Now the fact that this word “yowe” is crossed out in this mysterious fashion, coupled with the fact that the words used at the end of the Letter are as follow: “and i hope god will give yowe the grace to mak good[56] use of it to whose holy proteccion i comend yowe,” makes it clear (to my mind) that an universal temporal salvation of the destined victims was intended by the revealing conspirator and by his penman, and not merely the particular salvation of the recipient of the Letter. Again, the meaning of the words “for the danger is passed as soon as yowe have burnt the letter,” is in one sense fairly clear. For as Wilson says, in his “_Life of James I._” (1653), p. 30, “the writer’s desire was to have the letter burned, and then the danger would be past both to the writer and the receiver, if he had grace to make use of the warning.”[57] This must be the, at least, _ostensible_ meaning. For it is obvious that neither Wright nor Oldcorne (_ex hypothesi_) would, for different but most potent reasons, wish the penman of the Letter to be known to the then public, either Catholic or Protestant. Now it was in accordance with universal right reason and moral fitness that Father Oldcorne should——so far as was consistent with his being satisfied that warning of the Plot had been given through trustworthy channels to the King’s principal Secretary of State——keep in the background and not himself in person adventure upon the theatre of action, even for the purpose of compassing an object which he was bound by his vocation, alike in Justice and Charity, to compass. For by the Act 27 Elizabeth, he was “a traitor,” being a Priest and remaining in England for more than forty days. While the fact that he was a Jesuit into the bargain would be, of course, counted an aggravation of his statutory offence.[58] Again, Father Oldcorne had to remember, besides the ideal standard that his vocation imposed upon him, the practical standard which was the unwritten law that guided the conscience of the best of the average Catholics in that period of their intolerable sufferings.[A] For it is a fact of human nature that every man seeks to instruct his conscience by some objective rule or standard of Truth and Right; but that instincts and emotions oftentimes finally rule men rather than reason and argumentative proof.