"My Dear Friend,--I must not delay any longer answering your kind and interesting letter. Its subject is one which has long occupied my thoughts, though I never contemplated the possibility of enlisting foreign Churches in prayer for it, but turned my attention more to exciting a spirit of prayer among ourselves. I will enter on the matter in hand with the most insignificant part of it, that is, my own feelings and endeavours, because I think they may encourage you and suggest some thoughts upon the subject. In our conference this time last year, I spoke very strongly to the students upon the wants of England, and the necessity of a new system in many things. One of the points on which I insisted was the want of systematic prayer for the conversion of England, and, at the same time, of _reparation_ for her defection. I observed that it is the only country {254} which has _persisted in_ and _renewed_, in every generation, _formal acts of apostacy_, exacting from every sovereign, in the name of the nation, and from all that aspired to office or dignity, specific declarations of their holding Catholic truths to be superstitious and idolatrous. This, therefore, assumes the form of a national sin of blasphemy and heresy--not habitual, but actual; it is a bar to the Divine blessing, an obstacle of a positive nature to God's grace. It calls for contrary _acts_, as explicit and as formal, to remove its bad effects. Now what are the points on which this blasphemous repetition of national apostacy has fastened? They are chiefly two: Transubstantiation and the worship of the Blessed Virgin. These, consequently, are the points towards which the reparation and, for it, the devotion of Catholics should be directed in England. I therefore proposed, and have continued to inculcate this two-fold devotion, to our students on every occasion. I have for a year made it my daily prayer that I might be instrumental in bringing back devotion to the Blessed Eucharist, its daily celebration, frequent Communion, and _public_ worship in England; and, at the same time, devotion to the Blessed Virgin, chiefly _through the propagation of the Rosary_. (My reasons for the choice of the Rosary I shall, perhaps, not be able to explain in this letter.) Allow me to mention, as I write to you, quite confidentially, that the idea struck me one afternoon that I happened to be alone in the Church of St. Eustachio, observing that the altar of the Blessed Sacrament was that of the Madonna; this led me to earnestly praying on the subject of uniting those two objects in a common devotion in England, and offering myself to promote it. Several things led me to feel strongly on the subject which, being trifles to others if not to myself, I omit. First, as to the Blessed Eucharist, my plan was different from yours in one respect, that, instead of fixing on one day, I proposed to engage priests to say