"I have not read any thing since my interview with the bishop. My plan is to wait and seriously consider what I ought to do. I need not tell you I am not happy. I am free from many of the annoyances which distress you, as I read no R. C. papers, and scarcely any of our own, and have no associate. I strive to live by the rule recommended by Dr. Pusey, and am almost as much isolated from Protestants as if there were none in our communion. I believe most firmly in the Sacrifice of the Mass, in the Real Presence, in the Veneration of Relics, in the Mediation of the Saints, and especially of St. Mary. I constantly beseech God to hear her supplications in my behalf, and only do not invoke her because I am not sure of the authority for doing so. I believe also in Purgatory. My difficulties are on the subject of Church authority and the Supremacy. My sympathy in doctrine, my reverence for the holy men who have gone out from us, _my strong prepossessions in favor of the Roman Catholic Church, which have never left me at any period of my life_, and the distress among us, all draw me to Rome; but the single question I ask myself (or strive to do so) is, whether any of these things ought to decide me, and whether the point of inquiry ought not to be--What is the Church? Partly on account of my position, and partly, dear Dwight, on account of grave deficiencies and sins in myself, I feel that I am full of inconsistencies, contradictions, apparent insincerities (perhaps real), presumptuous and fearful at the same time, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, not fully persuaded in my own mind, and not bending all my energies to become so. {99} And now, my dear Dwight, I have only opened my heart to you, without at all thinking of the effect it would have upon you. Simply seeking, as in duty bound, to deal with you as a friend, I have let you somewhat into my heart--only somewhat, for I deeply feel that to a full understanding of my state of feeling, even in reference to this subject, it would be needful that I should kneel down and humbly confess (as it would be a comfort to do) all the many offenses in word and deed of a sinful and tangled life. I have humbled myself before you. I know not how it shall be hereafter between us, how differently you may soon look upon me from what you have been used to do; but, wherever you are, think of me as a sinner and a penitent, and as one who desires and needs your prayers. * * * * * "And now, my dear friend, I do not think of any thing else which I ought to say to you, but to reciprocate the earnest hope and the conviction that you express, that God Almighty may enable us _together_ to have an abode here in that Ark which He has set up as the place of safety and peace in a lost world, and may give us _together_ an entrance into His Presence forever. May He of His undeserved mercy grant it."