see its effects. Would it not be a kind
of sin against the Holy Ghost to turn my back on
the -visibly soUd work of grace, in search for what
might be no more than a brUUant phantom?

§ I. GraduaUy, however, three things drew out
of the clamouring mob of ideas and authors. The
first was a thought. It had been put to me by my
Superior that I was surely incurring the guilt of
pride in venturing to set up my opinion against the
-views of men, such as Dr. Pusey or Mr. Keble —
men infinitely my superiors in goodness, leaming,
and experience. They had been into aU these
questions far more profoundly than I could ever
hope to go, and had come to the conclusion that the
claims of Rome were unjustffied, and that the
Church of England was, at any rate, a part of
Christ's Church. And then I suddenly realized
clearly what I had only suspected before; namely,
that if the Church of Christ was, as I believed it to^
be, God's way of salvation, it was impossible that
the finding of it should .be a matter of shrewdness
or scholarship; other-wise salvation would be easier
for the clever and leisured than for the duU and
busy. As for the holiness of men like Dr. Pusey —
after aU, "Christ came into this world to save sin-

I02 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
ners." Two or three texts of Scripture began to burn
before me. "A highway shaU be there," wrote Isaias;
"... the redeemed shaU walk there. . . . The
wayfaring men, though fools, shaU not err therein."
"A city set on a hiU," said our Sa-viour, "cannot
be hid." Again: "Unless you . . . become as
Uttle chUdren, you cannot enter into the kingdom
of heaven." And again: "I thank Thee, Father,
because Thou hast hid these things from the wise
and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones."
I cannot describe the relief that this thought gave
to me. I saw now that my inteUectual difficulties
were not the real heart of the matter, and that I
had no right to be discouraged because I knew
myself to be immeasurably the inferior of others
who had decided against the cause that was
beginning to show itseU to me as tme. HumUity
and singleness of motive, I saw now, were far more
important than patristic leaming. I began, there
fore, more than ever to aspire towards these and to
throw myself upon God. I used, day after day, one
of the acts of humiUty in St. Ignatius's Spiritual
Exercises. In fact, I think that, o-wing to the
violence of the reaction, I was in a certain danger
of relapsing into Quietism.
But two books came to my rescue, and these

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 103
were respectively Newman's "Development" and
MaUock's "Doctrhie and Doctrhial Dismption."
Besides these, one of Father Carson's essays helped
me in the last stage — that deaUng with the growth
of the Church from an embryonic condition to that
of manhood; for it was, perhaps, this line of thought
as much as any that especiaUy solved my difficulties.
FinaUy, there was Mr. Spencer Jones's "England
and the Holy See" — a remarkable book, written
by a man who is stiU a clergyman of the Church of
England. These books, each in its way, helped me,
not indeed directly forward towards Faith — for
that was forming as independently of inteUectual
effort as of emotional attraction — but by way of
breaking do-wn on one side the definite difficulties
that stood between me and Rome, and on the other
the last remnants of theory that held me to the
Church of England. I now began to see dawning
clearly, Uke mountains through a mist, the outlines
of what I have caUed in the pre-vious chapter the
general or ideal -views of the two Communions that
claimed my aUegiance.
§ 2. Fhst, there was the general -view of the
Church of England and her relations to Christen
dom, and this, as I have aheady said, rested now
enthely upon the theory of the " Church Diffusive."

I04 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
Now Mr. MaUock's book first stated this theory
with complete fairness and then demolished it ut
terly. As soon as I had finished his treatment of
the question, I laid down the book and gasped.
I knew, and told others that I knew, that I had no
more to say on the Anglican side. There was but
one hope left, and that, I thought, was impossible
for me now; namely, a relapse into that kind of
devout agnosticism on the subject of the Church,
which is the refuge of so many Anglican clergy at
the present day. But I think now that U the other
books I have mentioned had not, simultaneously,
disclosed to me the outline of the Catholic Church,
I should in aU probabUity have faUen back upon
that agnosticism and remained where I was, reassur
ing myself, as so many do, by reflections upon the
tangled state of Church history and the positive
evidences that God was, after aU, undoubtedly
working in the Anglican communion.
I need not describe at length Mr. MaUock's argu
ment, but, in a word, it was this: the theory of the
"Church Diffusive" is made by Ritualists the foun
dation of their beUef, but the "Church Diffusive"
rejects that theory; Rome, Moscow, and Canter
bury, though they may agree upon other pomts,
do not agree upon this. Therefore the authority

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 105
to which the appeal is made hnpUcitly denies that
it is an authority at aU. Therefore the whole
thing is Ulusive.
I have asked, both before and since my submis
sion to Rome, an answer to this argument and I
have never yet received one of any kind. One
learned and zealous AngUcan could only say that
it was too logical to be true, and that the heart has
reasons which the head knows nothing of.
I began to tum now with more hope to the con
structive books. In Mr. Spencer Jones's work I
found an orderly systematization of the argument
that greatly helped me to clear my thoughts; in
Father Carson's essay I found a kind of briffiant
variation upon Ne-wman's great theme. But it was
"The Development of Doctrine" that, like a magi
cian, waved away the last floating mists and let
me see the City of God in her strength and beauty.
§ 3. FinaUy and supremely, it was the reading
of the Scriptures that satisfied me as to the posi
tive claims of Rome. On all sides my friends told
me to study the Written Word of God, and, indeed,
it was the best advice that could have been given.
For both I and they accepted the Scriptures as the
inspired Work of God; they, in those Scriptures,
hiterpreted by what they believed to be the Church,

io6 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
found the support of their o-wn -views; I, since I
had lost behef in the Church to which I belonged,
or rather since I faUed to hear from that Church
any positive interpretation at aU, had nothing left
but Scripture. I might read controversy for ever
and faU to detect the human faUacies that might lie
on either side; at least I had better tum to those
writings in which confessedly there were none. So,
once more I turned to the New Testament, seeking
to find some thread that would hold all together,
some U-ving authority to which the Scriptures
themselves might point, testing, above aU, the claims
of that authority which on logical and human grounds
seemed to me the most consistent of aU claims made
in Christendom — the claim of the occupier of
Peter's Chair to be the Teacher and Lord of aU
Christians. I have been told, of course, that I found that in
the New Testament which I had hoped to find; that
I had already accepted interiorly the claims of
Rome, and therefore forced myself to the conclu
sion that the Scriptures must support them too.
I was bidden to tum again to the theologians for the
interpretation of the Scripture — back again, in fact,
to that very tangle of -witnesses who, on the whole,
seemed to me to support the Petrine position, and

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 107
whom I had, a Uttle whUe ago, been advised to leave
for God's own Word. Yet what else could I do
except honestly to attempt to test by that divine
authority the sole claim that, alone in the whole of
Christendom, seemed to me consistent, reasonable,
historical, practical, satisfactory, and, from the
very nature of the case, intrinsically necessary?
WeU, I need not say^that I found that claim there
more evidently and easUy than I could find many
other doctrines which none the less I readily accepted
on Scriptural authority. Dogmas such as that of
the Blessed Trinity, sacraments such as that of
Confirmation, institutions such as that of Episco
pacy — aU these things can indeed, to the AngUcan
as weU as the CathoUc mind, be found in Scripture
if a man wUl dig forjtkem. But the Petrine claim
needs no digging: it Ues Uke a great jewel, blazing
on the surface, when once one has mbbed one's
eyes clear of anti-CathoUc predisposition. The
"One Foundation" declares that on "Cephas" He
wiU buUd His Church: the Good Shepherd bids
the same Cephas, even after he has forfeited, it
might seem, aU claims on his Lord, to "feed his
sheep"; the "Door" gives to Peter the "Keys."
In aU I found twenty-nine passages of Scripture —
since then I have found a few more — in which the

io8 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
Petrine prerogative is at any rate implied, and I
found not one contrary to or incompatible with its
commission. I pubUshed these in a smaU pamphlet
soon after my submission, i
It is, of course, utterly hnpossible to lay my
finger upon this or that argument as the one that
finaUy con-vinced me. Besides, it was not argument
that did con-vince me, any more than it was emotion
that impeUed me. It was rather my being dra-wn
by the Spirit of God towards a vantage ground
whence I could look out and see the facts as they
were; but it was Ne-wman's book that pointed me
to the facts, led my eye from this point to that, and
showed me how the whole glorious erection stood
upon the unshakeable foundation of the Gospel
and soared to heaven.
§ 4. There, then, to change the metaphor, I saw
the mystical Bride of Christ, growing through the
ages from the state of chUdhood to adolescence,
increashig m wisdom and stature, not addhig to
but develophig her knowledge, strengthenhig her
limbs, stretching out her hands; changing, mdeed,
her aspect and her language — using now this set
of human terms, now that, to express better and
better her mmd; brmghig out of her treasures thmgs
1 "A City Set on a HiU." Catholic Truth Society.

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 109
new and old, which yet had been hers from the
beginning, indwelt by the Sphit of her Spouse, and
even suffering as He had done.
She, too, was betrayed and cmcffied; "dying
daUy," like her great Lord; denied, mocked, and
despised; a chUd of sorrows and acquainted with
grief; misrepresented, misconstrued, agonizing;
stripped of her garments, yet, Uke the King's daugh
ter that she is, "aU glorious within"; dead even, it
seemed at times, yet, Uke her natural Prototype,
StUl united to the Godhead; laid in the sepulchre,
fenced in by secular powers, yet ever rising again
on Easter Days, sphitual and transcendent; passing
through doors that men thought closed for ever,
spreading her mystical banquets in upper rooms and
by sea shores; and, above aU, ascending for ever
beyond the skies and dweUing in heavenly places
with Him who is her Bridegroom and her God.
Difficulty after difficulty melted as I looked on
her face. I saw now how it must be that outward
aspects should change, and that the swathed chUd
in the Catacombs should seem very different from
the reigning mother and mistress of churches, the
queen of the world. I saw, too, how even her con
stitution must appear to change: how the limbs,
that at first move spasmodicaUy and clumsUy, should.

no CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
as she increased in strength, become more and more
controUed by the visible Head; how the great chUd-
ish gestures of the early CouncUs should pass little
by little into the serene voice issuing from the
Ups; how the unordered implicit knowledge of the
first centuries should express itseU more and more
precisely as she learned how to speak to men that
which she knew from the beginning; how gradually
she would announce even in our o-wn days that
principle on which she had acted from the begin
ning — namely, that in matters that concerned the
-vital contents of her message, she was protected,
in the utterances of her Head, by the Spirit of Truth
that had first formed her body in the womb of
the human race. For this is, in the long run, the
me-vitable claim that a Church must make which
professes to stand for Revelation.
I do not say that aU difficulties went at once.
They did not. In fact, I do not suppose that there
is any CathoUc aUve who would dare to say that he
has no difficulties even now; but "ten thousand
difficulties do not make one doubt." There remahi
always the old etemal problems of sin and free -wUl;
but to one who has once looked fuU into the eyes of
this great Mother, these problems are as nothing.
She knows, U we do not; she knows, even U she does

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT m
not say that she knows; for within her somewhere,
far dovm m her great heart, there lies hid the very
wisdom of God Himself.
And aU this great -vision I saw now for the first
time fulfilled in what I had been accustomed to
caU the Church of Rome. I tumed and looked
again at the Church of England and there was an
extraordinary change. It was not that she had
become unlovable. I love her even now as one
may love an unsatisfactory human friend. She
had a hundred virtues, a deUcate speech, a romantic
mind; a pleasant aroma hung about her; she was
infinitely pathetic and appealing; she had the ad
vantage of dwelling in the shadowed twUight of her
own vagueness, in glorious houses, even though not
of her buUding; she had certain gracious ways,
pretty modes of expression; her music and her
language stUl seem to me extraordinarUy beautiful;
and above aU, she is the nursing mother of many of
my best friends, and for over thirty years educated
and nursed me, too, with indulgent kindness. In
deed, I was not ungrateful for aU this, but it had
become enthely impossible for me ever to reverence
her again as the di-vine mistress of my soul.
It is true that she had fed me -with the best food
she had, and that Our Lord had accompanied those

112 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
gifts -with better gifts of His o-wn; she had, indeed,
pointed me to Him rather than to herself. But aU
this did not make her my queen or even my mother;
and, in fact, even in other matters she had faUed me,
through no fault of her o-wn, but rather because of
the misfortune of her own birth and nature. When
I had asked her questions that reaUy concemed the
very Ufe I was leading under her protection, she had
given me no answer. She had told me only to lie
StiU and love her, and that was not enough. A
soul cannot be eternaUy satisfied with kindness and
a soothing murmur and the singing of hymns, and
there is a Uberty which is a more intolerable slavery
than the hea-viest of chains. I did not want to go
this way and that at my o-wn wiU : I wanted to know
the way in which God wished me to walk. I did
not want to be free to change my grasp on truth:
I needed rather a truth that itself should make me
free. I did not want broad ways of pleasantness,
but the narrow Way that is Tmth and Life. And
for aU these things she was helpless.
There, then, she stood, my old mistress, pathetic
and lovhig, clahning me as her servant by every
human tie; and there, on the other side, m a blaze
of fierce Ught, stood the Bride of Christ, dommant
and imperious, but -with a look in her eyes and a

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 113
smUe on her Ups that could rise only from a heavenly
vision, claiming me, not because she had as yet done
anything for me, not because I was an Englishman
who loved English ways — or even Italian, for the
matter of that — but simply and solely because I
was a chUd of God and because to her He had said,
"Take this chUd away and nurse it for Me and I
-wUl give thee thy wages"; because, first and last,
she was His Bride and I was His son.
If at that choice I had hesitated and tumed back
to her whom I knew and loved, in preference to her
whom as yet I saw and feared only at a distance, I
know that I should have faUen, without even the
shadow of a doubt, under that condemnation uttered
by my Lord: "Unless a man leave his father and
mother and aU that he hath, he cannot be My
disciple." I went to my Superior, therefore, in
the early summer, told him once more of my
state of mmd, and obtamed leave from him to
go home to my mother's house for a few months'
rest and reflection.

VI
§ I. I was in a very curious and unsatisfactory
state when I came home. I do not propose to dis
cuss these symptoms in pubhc, but, to sum it up in
a word, I was entirely exhausted on the sphitual
side. Yet it was now absolutely clear to me,
so far as I could see inteUectuaUy, that my
submission was a duty. I made this clear also
to my mother, from whom I had had no secrets
from the beginning; and I settled do-wn, as she
desired me, towards, I think, the end of May, to
aUow myseU time and energy for a reaction, if such
should come. OccasionaUy I celebrated the Com
munion stUl in the Uttle chapel of the house, for the
reasons that I have already explained; but, with
the consent of my Superior, I refused aU invitations
to preach, saying that my plans were at present
undecided. This, of course, was absolutely tme,
as I sufficiently trusted my Superior's and my
mother's judgment to aUow of the possibUity of a
change of mind. I was stUl technicaUy a member
of the Community of the Resurrection, said my

ii6 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
Office regularly, and observed the other detaUs of
the mle that were binding upon me. I had told,
however, a few intimate friends of what I thought
would happen.
§ 2. I have mentioned before a certain MS. book
upon the EUzabethan days of the Church of Eng
land. This had aroused my interest, and I began
to consider whether, as a kind of safety-valve, I
could not make some sort of historical novel upon
the subject. The result was that I was soon hard at
work upon a book, afterwards published under the
title, "By What Authority?" It was extraordinary-
how excited I became. I worked for about eight
or ten hours every day, either -writing, or reading
and annotating every historical book and pamphlet
I could lay my hands upon. I found paragraphs in
magazines, single sentences in certain essays, and
aU of these I somehow worked into the material
from which my book grew. By the beginning of
September the novel was three-quarters finished.
I have formed a great many criticisms upon that
book now. It is far too long; it is rather sentimen
tal; it is too fuU of historical detaU; above aU, the
mental atmosphere there depicted is at least a cen
tury before its time; men did not, untU ahnost
Caroline days, think and feel as I have represented

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 117
them thinking and feelhig hi EUzabeth's reign.
In two points only am I satisfied with it: there is,
I think, a certain pleasant freshness about it, and I
have not as yet detected in it any historical errors.
I was absurdly careful in details that were wholly
negligible with regard to general historical tmth.
This work, I think, was an exceptionaUy good safety-
valve, for my sphits, and U I had not found it I do
not quite know what would have happened.
Now, more than ever, my resolution began to
run clear. In book after book that I read I found
the old lines of the Church of England burning
themselves upwards, Uke the lines of buried founda
tions sho-wing through the grass in a hot summer.
I began to marvel more than ever how in the world
I could have even imagined that the AngUcan
Communion possessed an identity of Ufe with the
ancient Church in England. For years past I had
claimed to be saying Mass, and that the Sacrifice
of the Mass was held as a doctrine by the Church
of England; and here in EUzabethan days werci
priests hunted to death for the crime of doing thati
which I had claimed to do. I had supposed that our
wooden Communion tables were altars, and here
in Tudor times were the old stones of the altars
defiled and insulted deUberately by the officials of

ii8 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
the Church to which I stUl nominaUy belonged,
and wooden tables substituted instead. Things
which were dear to me at Mirfield — vestments,
crucifixes, rosaries — in Elizabethan days were de
nounced as "trinkets" and "muniments of super
stition." I began to wonder at myself, and a Uttle
whUe later gave up celebrating the Communion
service. § 3. Sometime in the course of the summer, at
my mother's wish, I went to consult three eminent
members of the Church of England — a well-
kno-wn parish clerg3Tnan, an eminent dignitary,
and a no less eminent layman. They were aU three
as kind as possible. Above aU, not one of them
reproached me with disloyalty to my father's mem
ory. They imderstood, as aU vrith chivalrous
instincts must have understood, that such an argu
ment as that was whoUy unworthy.
The parish clergyman did not affect me at aU.
He hardly argued, and he said very Uttle that I
can remember, except to caU attention to the re-vival
of sphitual Ufe m the Church of England during the
last century. I did not see that this proved any
thing except that God rewarded an hicrease of zeal
by an increase of blessing. He hhnseU was an ex
ceUent example of both. Neither could I see the

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 119
force of his further argument that, since this spir
itual re-vival showed itself along sacramental lines,
therefore here was an e-vidence for the vaUdity of
AngUcan Sacraments. For, first, precisely the same
re-vival has been at work -with regard to sacramental
-views among the Presbyterians, and high-church
AngUcans do not for that reason accept the vaUdity
of Presbyterian Orders; and, second, it is natural
that among AngUcans the revival should have taken
that form, since the Prayer Book itseU affords scope
in this direction.
The dignitary with whom I stayed a day or two,
and who was also extremely forbearing, did not, I
think, understand my position. He asked me
whether there were not devotions in the Roman
Church to which I felt a repugnance. I told him
that there were — notably the popular devotions
to Our Blessed Lady. He then expressed great
surprise that I could seriously contemplate submit
ting to a communion in which I should have to use
methods of worship of which I disapproved. I tried
in vain to make it clear that I proposed becoming
a Roman CathoUc not because I was necessarUy
attracted by her customs, but because I beUeved
that Church to be the Church of God, and that
therefore if my ophiions on mhior detaUs differed

I20 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
from hers, it was aU the worse for me; that I had
better, hi fact, correct my notions as soon as pos
sible, for I should go to Rome not as a critic or a
teacher, but as a chUd and a learner. I thmk he
thought this an immoral point of -view. Religion
seemed to him to be a matter more or less of indi
vidual choice and tastes.
This interview afforded me one more iUustration
of the conviction which I had formed to the effect
that as a Teaching Body — as fulfiUing, that is, the
principal function for which Christ instituted a
Church — the Church of England was hopeless.
Here was one of her chief rulers assuming, almost
as an axiom, that I must accept only those dogmas
that indi-viduaUy happened to recommend themselves
to my reason or my temperament. Tacitly, then,
he aUowed no authoritative power on the part of
the Church to demand an inteUectual submission;
tacitly, again, then, he made no real distinction
between Natural and Revealed Rehgion: Christ
had not revealed positive truths to which, so soon
as we accepted Christ as a Di-vine Teacher, we
instantly submitted without hesitation. Or, if this
seem too strong, it may be said that the prelate in
question at any rate denied the existence anywhere
on earth of an authority capable of proposing the

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 121
truths of Revelation in an authoritative manner,
and hence, indirectly evacuated Revelation of any
claim to demand man's submission.
The la)Tnan, with whom also I stayed, had showed
me many kindnesses before, and now crowned them
aU by his charity and sympathy. He emphasized
the issues -with extreme clearness, teUing me that
if I beUeved the Pope to be the necessary centre of
Christian unity, of course I must submit to him at
once; but he asked me to be quite certain that this
was so, and not to submit merely because I thought
the Pope an extremely useful aid to unity. The
layman further told me that he himself beUeved
that the Pope was the natural outcome of ecclesi
astical development; that he was Vicar of Christ
jure ecclesiastico, but not jure divino; and he pointed
out to me that, unless I was absolutely certain of
the latter point, I should be far happier in the
Church of England and far more useful in the work
of promoting Christian unity. With aU this I
heartUy agreed. A further curious circumstance
was that, at this time, a prelate was staying in the
house -with me who had had a great influence upon
my pre-vious Ufe. He knew why I was there, but
I do not think we spoke of it at aU. After my
return home again, my late host sent me a quantity of

122 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
extraordinarUy interesting private documents, which
I read and retumed. But they did not affect me.
They are documents that have since been pubUshed.
Towards the end of July I was once more tired
out in mind and soul, and was in further misery
because an ultimatum had come from Mirfield,
perfectly kind and perfectly firm, telling me that I
must now either return to the annual assembling
of the community or consider myself no longer a
member. The Brother who was commissioned to
write this had been a feUow-probationer of mine,
-with whom I had been on terms of great intimacy.
He wrote in ob-vious distress, and after my answer,
written in equal distress, teUing him that I could
not come back, I never since received any communi
cation from him untU one day when I met him by
chance in the train. We took up then, I hoped
at the time, our old friendship; but even more re
cently he has again refused my acquaintance, on
the ground that I showed too much "bitterness"
in pubUc controversy.
Further, about this time I was engaged in an
other rather painful correspondence. A dignitary
of the Church of England, the occupant of an his
toric see and an old friend of my famUy, hearing
somehow that I was in distress of mind as to my

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 123
spiritual aUegiance, wrote to me an extremely khid
letter, asking me to come and stay with hhn. I
answered that I was mdeed hi trouble, but had
aheady looked into the matter so far as I was ca
pable. But I suppose that I must have seemed to
hint that I was stUl open to conviction, for he wrote
again, stUl more affectionately, and then somehow
the correspondence became the retraversing of the
old ground I had passed months before. FinaUy
I told him plainly that I was aheady inteUectuaUy
decided, and received in answer a very sharp letter
or two, teUing me that if I would only go and work
hard in some slum parish aU my difficulties would
disappear. He might equaUy weU have told me to go
and teach Buddhism. In his last letter he prophe
sied that one of three things would happen to me:
either (which he hoped) I should return quickly to
the Church of England with my sanity regained,
or (which he feared) I should lose my Chris
tian beUef altogether, or (which he seemed to fear
StiU more, and in which he was perfectly right) I
should become an obstinate, hardened Romanist.
It appeared to him impossible that faith and open-
mindedness should survive conversion. I hope I
have not wronged him in this representation of
his -views. I destroyed his letter hnmediately.

124 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
§ 4. In order to distract myseU from all this, I
then went for a few days' bicycling tour alone in the
south of England, dressed as a layman, calling first
at the Carthusian Monastery of St. Hugh, Park-
minster, with an introduction to one of the Fathers,
himseU a convert clergyman. He received me very
courteously, but the visit depressed me even fur
ther, U that were possible. He seemed to me not
to understand that I reaUy asked nothing but to
be taught; that I was not coming as a critic, but as
a child. I do not think that I resented this, because
my whole soul told me it was not quite just; if it
had been just, I think I should have assumed a
kind of internal indignation as a salve to wounded
vanity. I went on in despair and stayed a Sunday
in lodgings at Chichester, where for the last time,
in a Uttle church opposite the Cathedral, I made my
AngUcan Confession, teUing the clergyman plainly
that I was practicaUy certain I should become a
Roman CathoUc. He very kindly gave me his
absolution and told me to cheer up.
Then for the last time I attended, as an Anglican,
cathedral services and received Communion; for
I StiU thought it my duty to use every conceivable
means of grace within my reach. On the Monday
I rode on to Lewes, thence to Rye, where, at sup-

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 125
per m the "George Inn," I had a long conversation
-with a man whom I took to be a certain distinguished
actor, talking to hhn for the most part about the
CathoUc Church, which he also loved from a dis
tance, but not saying anything about my intentions.
As a matter of fact, he did nearly aU the talking. On
the foUo-wing day I rode home by Mayfield, aU
through a blazing summer's day, looking with a
kind of gnawing en-vy at the convent waUs as I
passed them, and staying for a few minutes in a
beautiful Uttle dark CathoUc Church that I ran
across unexpectedly in a vaUey.
§ 5. Now it seems very difficult to say why I
had not submitted before this. The reasons, I
think, were as foUows. Fhst, there was the wish
of my mother and famUy that I should allow myself
every possible opportunity for a change of mind
under new surroundings, and this, even, by itself,
would have been sufficient to hold me back for a
whUe. I was trjdng to be docUe, it must be remem
bered, and to take every hint that could possibly
come from God. Secondly, there was my o-wn state
of mind, which, though intellectually ^convinced,
was StiU in an extraordinary condition. I entirely
refuse to describe it elaborately "^— it would not be
decent; but the sum of it was a sense of a huge.

126 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
souUess, spiritual wUderness, in which, as clear as
a view before rahi, towered up the City of God.
It was there before me, as -vi-vid and overwhehning
as a revelation, and I stood there and eyed it, watch
ing for the least wavering if it were a mirage, or
the least hint of e-vU U it were of the devU's buUding.
Cardinal Ne-wman's phrase describes best, I think,
my mental condition. I knew that the CathoUc
Church was the tme Church, but I did not absolutely
know that I knew it.
I had no kind of emotional attraction towards it,
no iUusions of any kind about it. I knew perfectly
weU that it was human as weU as di-vine, that crimes
had been committed within its waUs; that the ways
and customs and language of its citizens would be
other than those of the dear homely town which I had
left; that I should find hardness there, unfamUiar
manners, even suspicion and blame. But for aU that
it was di-vine; it was buUt upon the Rock of rocks;
its foundations were jeweUed even U its streets were
as hard as gold; and the Lamb was the Ught of it.
But the setting out towards ils gates was a hard
task. I had no energy, no sense of welcome or ex
ultation; I knew hardly more than three or four of
its inmates. I was deadly sick and tired of the
whole thing.

confessio!ns of a convert 127
But God was merciful very soon. Even now I
do not exactly know what precipitated the final
step; the whole world seemed to me poised in a kind
of paralysis. ... I could not move; there was no
other to suggest it to me. . . . But at the begin
ning of September, with my mother's knowledge, I
wrote a letter to a priest I knew personally, putting
myseU in his hands. This friend of mine, also a
convert, was now contemplating entering the Do
minican Order, and recommended me, therefore,
to Father Reginald Buckler, O.P., then Uving at
Woodchester. Two or three days later I received
notice that I was expected at the Priory, and on
Monday, September 7, in lay clothes, I set out on
my joumey. My mother said good-bye to me at
the station.

VII
§ I. I do not suppose that anyone ever entered
the City of God with less emotion than mine. It
seemed to me that I was utterly without feeling;
I had neither joy nor sorrow, nor dread nor excite
ment. There was the Truth, as aloof as an ice-
peak, and I had to embrace it. Never for one single
instant did I doubt that, nor, perhaps it is unneces
sary to say, have I ever doubted it since. I tried to
reproach myself with my coldness, but aU feU quite
flat. I was as one coming out of the glare of arti
ficial Ught, out of warmth and brightness and
friendliness, into a pale daylight of cold and dreary
certainty. I was uninterested and quite positive.
§ 2. I arrived at Stroud towards evenhig, sayhig
my AngUcan Office for the last tune on the way,
and, after waiting about for a whUe, entered the
omnibus for Woodchester, which is a few mUes
distant. The drive was as dreary as everything
else, though it should not have been, for the country
is reaUy beautiful and romantic. There is a long
twisting vaUey between hiUs that rise on either side

I30 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
in a manner not unlike some parts of Italy. We
drove on and on; I Ustened unintelhgently to the
conversation of an old man -with a rosy face, and
noticed one or two chUdren who were troublesome.
But nothing seemed to me to matter at aU or to be
of the sUghtest signfficance.
A lay-brother was waiting for me at the foot of
the little steep stony path that leads from the road
to the Priory, and together we climbed it. Near
the gate of the church, in the darkening evening Ught,
there was standing a figure in white, who, when he
saw us, came down the hUl and took my hands in
his; and, almost in sUence, we went on and into
the house. But even then I was utterly duU and
stupid. I do not propose to describe in detaU the three
days that foUowed. After aU, I do not know why
anyone should be interested in them. Nor do I
propose to describe the endless kindness, courtesy,
and patience that I found in Father Reginald and
the Prior, and, in fact, in everyone with whom I
had to do.' My instmctor and I walked together on
the three aftemoons and talked of this and that,
and m. my spare time I studied the Penny Catechism.
One detaU, however, I must mention, at the risk even
of annoying that dear Dominican Father. He asked

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 131
me on the Thursday whether I had any difficulties.
I told hhn "No." "But, surely, mdulgences!" he
said. Again I told him that these were not the
sUghtest difficulty. I was not sure that I perfectly
understood them, but I was quite sure that I per
fectly beUeved them, as indeed everything else
which the Church proposed to my faith. But he
was not quite satisfied, and gave me a fuU and
detailed instruction on the point.
On these evenings, too, he always came in for
an hour or two in my room, on the first floor. Each
momhig I heard Mass and attempted a sort of med
itation. I attended other Offices now and then and
was always at CompUne and the exquisite Domin
ican ceremony of the Salve Regina afterwards. I
noticed also with mUd interest the resemblance of
the Dominican to the Samm rite in various points.
On the Friday, the day fixed for my reception, I
took a long, lonely walk, stUl enthely uninterested,
and -visited the church of Mmchhihampton, on the
opposite side of the vaUey. I was caught hi the
rahi, I remember, and had tea in a smaU pubUc-house
parlour, where there was a rather witty Ust of in
stmctions to visitors as to the personal prowess
of the landlord and his mtentions of enf orcmg order.
Then I came back to the Priory about six o'clock.

132 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
I cannot imagine why I am -writing dovm aU
this, except that it seems impossible to think of the
events of those days under any other images than
those of the smaU external detaUs which happened.
Even U I had glowing spiritual experiences to re-
ord, I should not do so; but the tmth is that I had
none. There seemed nothing within me at aU
except an absolute certainty that I was doing God's
wUl and was entering the doors of His Church.
I had no elevations of spirit and no temptations
against faith or anything else; and this, I must con
fess, lasted not only through my reception and
First Communion, but for some months afterwards.
Even Rome itself, though I learned strange and
astounding lessons there, sent very few emotions
through me.
In fact, I was experiencing at this time the nat
ural reaction of the very real and appaUing stmggle
that I had been engaged in previously for nearly a
year. During that time, in various forms, I had
gone through the whole gamut of such spiritual
life as I possessed, and the result was that my fac
ulties had sunk into a kind of lethargy. Even this
I only mention now, as I have kno-wn more than
one convert utterly dismayed and astonished at
similar experiences. The soul had expected the

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 133
¦visible opening of heaven, the pouring out of floods of
sensible grace, torrents of pleasure, dazzling glory
and super-terrestrial sounds, and instead there had
descended a paU of heaviness with but one Ught to
pierce it, and that the Star of Divine Faith, as steady
and certain as God upon His throne.
Of course those souls are very happy who find it
otherwise. One such friend of mine, now a priest
also, told me that his supreme difficulty in mak
ing his submission was the thought that he must
repudiate his own Orders. Up to that time he
had been a RituaUstic clergyman, doing a devoted
work among the poor in one of the great Eng
Ush towns and celebrating every day for years what
he beUeved to be the Holy Sacrffice of the Mass.
He told me that he ahnost dreaded his First Com
munion, because he was afraid that, since it was
inconceivable that Our Lord could be more gracious
to him than He had been at AngUcan altars, he him
seU might be tempted to doubt the reality of the
change. But the moment that the Sacred Host
touched his tongue he knew the difference. He told
me that never again after that moment did he
doubt for a single second that hitherto he had
received nothing but bread and wine, accompanied
by unsacramental grace, and that this new gift

134 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
was indeed nothing else than the Immaculate
Body of Christ. He is, moreover, a middle-aged,
unemotional man.
§ 3. At about half-past six Father Reginald took
me into the Chapter House, and there, kneeling down
by the Prior's seat, I made my confession, together
with acts of faith, hope, charity, and contrition,
and received absolution. I did not receive condi
tional baptism — although of course I was perfectiy
willing to do so — since two witnesses at my pre-vious
baptism had given independent testimony that the
ceremony had been undoubtedly performed accord
ing to Catholic requirements. Then, Uke a father
with his son, he kissed me, and I went through
into church to make my thanksgiving.
On the foUowing morning I received Holy Com
munion in the beautiful Uttle church, from the
hands of the Prior. I stayed over the Sunday,
-with a curious, passionless kind of contentment
growing m my heart ahnost every moment, and on
the Monday journeyed up to the north to stay with
my priest-friend, who was then acting as chaplam
to a CathoUc household.
Rather a strange surprise awaited me here. A
few weeks pre-viously I had had one of those -vi-vid
dreams that leave, during aU the day that foUows

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 135
them, an inexpUcable, incommunicable joy. I had
dreamed that I was walking alone over high hUls
towards the sea, feeling rather lonely and desolate.
The ground was bare aU about me, but as I went
on I began to see woods in front, and then suddenly
I came out on a hiUtop and saw below me a great
sweep of woods and beyond them the sea. But
set right in the middle of the woods was the roof of
a large house, and the moment I saw this I was
conscious of a sudden overwhehning joy, as of a
chUd coming home. Then I awoke, stiU extraor
dinarUy happy.
Now I had never before been to see my friend, nor
had he ever given m6 the least outline of a descrip
tion of the place in which he Uved. I did not even
know that it was near the sea. When, therefore,
I arrived and saw that the sea was not far off, I
was interested, and told my friend the dream, re
marking that in other points there was no resem
blance between the dream and this place. But on
the next momhig he took me up a hUl behind the
house, and there, strangely enough, in aU their
main features the two things corresponded. There
were the roofs and chimneys of the CathoUc house,
the sweep of the woods, and the long horizon of the
sea beyond. Yet there were one or two smaU

136 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
detaUs, which I now forget, which appeared to me
different; neither was there any emotional sense of
joy. § 4. And now began the ine-vitable consequences
of what I had done. I do not know how many letters
I received in the few days foUowing the announce
ment in the papers of my conversion; but I had at
least two hea-vy posts every day. These had to be
answered, and what made it harder was that among
them aU there were not more than two or three
from CathoUcs. This was perfectly natural, as I
hardly knew more than that number of CathoUcs.
One telegram indeed warmed my heart; for it was
from that priest to whom I owed so much and of
whose conversion I had heard with such sorrow in
Damascus six years before. The rest were from
AngUcans — clergy, men, women, and even chU
dren — most of whom regarded me either as a delib
erate traitor (but of these there were very few) or
as an infatuated fool, or as an impatient, headstrong,
ungrateful bigot. Many of these kindly concealed
their sentiments as weU as they could, but it was
for the most part plain enough what they thought.
From one clergyman, stUl an Anglican, I received
an enthusiastic letter of congratulation on ha-ving
been happy enough to have found my way into the

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 137
City of Peace. Eight years later he also entered
that city.
I think that I answered them aU, even down to
one from a sincere women who besought me to
remember a sermon I had once preached upon 'the
Prodigal Son, and to make haste to come back to
the Father's house. I answered this, very naturaUy,
by observing that, on the contrary, I had just done
so, pointing out to her that no conceivable motive
except the con-viction to that effect would have
brought me out of the Church of England. I also
expressed a hope that one day she would come too.
She handed my letter to her clerg3anan, who replied
to me instantly with a -violent accusation of treach
ery, teUing me that when he had asked me to preach
a mission in his parish he had thought me to be
trustworthy; he was sorry now that my "per
version" had so quickly degraded my character.
Again I answered by quoting his parishioner's
remarks to me and observing that I could scarcely
answer her otherwise than the way in which I had
done. He repUed once more with a half-apology,
saying that the woman had given him to under
stand that I had written to her first, and that he
regretted having used such strong expressions.
Another letter which I received caused me con-

138 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
siderable pain as weU as astonishment. It was
from a middle-aged woman whom I had thought
sincerely my friend — the -wife of an eminent digni
tary in the Church of England. The letter was
short, bitter, and fierce, reproaching me for the
dishonour I had done to my father's name and
memory. It seemed to me then — and it seems to
me StiU — incomprehensible that a person of true
and deep reUgion, such as she undoubtedly was,
should utter this particular reproach; just as if the
thought of this dishonour to my father had not been
so evidently a Satanic temptation that I had not
dared even to hesitate over its rejection. Very
different from this was the deep and generous
phrase of a certain AngUcan Bishop, who, in speak
ing to my mother after my departure for Rome,
said to her, "Remember that he has followed his
conscience after aU, and what else could his father
wish for him than that?" I can only conclude that
the letter was written in a mood of blind anger.
But such controversies were very rare. Once
again, later, I was informed by a clergyman that
such an act of schism as I had committed always
bore "bitter fruit," and that apparently m my case,
as m so many others, "honour had taken to itself
wmgs." AU this was apropos of the fact that after

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 139
my ordination in Rome I had come harmlessly to
Uve in the same to-wn as himself, though not engaged
at that time in any evangeUstic works, and that
nearly two years pre-viously, agamst my o-wn -wiU,
I had been sent to preach an AngUcan mission in
his parish. I answered by hinting that unless he
¦withdrew those expressions, which I knew veiy weU
he would repeat in private conversations, I should
consider myseU at Uberty to send his letter to the
newspapers. He withdrew them.
Yet, -with a very few exceptions of this kind, I
must acknowledge -with the greatest gratitude that
the charity -with which I was treated by members
of the AngUcan communion in general simply as
tonished me. I did not know that there was so
much generosity in the world.
A few days later I went to stay at Erdington
Abbey, with the Benedictines, and here again I
began to find more and more evidences of the wel
come that was waiting for me in my true home.
Two of the Fathers, themselves convert-clerg)Tnen,
took aU pains to set me at my ease and to show me
kindness and sympathy in every conceivable way.
It was reassuring to me also at this time to meet
here another weU-known clergjonan, of whom
previously I had known nothing except by reputa-

I40 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
tion, and who had preceded me by a few months
hito the CathoUc Church. I need not say that we
talked a great deal.
A day or two later, once more I went back to
my mother's house, where I had the satisfaction
of finishmg the last pages of "By What Authority?"
before lea-ving England, on AU Souls' Day, to take
up my residence in Rome with a -view to studying for
the priesthood.
One more instance of Anglican charity occurred
two minutes after my train had left Victoria station.
As my mother was turning away, she saw coming
towards her a prelate of the Episcopahan Scottish
Church, a High Churchman and an old friend of
her own. He had come to say good-bye to me and
to -wish me God-speed. I have not forgotten that
and, please God, I never shaU.

VIII
And now I do not know whether it is respectful
to my holy mother the Church to attempt to say
what she has been to me ever since the day that I
walked blind and dumb and miserable into her
arms. But I have said so much of others that I
¦wiU venture even this. She, too, needs no charity
of mine, for she is the fount and river of it.
§ I. It seems very remarkable to be obliged
to say that the idea of returning to the Church of
England is as inconceivable as the idea of seeking
to enter the Choctaw fold. Yet, humanly speaking,
and looking at it from the Anglican side, so far as
that is possible, I quite understand why it is that
AngUcans are always accustomed to say of every
convert that "he is certain to come back." First
of aU, they naturaUy desire that aU persons, however
obscure, who are not likely to disgrace themselves,
should be under the same aUegiance as that to
which they pay theh own homage. Why, Cath
oUcs have a simUar wish on their side! Secondly,
in a word, they do not understand the situation.
They are so accustomed to division and disunion

142 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
on the deepest matters of faith in their own body,
that they can scarcely conceive its being otherwise
elsewhere. Either, they say, these divisions must
be in CathoUcism too, though beneath the surface,
or, U they are not, it must mean that inteUectual
acti-vity is suppressed by the "iron uniformity" of
the system. They do not at aU understand how
"the tmth can make (us) free." It is a complete
begging of the question, I aUow, but it appears to
me more tme every day that I Uve, that those few
persons who do return do so either by the road of
complete unbeUef, or through some grave sin in
their Uves, or through a species of insanity, or
through the fact that they never reaUy grasped the
CathoUc position at aU.
It is of no use to pUe up asseverations, but, in
a word, it may be said that to retum from the
CathoUc Church to the AngUcan would be the
exchange of certitude for doubt, of faith for agnos
ticism, of substance for shadow, of brUliant Ught
for sombre gloom, of historical, world-wide fact for
unhistorical, pro-vmcial theory. I do not know
how to express myself more mUdly than that;
though even this, no doubt, -wUl appear a mon
strous extravagance, at the least, to the smcere and
whole-hearted members of the AngUcan communion.

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 143
Only yesterday, in fact, an educated young High
Churchman looked me unblenchingly in the face
and said that the "Roman idea is aU very weU in
theory; but as a practical system it does not work
— it does not square with history; whereas the
AngUcan communion — !" WeU, well!
§ 2. Are there, then, no defects or disappoint
ments that await the convert to CathoUcism?
There are as many defects awaiting his discovery
as reside in human nature; the number of his dis
appointments wiU vary according to the number
of his expectations.
Fhst, then, there is a very singular attitude
assumed by many Catholics, whose own faith is
beyond doubt, with regard to the conversion of
non-CathoUcs, and of the EngUsh in particular.
I omit as hrelevant, of course, the lukewarmness
of the lukewarm, or the actual religious spite of the
very few persons who are actuaUy jealous of others
possessing what they themselves find so precious.
It is rather of the strange mentaUty of persons who,
themselves practising their faith fervently, seem
entirely indifferent to the missionary duties of the
Church. "I hear that A. B. has become a Cath
oUc," said a good CathoUc woman once. "What in
the world has she done that for?"

144 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
Now such an attitude of mind as this is not only
a defect — to use a very mUd word — but it was,
for me at any rate, a very real disappointment. It
had never even entered my head to expect that such
a position could be conceivable in one who valued
his faith. And, to teU the tmth, it is not so un
common as one might think. Now this is nothing
else than sheer Sectarianism; for unless the CathoUc
ReUgion is intended for the whole world, it is false.
It is Uterally CathoUc, or nothing. WeU, this was
completely bewUdering to me. I had been taught
to beUeve that Catholics had at least the grace of
Proselytism; that they possessed, at any rate, that
passion for converting others which is usuaUy one
of the signs of strong con-viction. And here I
found, not only indifference in many cases, but even
a kind of veUed opposition towards every form of
acti-vity m this direction. " Converts have so much
zeal," it is said; "they are indiscreet and impetu
ous. The steady old ways are preferable; let us
keep our faith to ourselves, and let others keep
theirs." I have come lately to understand that this Sec
tarianism is perhaps hi some cases the result of the
centuries of penal law under which CathoUcs in
England have Uved. They have been for so long

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 145
accustomed to shroud their sacred mysteries, in
order to protect both the mysteries and themselves,
that a kind of formless tradition has gro-wn up to
the effect that it is best to leave weU alone and
to risk as Uttle as possible. If that is so. Sectari
anism is at least an honourable scar; yet it is
none the less a defect. Curiously enough, however,
it is not usuaUy among the reaUy old CathoUc
famiUes that it makes its appearance; these are,
generaUy, as ardent missionaries as the convert
himseU: it is rather among the spirituaUy nouveaux
riches — among the CathoUcs of one or two genera
tions only — that this sphitual snobbishness is the
more frequent.
A second defect, akin to the first, is that of jeal
ousy against converts. Now I should not have
ventured to draw particular attention to this if I
myself had suffered from it to any marked degree,
since m that case I should distmst my own judg
ment in dealing with it. The fact is that I have
not. I have received extraordinary generosity on
aU sides, even m such matters as my very early
ordination in Rome after only nine months of
CathoUc Ufe. Of course there were many who
disapproved of the rapidity with which I was pro
moted to the priesthood, but in practicaUy aU these

146 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
cases it would be ludicrously impossible to suspect
in them the presence of jealousy or of that subtle
form of it which manUests itself in a desire to snub
the neophyte. On the whole I am astonished at
the kindness which CathoUcs have always sho-wn
to me.
But I have come across case after case, have heard
sentences and fragments of conversation which leave
no possibUity for doubting but that many converts
do find jealousy and suspicion on the part of second-
rate CathoUcs as among the greatest trials of their
life. Such an attitude is, indeed, exceedingly
human and natural. "Thou hast made them equal
unto us," cries the man in the parable, "who have
borne the burden and heat of the day!" And this
attitude is, of course, often apparently justffied by
the iU-beha-viour and the arrogance of a convert
or two now and then — of persons who march into
the Church, so to speak, with banners flying and
drums playing, as if they themselves were the con
querors instead of the conquered. But, honestly,
I think that arrogance amongst converts is extremely
rare. The course of instmction through which
they have to pass, the vast sacrffices which many
of them have had to make — these things, to say
nothing of the amazing Grace of God that has

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 147
brought them mto the Church at aU, usuaUy purge
and chasten the soul in an extraordinary degree.
After aU, ceteris paribus, the convert has been caUed
upon by God to give a greater -witness of shicerity
than can any man, who, as a Catholic from the
cradle, has found his main duty merely in the
keeping of the Faith. Ceteris paribus, it is a more
heroic act to break with the past than to be loyal
to it.
Here, again, however, it is not amongst the
genuine "old Catholics" — the aristocrats of the
Faith, so to speak — that jealousy or suspicion
towards converts usuaUy manifest themselves, but,
once more, amongst those who desire to be thought
so — amongst those who, hi a determination to mark
their aloofness from the " convert-sphit," think to
advertise the fact by fault-finding and Ul-mannered
contempt. They have come into their fortune
comparatively recently, and they think to hide their
spiritual origins by snubbing those who make no
claim to such spiritual aristocracy. It is among
this class, too, that that other kind of jealousy on
behalf of favourite churches or priests usuaUy
manifests itself — a jealousy that is not content
-with plaguing the life out of the unhappy clergy,
who, they think, alone can understand them, but

148 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
proceeds further by slander and spite and gossip
to attack the good name of everyone else.
There are, then, defects amongst Catholics — I
have named two — and it is entirely useless to deny
them. Only they are not, in the very least, of the
kind which non-CathoUcs suspect or pretend. These
defects are such as are common to human nature
everywhere — to indi-viduals, that is, who faU to
Uve up to the standards of their religion. But the
faults supposed by AngUcans to be most charac
teristic of those who pay their aUegiance to Rome
are simply not characteristic at aU. First, there
is absolutely none of that diversity on matters of
faith which the Anglican, in his own case, appar
ently accepts as his "cross"; there are no "schools
of thought" in this sense, at aU; there is not the
faintest dogmatic difference between these two
groups of temperaments into which the whole
human race may more or less be divided — the
maxhnizers and the minimizers — or, as they are
labeUed by AngUcans in the case of the Catholic
Church — the Ultramontanes and the GaUicans.
So far as these camps exist at aU, though, frankly,
I must confess my entire inabiUty so to classify
CathoUcs, they are concemed, I imagine, merely
with the pmdence or impmdence of a proposed

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 149
action, with a like or dislike of "Roman" methods
and such Uke secondary affairs. Again, there is no
"seething discontent," so far as I am aware, within
the waUs of the Church. Certainly I continuaUy
am hearing of it, but always from noA-CathoUcs.
There is no inteUectual revolt on the part of the
stronger minds of the Roman communion that I
have ever heard of — except from non-Catholics.
There is no "aUenation of the men"; on the con
trary, in this country, as also in Italy and France,
I am continuaUy astonished by the extraordinary
predominance of the male sex over the female in
attendance at Mass and in the practice of private
prayer in our churches. At a recent casual occa
sion, upon my remarking to the parish-priest of a
suburban church that I have always been struck
by this phenomenon, he told me that on the pre-vious
evening he had happened to count the congrega
tion from the west gaUery and that the proportion
of men to women had been about as two to one.
This, of course, was something of an exceptional
iUustration of my point. AU these charges, there
fore, so freely leveUed against us, are, it appears to
me, entirely void of substance. Of course there
are hot temperaments and cold, apostoUc and
diplomatic natures, among CathoUcs, as elsewhere.

I50 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
Of course occasionaUy a little revolt breaks out,
as it wUl break out in every human society; of
course self--wiUed persons — women as weU as men
— wiU occasionaUy dissociate themselves from
CathoUc Ufe, or, worse stUl, attempt to remain
CathoUc in name whUe whoUy un- CathoUc in
spirit. But what I mean to deny is that these
incidents even approximate to tendencies — stUl
less that, as tendencies, they are in the faintest
degree characteristic of CathoUcism — or that the
astonishing cahn on the surface of the Church is,
as a matter of fact, undermined by fierce internal
stmggles. It is simply not tme.
Again, I must emphaticaUy deny that formalism
is characteristic of Cathohcism in a way that it is
not characteristic of Protestantism. There is, how
ever, just this shadow of tmth in the charge; viz.,
that amongst CathoUcs emotionaUsm and even
strong sentiment is considerably discouraged, and
that the heart of reUgion is thought rather to reside
in the adherence and obedience of the wUl. The
result is, of course, that persons of a comparatively
undevout nature wUl, as CathoUcs, contmue to
practise their reUgion, and sometimes, in ungenerous
characters, only the barest minimum of their obli
gations; whereas as AngUcans they would give it

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 151
up altogether. It foUows that perhaps it may be
true to say that the average emotional level of a
Catholic congregation is lower than the correspond
ing level of a Protestant congregation, but it is
not at aU a consequence that therefore CathoUcs
are more formaUstic than Protestants. These cold,
undevout souls — or rather these souls of a natu
raUy undevout temperament- — adhere to their re
Ugion through the sheer motive of obedience, and
it is surely remarkable to condemn them on that
account! Obedience to the -wiU of God — or even
what is merely beUeved to be the wiU of God — is
actuaUy more meritorious, not less, when it is un
accompanied by emotional consolations and sensible
fervour. In a word, then, I would say this: that, judging
from an experience of nine years as an Anglican
clerg3Tnan and eight years as a CathoUc priest, there
are defects in both the CathoUc and the Anglican
communions; that in the case of the AngUcan these
defects are -vital and radical, since they are flaws
in what ought to be di-vinely intact — flaws, that
is to say, in such things as the certitude of faith,
the unity of beUevers, and the authority of those
who should be teachers in the Name of God; and
that m the case of the CathoUc Church the flaws

152 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
are merely those of flawed humanity, inseparable
from the state of imperfection in which aU men are
placed. The flaws of Anglicanism, and indeed in
Protestantism generaUy, are e-vidences that the
system is not divine; the flaws in the Catholic
system show no more than that it has a human side
as weU as a di-vine, and this no Catholic has ever
dreamed of denying.
§ 3. In Rome I learned one supremely large
lesson, among a hundred others. It has been very
weU said that Gothic architecture represents the
soul aspiring to God, and that Renaissance or
Romanesque architecture represents God taberna
cling with men. Both sides are true, yet neither, in
the reUgion of the Incarnation, is complete -without
the other. On the one side, it is tme that the soul
must always be seeking, always gazing up through
the darkness to a God who hides Himself, always
remembering that the Infinite transcends the finite
and that an immense agnosticism must be an ele
ment in every creed; the lines of this world, as it
were, run up into gloom; the light that glimmers
through carved tracery and hea-vy stains is enough
to walk by, but little more. It is in sUence that
God is known, and through mysteries that He
declares HimseU. "God is a spirit," formless,

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT iS3
infinite, in-visible, and etemal, and "they that wor
ship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth."
Here, then, is mysticism and the darkness of spirit
ual experience.
Then, on the other side, God became man — "the
Word was made flesh." The di-vine, unknowable
Nature struck itself into flesh and "tabemacled
amongst us, and we beheld His glory." What was
hidden was made kno-wn. It is not only we who
thirst and knock: it is God Who, thirsting for our
love, died upon the cross that He might open the
kingdom of heaven to all beUevers, Who rent the
veU of the Temple by His death-groan, and Who
stUl stands knocking at every human heart, that
He may come in and sup with man. The round
dome of heaven is brought do-wn to earth; the walls
of the world are plain to the sight; its Umitations
are seen in the Ught of God; the broad sunshine
of Revelation streams on aU sides through clear
-windows upon a gorgeous pavement; angels and
gods and men riot together in an intoxication of
divine love; the high altar stands plain to -view in a
blaze of gilding and candles; and above it the round
brazen and silken tent of God-made-man stands
that aU alike may see and adore.
Now, this side of the religion of the Incamation

154 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
had hitherto meant almost nothing to me. I was
a Northemer pure and simple, educated in Northem
ways. I loved twUight and mysterious music and
the shadow of deep woods; I hated open spaces of
sun and trumpets in unison and the round and
square in architecture. I preferred meditation to
vocal prayer, Mme. Guyon to Mother Julian, "John
Inglesant" to St. Thomas, the thirteenth century —
as I imagined it — to the sixteenth. Until towards
the end of my Anglican life I should frankly have
acknowledged this; then I should have resented the
accusation, for I was beginning to understand —
and, therefore, thought that I entirely understood
— that the world was as material as it was spiritual,
and that creeds were as necessary as aspirations.
But when I came to Rome I acknowledged to myself
once more how little I had understood.
Here was this city. Renaissance from end to end,
set under clear skies and a burning sun; and the
reUgion hi it was the soul dweUmg m the body. It
was the assertion of the reaUty of the human prin
ciple as embod3dng the di-vine. Even the exclusive
tenets of Christianity were expressed under pagan
images. Revelation spoke through forms of natural
reUgion; God dwelt unashamed in the Ught of day;
priests were priests, not aspiring clerg3mien; they

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 155
sacrificed, sprinkled lustral water, went in long,
roUing processions with incense and lights, and
caUed heaven Olympus. Sacrum Divo Sebastiano,
I saw inscribed on a granite altar. I sat under
priest-professors who shouted, laughed, and joyously
demonstrated before six nations in one lecture room.
I saw the picture of the "Father of princes and
kings and Lord of the world" exposed in the streets
on his name-day, surrounded by flowers and oU
lamps, in the manner in which, two centuries ago,
other lords of the world were honoured. I went
down into the Catacombs on St. CecUia's Day and
St. Valentine's, and smeUed the box and the myrtle
underfoot that did reverence to the fragrance of
their memories, as centuries ago they had done
reverence to -victors in another kind of contest. In
one sentence, I began to understand that "the
Word was made flesh and dwelt among us"; that
as He took the created substance of a Virgin to
fashion for Himself a natural body, so stiU He
takes the created substance of men — their thoughts,
their expressions, and their methods — to make
for Himself that mystical body by which He is -with
us always; in short, I perceived that "there is
nothing secular but shi." CathoUcism, then, is
"materiaUstic?" Certamly; it is as materiaUstic

156 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
as the Creation and the Incamation, neither more
nor less.
It is impossible to describe what this discovery
means to a Northem soul. Certainly it means the
obscuring of some of the old Ughts that had once
seemed so beautUul in the half-gloom of indi-vidual
experience, or rather, theh drowning in the strong
sunshine. Set beside some Roman pomp an ex
quisite Anglican service: how pro-vincial, domestic,
and individuaUstic becomes the latter! Set beside
a Gregorian professor lecturing to Greeks, Rouma
nians, and Frenchmen, on the principles of restitu
tion or the duty of citizens to the State, an Anglican
di-vine expounding St. Paul's Epistles to theological
students; a friar in S. Carlo beside the most passion
ate mission preacher in the Church of England;
the ohve-laden peasants shouting hymns in S.
Giovanne in Laterano beside a devout company
of AngUcans gathered for Evensong; an hieratic
sacrfficer in S. Maria Maggiore beside the most
perfectly driUed RituaUst m Mass vestments!
Oh! Set any section of Cathohc faith and worship
seen in holy Rome beside the corresponding section
of AngUcan faith and worship! Yet AngUcans are
shocked in Rome, and Dissenters exclaim at the
paganism, and Free-thhikers smUe at the narrow-

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 157
ness of it aU. Of course they are shocked and
exclaim and smUe. How should they not?
Thus, in tmth, a sojourn in Rome means an
expansion of view that is beyond words. Whereas
up to that time I had been accustomed to image
Christianity to myself as a dehcate flower, di-vine
because of its supernatural fragUity, now I saw that
it was a tree in whose branches the fowls of the air,
once the enemies of its tender growth, can lodge in
security — di-vine since the wideness of its reach
and the strength of its mighty roots can be accounted
for by nothing else. Before I had thought of it as
of a fine, sweet aroma, to be appreciated apart; now
I saw that it was the leaven, hid in the hea-vy meas
ures of the world, expressing itself in terms incalcu
lably coarser than itself, untU the whole is leavened.
§ 4. So day after day the teaching went on. I
was as a boy introduced for the first time to some
great engine shed: the wheels roared round me;
huge, remorseless movements went on; the noise
and the power were bewUdering; yet Uttle by little
the lesson was dinned into my head that here was
something other than I had ever kno-wn, some-
thhig I could never have leamed hi my quiet
Northem t-wiUght. Here were the business-offices
of the spiritual world; here grace was dispensed,

158 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
dogma defined, and pro-vision made for souls across
the world. Here God had taken His seat to rule
His people, where once Domitian — Dominus et
Deus noster — God's Ape, had ruled in His despite,
yet shado-wing God's Vicar. On Good Friday,
below the ruins of the Palatine, I stood in "S.
Toto's" church and heard, "If thou let this Man go,
thou art not Caesar's friend." Now "This Man" is
King and Caesar is nothing. Here, indeed, if ever
anywhere, has the leaven, plunged nineteen cen
turies ago by God's hand into the hea-ving sodden-
ness of the Empire of Rome, graduaUy expressed
itself in law and dogma under images of secular
thought; here was the blood of Peter, that soaked
into the ground below the obeUsk, pulsing once
more in the veins of Pius — Pontifex Maximus et
Pater Patrum — scarcely a hundred yards away.
That at least I leamed in Rome, and it was a
lesson worth the conffict ten thousand times over.
I had come out from a warm fireUt room, fuU of
shadows, into the shouting wind and great air
spaces of human history. I understood at last that
nothing human was aUen to God, that the gropings
of pre-Christian nations had brought them very
near to the Gate of Tmth; that their Uttle systems
and efforts and images had not been despised by

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 159
Him who permitted them; and that "God, ha-ving
spoken on divers occasions, and many ways, in
times past, to the fathers by the prophets, last of
aU in these days hath spoken to us by His Son,
Whom He hath appointed heir of aU things, by
Whom also He made the world; Who, being the
splendour of His glory and the figure of His sub
stance, and upholding aU things by the word of
His power, making purgation of sins, sitteth on the
right Hand of the Majesty on high."
§ 5. And if I leamed that in Rome, I have leamed
once more in England that the Church of God is
as tender as she is strong. She, like her Spouse
and her type. His Mother, -views aU things, sees all
men, controls giant forces; yet in her di-vinity does
not despise "one of these Uttle ones." To the world
she is a Queen, rigid, arrogant, and imperious, robed
in stiff gold and jewels, looking superbly out upon
crime and revolt; but to her o-wn children she is
Mother even more than Queen. She fingers the
hurts of her tiniest sons, Ustens to their infinitesi
mal sorrows, teaches them patiently their lessons,
deshes passionately that they should grow up as
princes should. And, supremely above aU, she
knows how to speak to them of their Father and
Lord, how to interpret His wiU to them, how to

i6o CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
teU them the story of His exploits; she breathes
into them something of her o-wn love and reverence;
she encourages them to be open and unafraid -with
both her and Him; she takes them apart by a secret
way to introduce them to His presence.
AU that I ever found in my old home, of guidance
and rebuke and encouragement, I have found again
at the hands of her priests, endowed, too, -with
knowledge as weU as love. AU the freedom of
indi-vidual worship and thought that some think
to be the glory of non-CathoUc bodies I have found
expressly secured to me in her temples, and have
used it -with far more confidence, since I know that
her searching eye is upon me and that she -wiU first
caU and at last strike s-wiftly if I wander too far.
Her arms are as open to those who would serve God
in sUence and seclusion as to those who "dance
before Him with aU their might." For, like Charity,
of which she is the embodiment, she is patient, she
is kind; ... she beareth aU things, beheveth aU
things, hopeth aU thmgs, endureth aU things; she
never faUeth. In her "we know m part, and we
prophesy m part"; we are secure of what we have
received, we are expectant of that which is yet to
come. No one better than she recognizes that
"we see now through a glass hi an obscure manner,"

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT i6i
yet some day "face to face"; that now we "know
in part, but then we shaU know even as we are
known." In her supremely I understand that
"when I was a chUd I spoke as a chUd, I under
stood as a chUd, I thought as a chUd. But when I
became a man, I put away the things of a child."
AU, then, that is to be found in every other system,
however eclectic, however adapted to the indi-vidual,
is to be found here — aU the mysticism of the
North, the patience of the East, the joyful confi
dence of the South, and the fearless enterprise of
the West. She understands and kindles the heart
as weU as she guides and informs the head. She
alone holds up -virginity as the most honourable
state and matrimony as an indissoluble and holy
Sacrament. She alone recognizes explicitly the
vocation of the indi-vidual as perfectly as the ideals
of the race; is reverent towards subjective faith as
weU as faithful to objective truth. She alone, in
fact, is perfectly famiUar and tender with the separate
soul, understands its wants, supphes its deficiencies,
deals carefuUy with its weaknesses and sins; simply
because she is as wide as the world, as old as the
ages, and as great-hearted as God.
§ 6. As, then, I look back from this present
moment, reading again the first page of these Con-

i62 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
fessions and sitting here in the house which once
I -visited years ago as a suspicious, timid, complacent
boy, I see God's plan -with me lying like a golden
thread through aU the tumbled country through
which I have come, up from the pleasant meadows
of home and school, the broken slopes of mmis-
terial work, the caverns and cUffs of the shadow
of death, up to this waUed and battlemented
plateau, from which for the first time the world
is -visible as it reaUy is, not as I had thought
it to be. I understand now that there is cohe
rence in aU that God has made — that He has
made of one blood aU the nations of the earth;
that there is not one aspiration out of the dark
ness that does not find its way to Him; not one
broken or distorted system of thought that does
not flash back at least one ray of etemal glory; not
one soul but has her place in His economy. On
the one side there is thirst and desire and restless
ness; on the other, satisfaction and peace; there
is no instinct but has its object, no pool but it reflects
the sun, no spot of disfigured earth but has the sky
above it. And through aU this ruined -wUderness
He has brought me, of His infinite goodness, to that
place where Jemsalem has descended from on high,
which is the mother of us aU; He has brought me

CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT 163
out of the mire and clay and set my feet upon the
rock; He has Ufted me from those straying paths
that lead nowhere, on to the broad road that leads
to Him.
What yet Ues beyond I do not know: the towers
of this City of God rise immediately into the clouds
that are about His Throne; the City is too vast,
its streets too glorious, its houses too stupendous
for any soul to dream that she knows them aU or
understands their secret. In this world, at least,
not even the saint or the theologian, or the old man
who has Uved aU his days within her waUs, can dare
to think that he has advanced more than a few
steps -within her heavenly gates. He stands -within
her, and, thank God, I stand there with him, as does
every soul to whom God has sho-wn this great mercy.
But aU of us together are but a party of chUdren
wandering in from the country, travel-stained, tired,
and bewUdered -with glory. About us are the great
palaces, where the princes dweU; behind us that
gate of pearl which, somehow, we have passed;
the streets before us are crowded -with heavenly
forms too bright to look upon; and supremely
high above us rises that great curtahied stair
way that leads to the King.
It is there that we must go presently, after a few

i64 CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT
more steps across the market square. Yet there
is nothing to fear for those who stand where we
stand; there are no precipices to be climbed any
more and no torrents to be crossed; God has made
aU easy for those He has admitted through the
Gate of Heaven that He has built upon the earth;
the very River of Death itseU is no more than a
dwindled stream, bridged and protected on every
side; the shadow of death is little more than t-wi
Ught for those who look on it in the Ught of the
Lamb. "Behold, the tabernacle of God -with men; and
He -wUl dweU with them. . . . and God shall wipe
away aU tears from their eyes, and death shall be
no more . . . And the City needeth not sun or moon
to shme m it; for the glory of God hath enlight
ened it, and the Lamb is the lamp thereof."

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