shone forth in the management of his parish. His intellect accepted as a whole, like a book of Euclid, the "Anglo-Catholic" theory. He felt not the slightest doubt, was immovable upon every point, and would gladly and bravely have died, if necessary, for each of them. In these mild days he had suffered for conscience' sake by losing his father's affection and damaging his testamentary prospects.

But the sacerdotal idea, which assumes SO attractive a form when it exhibits itself in a poetic personality, adding, as it were, strength to grace, or style to natural beauty, did, when apparent in the prosaic and mathematical mind of John Bevor, rather repel than excite sympathy. Contact with him was apt to stir up any slumbering Protestant feeling in some minds, any latent tendencies towards Rome in others; always a spirit of contradiction. This was his letter :—

COWSLIP RECTORY, OXFORDSHIRE,

MY DEAR BERTRAM,

25th April 1898.

I am greatly grieved to read in the Times that you have joined the schismatic Roman Church. I call it schismatic, because in England there is but one branch of the Catholic Church to which has been given divine authority to teach and to administer the sacraments. I

mean, of course, the Church in which you were born and educated. I need not tell you that the visible Catholic Church consists of all those who belong to the great society held together by the apostolical succession, handed down through bishops, and by the true doctrine and administration of the sacraments. So far it matters not whether they are born in the Anglican, the Greek, or the Latin branch of the Church. You may say then, “Why should I not belong to the Latin branch in preference to the Anglican branch of the Catholic Church?" I reply, for two reasons: first, because as I have said, you are, as a born Englishman,

bound to the obedience of this branch to which exclusive authority has been given by

God within the provinces of Canterbury and York; secondly, because the Roman Church is not only (within those limits) schismatical, but because she is everywhere heretical. How, you ask, is Rome heretical? I reply that Rome is heretical on this point, her claim to be the one true visible Catholic Church. Apart from this cardinal point, I myself accept, save for a few details, the whole cycle of doctrine held by the Church of Rome, and, as you know, I have introduced in my own church, in the face of much obloquy, much of the ritual and discipline which were once deemed, erroneously, to be exclusively Roman. But the great heresy of Rome, consisting in her exclusive claim, and her repudiation of the Church of England as a branch of the Catholic Church, should place an impassable barrier between her and any one who is a son of the Anglican Church. I, like all good Catholics, desire, of course, to see restored the visible intercommunion of all branches of the Church. It may be that some day Rome will acknowledge, and crave forgiveness for, her great and terrible heresy. It will then be for us to consider upon what terms we

can receive back the penitent into communion. Until then there is nothing to be done, so far as Rome is concerned, but to wait patiently until she shall have been restored to her right mind; and this, I fear, can hardly take place except by a miraculous interposition.

If we had both been living fifty years ago, before the trumpet, first sounded at Oxford, had fully wakened up our sleeping Church, I could have better understood, although I should not even then have approved of your step. Although the Church of England then, as always, was, by virtue of the apostolic succession, an integral portion of the Catholic Church, her lax practice and the Erastian spirit of her rulers, lent, alas, much colour to the argument of her adversaries that she was Catholic on paper or in theory only. But now she recognises her full glorious heritage. In thousands of churches the symbolic rites in the celebration of the Eucharist set forth boldly her true belief in the real Objective Presence of Our Lord's Body beneath the veil of the elements on the altar. The good done by the Reformers in casting off the usurpation of the Roman

See remains; their Non-Catholic doctrines and practices are being rapidly eliminated. The Church of England will, before many years, be purged throughout, and appear in her true nature, Catholic and National; nay, more than National, for we shall see the federation of the free Catholics of the English race throughout the world. In exchange for this glorious prospect you allow yourself to become a member of the Latin Church, withering and dying under the papal tyranny, and (in England) schismatic, alien, and offending against the Christian law of unity. To this, I fear, you have been led by those weaknesses in your character, long observed and deplored by me, which make you peculiarly open to seduction of all kinds. Ever since boyhood I have seen in you a want of firm conviction and principle, a restless and dissatisfied disposition, an inclination to listen to and investigate views and opinions which you should have rejected at first sight as unsound, an impatience with existing facts and institutions, a romantic propensity towards the unknown and untried; in short, every mark of an unsettled and unstable character.