That he did not immediately embrace the truth seems to have been not the effect of cowardice, but of a genuine scruple such as he expressed to Pope Gregory. The Anglican party at this time were sanguine of their ability to bring their members, as a body, into communion with the Roman see, and Mr. Faber was doubtless conscientious in his delay, though he suffered terribly from distress of mind. "I grow more Roman every day," he writes. "I hardly dare read the Articles; their weight grows heavier on me daily. _I hope our Blessed Lady's intercession may not cease for any of us_ because we do not seek it, since we desist for obedience' sake." He prayed at the shrine of St. Aloysius on the feast of that saint, and left the church as if speechless and not knowing where he was going. After he became a Catholic, he told Dr. Grant that on the 21st of June St. Aloysius "had always knocked very hard at his heart." Twice he took his hat to go to the English College and make his abjuration, but on each occasion some trifling circumstance interfered to prevent the execution of his purpose. He wore a miraculous medal, and he obtained some rosaries blessed by the pope. At last he went home to Elton, having suffered during his visit a degree of mental anguish which actually resulted in physical injuries that affected him all the rest of his life. Dr. Newman's state of mind was very much like Mr. Faber's at this time. The two friends wrote to each other, and agreed to delay their final decision for a little while longer; and in the mean time Mr. Faber threw all his energy into his parochial duties, endeavoring to copy the methods of pastoral labor which he had gone to Rome to study. His parish was disorderly in consequence of long neglect, and what religious vitality there was in the place was found principally at the dissenting chapel. Mr. Faber relied for reformation upon preaching, and what he considered the sacraments. He cared very little for ceremonies and vestments, and compared those who would now be called ritualists to "grown-up children playing at mass, putting ornament before truth, suffocating the inward by the outward." "This is not the way to become Catholic again; it is only a profaner kind of Protestantism than any we have seen hitherto." When the surplice controversy was agitating the Established Church, he told his congregation that he usually preached in a surplice because he preferred it, but he "would preach _in his shirt-sleeves_ if it would be any satisfaction to them." He tried to establish the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus; he published three tracts on examination of conscience; he introduced confessions, and out of the most promising of his young male penitents he formed a confraternity which used to meet at the rectory every night about twelve o'clock and spend an hour in prayer. On the vigils of great festivals, their devotions lasted two or three hours. On these nights, and also on