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 THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 EGBERT RODOLPH SUFFIELD.
 
 THE LIFE 
 
 ROBERT RODOLPH SUFFIELD. 
 
 annoso famam qui derogat aevo, 
 Qui vates ad vera vocat. 
 
 Lucan, PJtars, 9, 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 WILLIAMS AND NORGATE, 
 
 14, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN; 
 
 AND 20, SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH. 
 
 1893.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THIS life is written by one whose acquaintance 
 with Mr. Suffield began in 1864, when he was the 
 popular and much-loved Dominican missioner, and 
 closed for the present only within a few days of 
 his death as a veteran in the ranks of the Unitarian 
 ministry. Whatever be its imperfections, or possible 
 mistakes, it has at least one merit, that which the 
 subject of it would have valued the most it is 
 truthful. It is neither a panegyric nor a criticism, 
 but the story of a fallible man, who sought to speak 
 the truth as he knew it, and at the same time live 
 in charity with all. 
 
 " My personal history," he once wrote, " w r ill 
 explain the mixture of opposing feelings with which 
 I touch the Eoman Catholic question, viz., tender- 
 ness, gratitude, and love towards Eoman Catholics 
 I have personally known and heard of, along with 
 a great dislike and dread of the system." The 
 writer of this memoir trusts that he has carried 
 into effect what would have been Mr. Suffield's wish, 
 
 1063350
 
 and that, painful as the story must prove to his former 
 co-religionists, there will be found in it no word 
 which will hurt the feelings of private friendship or 
 insult the religious convictions of those he left. 
 
 But the true story of his change of faith, and his 
 motives and troubles at the time, is best told in his 
 correspondence with Dr. Martineau, who in the sorest 
 trouble gave him invaluable help and encouragement. 
 For the letters which he has kindly contributed, and 
 for leave to publish his own in reply, the sincerest 
 thanks are due not only from the writer, but from all 
 interested in the subject of the memoir.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER. 
 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 I. 
 
 Family and Early Training 
 
 1 
 
 II. 
 
 Seminarist and Priest 
 
 11 
 
 III. 
 
 Friar Preacher of the Order of St. Dominic 
 
 28 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Beginnings of Doubt 
 
 43 
 
 v. 
 
 The Conflict Within 
 
 56 
 
 VI. 
 
 Help Sought from Outside 
 
 65 
 
 VII. 
 
 First Intimation to the Public 
 
 81 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Last Difficulties and Decision 
 
 95 
 
 IX. 
 
 Questions for the Present and Future 
 
 115 
 
 X. 
 
 Remonstrances and Explanations 
 
 131 
 
 XI. 
 
 Alone in the World 
 
 146 
 
 XII. 
 
 Neither Anglican nor Evangelical ... 
 
 171 
 
 XIII. 
 
 What Old Friends said of him 
 
 191 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Ministry among Unitarians 
 
 211 
 
 XV. 
 
 His last Days and Death 
 
 233 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Funeral and Obituary Notices 
 
 248 
 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 
 
 Feuianism and the English People 
 
 267 
 
 
 An Eclectic View of Roman Catholicism 
 
 285 
 
 
 Farewell Sermons Cosmic Religion 
 
 295 
 
 
 Spiritual Religion 
 
 304 
 
 
 The Duty of Thought: a Sermon 
 
 313 
 
 
 Last Prayers in Public Service 
 
 322 
 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 
 
 Letter to the British and Foreign Unitarian 
 
 
 
 Association 
 
 326
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 FAMILY AND EAKLY TEAINING. 
 
 THERE lived, about a hundred years ago, in the 
 neighbourhood of Norwich, two brothers of the 
 name of Suffield ; they came of an old Norfolk family 
 who had suffered for their religion, and were both 
 by inheritance and by conviction, members of the 
 Roman Catholic Church, openly and devoutly adher- 
 ing to it at a time when all kinds of civil and social 
 penalties weighed upon its professors. At their houses 
 many French emigrant priests found, from time to 
 time, refuge and hospitality. 
 
 Of the two brothers, Thomas, the younger, died a 
 bachelor. He was, writes his great-nephew, " a man 
 of singular benevolence," and his will, bearing date 
 1800, is a confirmation of this family tradition about 
 him. It is not so much the amount left in charity, 
 but the number of institutions and individuals to 
 whom he leaves small legacies, which shows the man's 
 kindly heart, and justifies the opinion entertained of 
 him to the third generation. 
 
 Robert, the elder brother, was twice married ; first 
 to Anna Bayley, by whom he was connected with the 
 well-known Roman Catholic families of Constable and 
 Maxwell, and after her death to Anastasia D'Arcy, of 
 Clifton Castle, Gal way. By the first wife he had two
 
 sons and a daughter; by the second two daughters 
 and a son. The descendants of all, so far as can be 
 traced, are now Protestants. 
 
 George, the second son, and father of our Eobert 
 Eodolph Suffield, was educated at a school for the 
 sons of the Eoman Catholic gentry, which had been 
 opened at Battersea, in a house lent for the purpose 
 by the Earl of Shrewsbury. This is said to have been 
 the first school of its kind in England, it having been 
 hitherto the custom for all who could afford it to 
 send their sons abroad. 
 
 George Suffield, as a young man, ceased to be a 
 communicant, and adopted the liberal philosophic views 
 prevalent in his time in the more cultured society. 
 Later in life he was an avowed Protestant, and many 
 Eoman Catholics joined their prayers with his son, 
 trusting and hoping that the father of so fervent and 
 devoted a priest would at the last repent and be 
 reconciled with the Church of his fathers. 
 
 A Catholic nobleman, writing in the year 1863, when 
 for some reason perhaps the approach of death 
 special efforts were made to this intent, says, " I will 
 do anything in my power to assist in the conversion 
 of your poor aged father. Your account of him is 
 quite a romantic history, and I feel much interest in 
 him as connected with my family, and also that he 
 had not given up the practice of his religion when 
 at our place sixty years ago. I most fervently pray 
 that your good wishes and hopes may be realised, and 
 that Heaven will kindly listen to the many prayers 
 which will be and are poured forth in his behalf. All
 
 3 
 
 my young ones will pray for him. Your poor father 
 is another instance of Catholics whose families, after 
 nobly suffering every persecution for their faith, no 
 sooner do they enjoy a little sunshine and worldly 
 prosperity, than they forget the struggle they have 
 gone through, and give up that which before they 
 would gladly have died for." Which means, that as 
 long as their religion was under a disadvantage, they 
 held by it as under an obligation of honour and 
 chivalry, an obligation from which the removal of 
 Catholic disabilities set them free. 
 
 While his sons were under his care he seems to 
 have maintained a philosophic impartiality towards 
 all the creeds, and naturally had special regard for 
 the religious traditions of his family, but, perhaps, 
 equal respect for the Established Church of his 
 country. The Savoy Vicar of Eousseau's story was 
 his model priest, a man who accepted the outward 
 forms of faith and worship which custom imposed 
 upon him, but made use of them only so far as 
 they could be made helpful to the better service of 
 humanity. 
 
 He married Susan TuUey Bowen, a Protestant lady, 
 by whom he had two sons George, born about 1816, 
 and Eobert, the subject of our memoir. 
 
 George, in time, went to Cambridge, where he took 
 his degree in 1842, having seemingly had no scruples 
 on the question of religion. He stood twenty-eighth 
 on the list of Wranglers, and on migrating to Clare, 
 was elected a Fellow on the foundation of Mr. Borage, 
 reserved to natives of Norwich. This Fellowship is
 
 held on condition of taking Orders within seven years, 
 which being unable to do, he resigned in 1850, and 
 died of small-pox in the spring of 1871, shortly after 
 his younger brother's secession from the Roman 
 Church. He was a man of retiring disposition, a 
 vegetarian, fond of mathematics and music, and held 
 in much account in the very few homes in which he 
 was intimate. In 1863 he published a pamphlet on 
 "Synthetic Division in Arithmetic,"* "an ingenious 
 and independent speculation leading to great simpli- 
 fication of certain cases of division," as the Athenceum 
 remarks. It is but a few pages in length, but sufficient 
 to show that the wnriter was a man of some originality 
 of thought, and specially interested in the cause of 
 education. In his preface he calls attention to the 
 curious anomaly that " at the present moment every 
 student at the University is allowed to complete his 
 academic course and take his degree without being 
 required to undergo any University examination in 
 the ' principles ' of arithmetic, whilst the Senior 
 Middle Class candidates, boys under eighteen years 
 of age, are expressly required by a grace of the 
 senate to pass an examination in the principles as 
 well as the practise." In conclusion he commends 
 the example of one college where lately "a separate 
 and searching paper in the theory and practise of 
 arithmetic" had been introduced, and, "ere long," 
 he adds, " the lecturers in every college of the 
 
 * Synthetic Division in Arithmetic, with some Introductory 
 Remarks on the Period of Circulating Decimals, by George 
 Suffield, M.A., Clare College, Cambridge : Macmillaii & Co., 1863.
 
 5 
 
 University will follow an example fraught with in- 
 calculable advantage to the mathematical education 
 of the whole country." 
 
 George never professed Eomanism, and would no 
 doubt have called himself a lay member of the 
 Church of England, though looked upon as singular 
 in his religious views as in other respects. Evidently, 
 from the little we know of him, he was like his 
 brother, an individual, a man who went his own 
 way of life and thought, and had no care to conform 
 either his habits or opinions to the prevailing fashion. 
 
 Our Eobert Suffield was born at Vevey, on the 
 Lake of Geneva, on the 5th of October, 1821, in the 
 house now occupied as the club, "Cercle duLeman." 
 His father, though a younger son, was in independent 
 circumstances, and at this time in the habit of travel- 
 ling in England and abroad, taking a furnished house 
 for a year or six months at any place which suited 
 his fancy or convenience. The little son was baptised 
 in the house by one Sebastian Martinez, a lay 
 relative, who was stopping with them at the time. 
 The ceremony would have consisted simply of the 
 pouring of water on the child while repeating the 
 form, "I baptise thee in the name of the Father, 
 and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Probably 
 neither priest nor Anglican clergyman was to be had 
 at Vevey, otherwise it is not clear why resort was 
 had to the services of a layman. Shortly afterwards 
 the family returned, and he was baptised again for 
 legal purposes in his own parish church, St. Peter's, 
 Mancroft, at Norwich (December 27th, 1821).
 
 It was near to this church that the Jerninghams, 
 Suffields, and Bedingfields purchased a site and erected 
 a chapel when the Duke of Norfolk conformed, and in 
 consequence deprived the Norwich Koinan Catholics 
 of the use of his private chapel for their services. 
 But the mother would of course have attended hex- 
 own parish church when in Norwich, and have taken 
 her sons with her. It was their father's principle 
 that " young people should be quite uninfluenced as 
 to religious belief, and that they should select their 
 religion when they arrived at a ripe age." They were 
 consequently brought up in equal regard for the faith 
 of their mother and that which had been their father's, 
 and it was left to each to decide in after years as to 
 whether he would call himself Catholic, Anglican, or 
 Protestant. 
 
 Eobert never went to school, but accompanied his 
 parents in their travels in England and on the con- 
 tinent. His youthful experiences must have been 
 varied and unusual, for tourists as yet were few, and 
 the provision for their accommodation and progress 
 often of the roughest. " In 1825 a Continental tour 
 consisted chiefly of troublesome and costly incidents 
 with vetturinos, guides, and hotel keepers, road acci- 
 dents and brigands, real or imaginary."* Nor was his 
 father content that his son should be merely a witness 
 or passive companion of their many adventures. He 
 had decided and peculiar views of education, which he 
 adopted, it would seem, from Eousseau, and wished 
 to train his sons to be self-reliant, and independent 
 * Mozley'g Reminiscences, vol. I., p. 32.
 
 and observant. He objected to their learning by 
 heart, which in after-life they often regretted, and 
 made it his aim to educate them as much by life as 
 by formal lessons. " In pursuance of this idea he 
 sent Eodolph alone, when about fourteen years of 
 age, to make a tour on the Loire, giving him letters 
 of introduction to families known to him living on 
 the route he had drawn up. The boy felt the honour 
 very much, but it was a fearful joy for so young a lad. 
 At one place he attracted the surprised attention of 
 the gendarmes owing to his having very little luggage 
 besides a pistol. In one town where he stayed a fete 
 was taking place, and the municipality gave a ball, 
 sending tickets of invitation to visitors, and great 
 was the pride of the English boy when one arrived 
 for Monsieur Suffield also." So writes one who had 
 the best opportunities of learning all about his early 
 life, and adds, " At Norwich the Suffields were inti- 
 mate with various well-known Unitarian families, 
 such as the Taylors, Eeeves, and Austins; Lucy 
 Austin, afterwards Lady Duff Gordon, was a play- 
 mate of Bodolph's, and about the same age." 
 
 "But he had a liking for books and pursuits far 
 beyond his age. Tom Paine 's ' Age of Reason,' for 
 example. When the family were on a visit to London 
 he interested himself in the Chartist movement, then 
 at its height " (he would be about sixteen at the time), 
 "and was present at meetings, sometimes in obscure 
 neighbourhoods, at which very fiery speeches were 
 made, and threats of violence uttered against the 
 upper classes. Once he was in some danger, for a
 
 8 
 
 man got up and said he saw a little aristocrat among 
 those present. Some of the audience became angry, 
 but he was not dismayed, spoke up and said his heart 
 was with the people, and so reassured, and judging 
 by the youth of the intruder that he was not there to 
 spy upon them, he was left unmolested. He doubted 
 whether his father knew of these little excursions ; if 
 he had done so he would not have interfered, unless 
 he had judged it absolutely necessary, as his plan was 
 to allow his sons the greatest independence." 
 
 In 1841 he followed his brother to Cambridge, 
 where he was admitted a Commoner of Peterhouse. 
 Cambridge was preferred to Oxford because no signa- 
 ture of articles was required for matriculation, but he 
 attended regularly the College Chapel, and even when 
 visiting at Sawston Hall, where a Mr. Huddlestone, 
 an old friend of the family, resided, and had a private 
 chapel, he writes that he went rather to see his father's 
 friend than to attend mass. 
 
 There can be no doubt that at this time he was 
 generally regarded as a member of the Church of 
 England. The present Lord Kelvin, then William 
 Thomson, who was his class-mate at college, writes 
 of him : 
 
 " To the best of my knowledge none of us thought 
 he was a Roman Catholic. We all, I am sure, believed 
 him to be an earnest, religious student ; and probably 
 we thought him very ' High Church.' He was quite 
 out of the run of undergraduates, and did not mix 
 much in their society. He was undoubtedly, to our 
 young eyes, very eccentric, but he was thoroughly
 
 9 
 
 respected by all. He had, I believe, a very friendly 
 feeling for myself, which I certainly reciprocated. 
 From all I recollect I think it is probably true that 
 he was a sincere and loyal member of the new High 
 Church party of that time, but that he had strong 
 inclinations towards the Eoman Catholic Church, 
 without, however, feeling himself to be a member 
 of that Church, and not of the Church of England." 
 
 In accord with these impressions of a friend and 
 contemporary is his own recollection. "At Cambridge 
 I was in constant intercourse with the Tractarians 
 and Ecclesiologists, sharing all tlieir sympathies, and 
 my kind friend, Archdeacon Thorp, of Trinity, urged 
 me to take Anglican Orders." 
 
 But his time at Cambridge was cut short, partly in 
 consequence of losses his father sustained about this 
 time through the failure of some South American 
 investments, in which he was interested through his 
 brother-in-law, William Gregory, a merchant in that 
 country ; partly, also, by reason of his own uncertainty 
 as to his religious position, and he left the University 
 after a residence of less than two years, probably 
 about Easter, 1843. 
 
 It was through the Dr. Thorp mentioned above 
 that he was recommended to a gentleman who wanted 
 a private tutor for his son. He soon won the affec- 
 tions of this pupil, as, indeed, he did of all the young 
 people he had to do with as teacher, priest, or minis- 
 ter, and they remained intimate friends to the last. 
 It is thus that this gentleman, now well known in the 
 world as a man of wealth and influence, writes of him
 
 10 
 
 after a lapse of nearly fifty years : " I was a very 
 delicate boy, unable to go to school or to sbare the 
 games of schoolboys. How happy he made my young 
 life (and the life of the ailing boy is not generally a 
 happy one) ; how he devoted himself, not only to 
 such education as I could receive, but from morning 
 to night to make me interested, occupied, and happy. 
 In 1844, instead of being anxious to get rid of his 
 troublesome charge when he went to see his people, 
 he took me with him, and we stayed some time with 
 his father and mother in Norwich. My remembrance 
 of the former is of the most pleasing kind of course 
 they are only the impressions of a boy of thirteen 
 but I think of him as a high-bred gentleman of the 
 old school. He was certainly a Freethinker, and 
 never went to church or chapel in those days. The 
 mother was a very kind and affectionate person of 
 the Evangelical school, devoted to her husband in spite 
 of his religious vagaries, which grieved her much."
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 SEMINAKIST AND PKIEST. 
 
 It was in 1846 that, to use his own words, he 
 "became a communicant in the Koman Catholic 
 Church." How the change in his religious position 
 was brought about we have no information; he was 
 used to think of himself as having always been a 
 Roman Catholic, but up to that time, like many 
 others, not faithful either in practice or belief to 
 the requirements of the Church, and he repudiated 
 with some warmth the inclusion of his name in a 
 list of " converts to Rome." On the other hand, 
 there is no doubt that he was looked upon as a 
 High Churchman, both at Cambridge and when 
 engaged as a private tutor, and his friend, Arch- 
 deacon Thorp, urged him to take Anglican Orders. 
 Roman Catholics, too, who knew him best, seem to 
 have taken a similar view, and an intimate friend 
 and connection of the family, expostulating with him 
 when his letter on Papal Infallibility appeared, writes, 
 " Surely it must be that you have still a little remnant 
 of the old Protestant feeling left," words which, to a 
 man who had never been a Protestant, would be with- 
 out meaning. And another correspondent of a few 
 months later date, one who urges his right of appeal 
 as " exceptional, seeing that we are bound by early
 
 12 
 
 ties of family and the closest friendship, ever treating 
 each other with the most perfect confidence," writes, 
 " On looking back to the early days of your conversion, 
 I remember you wrote to me word that your happi- 
 ness was perfect, save that your imagination had still 
 ' to pay the penalty of having been polluted with every 
 kind of infidel thought and teaching.' " His case was 
 certainly peculiar, and not to be reckoned among the 
 ' perversions ' or ' conversions ' which were at that time 
 just beginning, and increased so greatly during the 
 next ten years. Sprung of an old Eoman Catholic 
 family, inheriting the traditions of a persecuted faith, 
 and numbering among friends and relations many 
 zealous adherents to it, he was brought up under the 
 combined influence of a free-thinking father and an 
 evangelical mother, taught to read and think for him- 
 self, and sent to a University where Anglicanism was 
 the only religion tolerated among the students. So 
 when after many struggles, of which \ve have caught 
 but hints in letters and conversation, but which ex- 
 plain both the exceptional fervour of his faith as a 
 priest and his later transition to a free religion, 
 he sought rest and surety in the Old Church of 
 his fathers, he felt as one returning to a home 
 from which he should never have been separated; 
 and, of course, found in the novel sense of certainty 
 and finality the peace and happiness which is the 
 boast of all sincere converts, and which they accept 
 as assurance of the truth of their new-found faith 
 an assurance which every church may claim, for there 
 is none which does not from time to time win the
 
 13 
 
 waverers from other folds, and make them convinced 
 that itself only is the true church. 
 
 He was the guest of Dr. Newsham, then President 
 of Ushaw College, near Durham, when he thus openly 
 severed himself from all connection with Anglicanism 
 or Freethought, and " this remarkable man," he wrote, 
 " continued always my kind guide and father-like 
 friend." Indeed, to the very last he always spoke 
 with affection and regard of Ushaw and its principal 
 and professors, and that the same feelings were fully 
 reciprocated on their part, at least, as long as he 
 remained in their communion, we have ample evidence 
 in the warm invitations which from time to time 
 urged him to come and visit them. 
 
 It would seem that immediately on his conversion 
 he resolved to embrace the ecclesiastical state, but 
 instead of staying on at Ushaw, and there entering 
 upon the course of theological study, as one would 
 have expected under the circumstances, he for some 
 reason resolved to enter the famous seminary of St. 
 Sulpice, at Paris, and there he remained until driven 
 out by the revolution of 1848. It may, perhaps, 
 have been due to the desire to free himself from the 
 w T ell-meant importunities of his parents and brother, 
 to whom his determination to enter the Roman priest- 
 hood was the occasion of great grief. Certainly from 
 this time onwards there was very little, if any, inter- 
 course between them, a matter of great regret to 
 him afterwards. " He never spoke of his honoured 
 parents," one writes, "in his later years, without tears 
 in his eyes, and regretted bitterly the system which
 
 14 
 
 had kept them asunder." It has been the painful 
 experience of many a so-called " convert," who having 
 broken the tenderest ties of home to follow what he 
 believed was the call of God, has discovered his mis- 
 take too late, and returned when there was no more 
 a home to welcome him ! During his father's last 
 illness, in 1868, there were some who were very 
 anxious that the son should see him, and endeavour 
 to bring him back to the faith of his childhood, but 
 he steadfastly refused to interfere, knowing well that 
 argument and persuasion would be alike useless; 
 perhaps, too, his own convictions were not then so 
 strong that he could have successfully upheld the 
 Eoman cause against his father's philosophical faith. 
 
 At St. Sulpice he had for a fellow-student Pere 
 Hyacinthe Loyson, whom years afterwards he met 
 at Dean Stanley's, and was immediately recognised 
 by him. They met again in Paris in 1878, and 
 continued always on terms of mutual respect, not- 
 withstanding the wide difference of opinion which 
 separated them in matters of religion. Still it may 
 perhaps have needed a little forbearance to receive 
 kindly from one who was a rebel against ecclesias- 
 tical authority, and could speak only for his single 
 self, such lofty patronage as is apparent probably to 
 everyone but the writer, in the following sentence 
 from a letter written in 1876 : " Je vous sais honnete 
 et droit, vous avez cherche la verite a travers des 
 dechirements cruels, vous pouvez la servir efficace- 
 ment quand vous 1'aurez trouvee pleinment," that is 
 to say, when you have accepted just as much and no
 
 15 
 
 more than Pere Hyacinthe does. But a large expe- 
 rience had made Mr. Suffield very tolerant, and he 
 always entertained a friendly feeling for one with 
 whom he could have but small intellectual sympathy. 
 
 On leaving St. Sulpice he went to Ireland, visited 
 the relations of his father's stepmother in Gal way, 
 took a pupil for some months, and mixed freely with 
 priests and people. He could not towards the close 
 of his life recall to mind the reason of this year's 
 stay in Ireland; probably being received with sym- 
 pathy and warmth such as he could not now look 
 for in his English home, and finding himself among 
 relations and co-religionists he stayed longer than 
 he had first purposed. It was during this year that 
 he made his first intimate acquaintance of the Irish, 
 and all his life, as well in the Eoman Church as out 
 of it, he never varied in his warm regard for them 
 and sympathy in their aspirations after self-govern- 
 ment. It was a common observation with him that 
 the English people didn't understand the Irish, and 
 that from their incapacity to value rightly the ways 
 and words of neighbours so unlike themselves, arose 
 almost all the bitterness and ill-feeling which cloud 
 our relations. 
 
 Whatever may have been the motive of this 
 interruption to his theological studies and one can- 
 not but suspect that some lingering doubt about 
 the faith or his vocation to the priesthood was 
 at the bottom of it it came to an end after a year's 
 hesitation, and he returned to Ushaw after the 
 summer vacation of 1849, and on the 21st of Septem-
 
 16 
 
 ber following, committed himself to the ecclesias- 
 tical state by the reception of the tonsure and four 
 minor orders. On the following day he received the 
 Sub-Diaconate, which carries with it the irrevocable 
 obligations of the priesthood. On the 25th of May, 
 1850, he was ordained Deacon, and on the 25th of 
 August Bishop Hogarth made him Priest. 
 
 From this time began twenty years of unceasing 
 activity on behalf of the faith to which he had at 
 last definitely committed himself. For ten years, as 
 a secular priest, and another ten as a Dominican, he 
 gave himself soul and body to the service of the 
 Church, seeking nothing in return, and receiving only 
 the profound respect and affectionate confidence of 
 multitudes, high and low, who knew his work, and 
 profited of his holy and sensible counsels. 
 
 Eecords of this, the busiest period of his life, are 
 very few, for he himself kept no diary beyond notes of 
 sermons and services, and his subsequent "apostacy," 
 as they call it, has obscured among Eoman Catholics 
 the memory of his services. But one who knew him 
 well in later years, and had often heard him speak of 
 his experiences, which he did only to his most in- 
 timate friends, writes, " He had a house at Sedgefield 
 and lodgings in a farm house at Thornby, and rode to 
 and fro to visit the scattered dwellings of his parish- 
 ioners. He lived a very ascetic life, his diet and 
 surroundings being of the plainest description ; at one 
 time he tried to live on foods that required no 
 cooking; he slept on the ground, with a wooden 
 pillow for his head, to which he attributed a slight
 
 17 
 
 deafness and a delicacy of the throat which continued 
 all his life. I believe it must have been about this 
 time that his health broke down ; those around him 
 thought he was in consumption, and some kind friends 
 took him to stay with them and nursed him till he 
 recovered." 
 
 After a year's apprenticeship to the work of a 
 parish priest at Sedgefield and Thornley, he was 
 called by his Bishop to join a community of secular 
 priests at St. Ninian's, near Wooller. He was here 
 with Father Chadwick and Father Consitt, both of 
 whom became in time distinguished dignitaries of 
 their Church. These fathers were not confined to 
 parochial duty, but made it their business to give 
 Missions and Eetreats throughout the diocese, and after 
 awhile their labours extended to colleges, convents, 
 and parishes in every part of the United Kingdom. 
 
 It was towards the close of 1854 that during one 
 of their frequent absences from home their house 
 and library were burnt to the ground, and there 
 followed upon this check the complete breakdown 
 of the two elder fathers and their retirement to 
 chaplaincies, where they sought rest and health. 
 Mr. Suffield continued alone in the same field of 
 labour as ' Apostolic Missionary,' nor did he give up 
 his frequent journeyings even when, in 1858, he 
 accepted charge of a parish in Newcastle. 
 
 As his work and fame during these years was that 
 of a successful Missioner, it may be well to stop here 
 to explain to Protestant readers the peculiarly Eoman 
 institutions of missions and retreats. 
 
 B
 
 18 
 
 A mission is given to a congregation or parish, and 
 is meant for people living in the world, and unable to 
 put aside their daily occupations. They are asked to 
 give what time they can spare each morning and 
 evening for a fortnight to the solemn consideration 
 of the doctrines of their church and the obligations 
 of their state, and so to bring themselves into a fit 
 state for the worthy reception of the sacraments of 
 confession and communion. Here is, e.g., the copy 
 of an announcement of a mission at Leicester : 
 
 "HoLY CROSS, WELLINGTON STREET. A Holy 
 Mission will be preached in the above Church by 
 Father Suffield. To be solemnly opened on Sunday 
 morning, June 1st, at 11 o'clock, and continue daily 
 for a fortnight. All persons are invited to attend 
 the services. 
 
 ORDER OF DAILY SERVICES. 
 
 Holy Mass and Mission Sermon - 8.30 a.m. 
 
 Catechism ----- 3.0 p.m. 
 
 Sermon and Benediction of the 
 
 Blessed Sacrament - - - 8.0 p.m. 
 Confessions heard daily till 10 o'clock, and from 4 to 
 
 7.30, and after Evening Service." 
 The two Sermons and Instruction or Catechism 
 daily for a fortnight might seem sufficient trial of any 
 man's endurance, for though the substance of discourse 
 would be the same everywhere, a mission to be fruitful 
 would need on every occasion the same earnestness 
 and energy, and entire devotion to the subject as if 
 it were fresh to the speaker. There is no carrying 
 about of written essays from place to place, but the
 
 19 
 
 word must be always quick, and come from the soul 
 of the speaker. But it is not in the pulpit, after all, 
 that the great work of a mission is done and the 
 fatigue incui-red. It is in the confessional that the 
 active and successful missioner spends his time from 
 early morning to late at night, and there reaps his 
 harvest. And however legitimate be Protestant 
 objections to the abuses of auricular confession 
 abuses, it is only fair to say, most carefully guarded 
 against by stringent regulations, binding both on 
 priest and penitent there can be no doubt that 
 this rare and exceptional use of it does act in the 
 interests of peace, honesty, and morality. Many a 
 feud is terminated, many an illegitimate gain made 
 amends for, many an evil habit or connection brought 
 to an end, by the public exhortations of the missioner 
 applied to the individual conscience in this private 
 conference, where the one party can speak all his 
 life freely, trusting to the pledge of secrecy which 
 is practically never violated, and the other gives 
 advice, reproof, command, without fear or favour, 
 as a stranger, coming and going in brief space, and 
 having nothing to gain or lose from his penitents. 
 There are, no doubt, always dangers and temptations 
 about the confessional, but they are reduced to a 
 minimum in this case, as they are at a maximum 
 where a parody of the Roman system is attempted 
 without special training, or episcopal control, or any 
 but a self-imposed obligation of secrecy, or check on 
 abuse other than that of the individual conscience. 
 We may consistently apologise for the practice in
 
 20 
 
 one case, while we have nothing but reprobation 
 for any weak attempts to introduce it into Protes- 
 tant communities. 
 
 It would probably be within the truth to say that, 
 during his twenty years of priesthood, Mr. Suffield 
 spent more time in hearing confessions than in any 
 other occupation, and certainly while employed in 
 giving a mission, the greater part of his day would 
 be so occupied. 
 
 "Eetreats" are for the spiritual benefit of persons 
 devoted by their calling to the service of religion, 
 and able to set apart a time more completely to 
 meditation and prayer. A full retreat such as is 
 enjoined on all religious communities, whether of 
 men or women lasts eight days, during which time 
 a rigid silence is observed, except, perhaps, for half- 
 an-hour after the midday meal. For the parochial 
 clergy the time is necessarily shortened to four or 
 five days. Here is a programme of a Eetreat for 
 the Clergy given at the College at Ushaw : 
 6 0. Eise. 
 6 30. Meditation (one hour). Mass. 
 
 8 0. Breviary. Eetirement. 
 
 9 0. Breakfast. Eecreation. 
 
 9 45. Visit to the Blessed Sacrament. Way of 
 the Cross. 
 
 10 30. Eetirement. Spiritual Eeading. 
 
 11 30. Instruction in Chapel. 
 
 12 0. Eetirement. Breviary. Examination of 
 
 Conscience. 
 1 30. Eecreation.
 
 21 
 
 '2 0. Visit to the Blessed Sacrament. Private 
 Meditation. 
 
 3 5. Dinner and Eecreation. 
 
 5 0. Matins. Eetirement. Meditation. 
 
 8 0. Eosary. 8-30, 9-15, Prayers. 10-0, Eetire. 
 In this case "meditation" would be conducted in 
 the chapel, the priest chosen to conduct the Eetreat 
 suggesting the course of it, and, as it were, thinking 
 and praying aloud for all to join with him in reflec- 
 tion and aspiration something in the manner of 
 extempore prayer, as practised in the more cultured 
 Nonconformist communities of England. 
 
 Of the great benefit to be derived from such occa- 
 sional retirement from the bustle and distractions of 
 the world, Mr. Suffield remained convinced, long after 
 he had abandoned and reprobated what he consi- 
 dered the superstitious practices and obligations con- 
 nected with retreats in the Eoman communion. It 
 was with more candour and generosity than worldly 
 wisdom that he advocated the introduction of some 
 such system in the Protestant community he after- 
 wards joined, and it tended to create in some minds 
 a doubt of his sincerity, as if a man must needs 
 denounce as evil every custom of the ancient Church 
 which he had so long served, or himself be under 
 suspicion as its agent in disguise. 
 
 It was while in charge of the Eoman Catholic 
 parish of St. Andrew's, at Newcastle, that he intro- 
 duced into England the custom of "Peter's Pence." 
 It was begun by a great meeting in the Newcastle 
 Town Hall, which was the first occasion on which
 
 22 
 
 Eoman Catholic movements attracted general atten- 
 tion from the public and the press, The Times, among 
 others, devoting an article to the subject. 
 
 About this time, or perhaps while still at St. 
 Ninian's, he was busy promoting among the secular 
 clergy the "Association of St. Charles," which met 
 with the warm approval of Cardinal Wiseman, the 
 Bishop of Southwark (Dr. Grant), Dr. Newman, and 
 other influential and eminent ecclesiastics. The 
 object of the Association was " to promote among us 
 the Apostolic Spirit, recollection, and prayer; thus 
 securing our own salvation, whilst with unwearied 
 zeal we labour and pray for the sanctification of the 
 Priesthood and for the salvation of our people." The 
 rules were few and simple, and did little more than 
 impress anew upon the members what were really 
 obligations, acknowledged by every pious priest, each 
 year to join the Clergy Retreat, to observe one day 
 each month as " a day of recollection or retreat, to 
 renew fervour, and to prepare for death," to give 
 daily a half -hour to meditation, and find the time 
 for spiritual reading and the examination of con- 
 science. It is not surprising that only the more fer- 
 vent priests were disposed to join, but it is remark- 
 able how in this case, as generally, the attempt to 
 quicken zeal and piety, met with dislike and opposi- 
 tion. At least, so we may infer from a letter on 
 the subject from one priest, who writes wishing to 
 become a member: "An attempt to form an asso- 
 ciation of a similar character was made here about 
 a year since, but had, for various reasons, to be
 
 23 
 
 abandoned. One thing we discovered during the 
 very short time that we entertained the idea of 
 such an association that the greatest prudence 
 and caution, and even the strictest secresy, were 
 absolutely necessary for its successful starting. I 
 could never have thought it possible for priests to 
 speak of it as I have heard many speak to whom 
 the knowledge of what we were attempting had 
 come." 
 
 But priests, though Protestant controversialists are 
 apt to forget it, are simply so many men, of whom 
 the majority are of just average spirituality and 
 morals, and by no means grateful to the trouble- 
 some zealots who seek to stir them up to nobler 
 life and fatiguing efforts after perfection. 
 
 Although so much taken up with outside work, 
 he was very successful and popular in his own parish, 
 and raised considerable sums of money with an ease 
 which in later years astonished himself. It went 
 as freely as it came, and alms were always to be 
 had at the Presbytery by poor parishioners in distress. 
 He also built a church at Walker, in the suburbs, and 
 at the same time began a work of more durable 
 influence, the " Crown of Jesus," a complete manual 
 of Roman Catholic piety for the people. This book, 
 which secured the approval of English and Irish 
 Bishops, and later of the Pope himself, passed 
 through many editions, and was immensely popular 
 among English-speaking Eoman Catholics. Its cir- 
 culation went on for several years after the author's 
 secession, (it was published anonymously, though
 
 24 
 
 there was no kind of secret about the authorship), 
 and it was only after the book had been put in 
 evidence by the High Church Anglican party at the 
 Eidsdale trial at Lambeth Palace, and its authorship 
 was brought into public notice, that it became dis- 
 credited, and when the publisher, Richardson, of 
 Derby, died, it ceased to be reprinted. 
 
 The book did not make its appearance till after 
 the compiler had joined the Dominicans, but it 
 belongs really to this time of his Newcastle work 
 as parish priest, and the authorities of the Order, 
 though allowing him to publish it, took upon them- 
 selves no responsibility for it, pecuniary or otherwise. 
 This will, therefore, be the most fitting place for a 
 short notice of it. 
 
 The volume is a small octavo of 800 pages, the 
 greater part closely printed in small type, about 40 
 lines to a page. It was intended to contain everything 
 which the Roman Catholic was bound by his Church 
 to believe and do in the way of devotion, and the 
 much more which the devout might find it of profit 
 to know in the way of doctrine, or to add to their 
 accustomed prayers. The first part begins with "the 
 Sacrament of Penance," how to prepare for, and how 
 to make, " a good confession," and the three essential 
 conditions contrition, confession, satisfaction are 
 explained. Of the first of these it may be well to 
 quote the definition, as it is important for all to 
 know what really is implied in the practice common 
 to so large a part of Christendom, and it explains, 
 too, how Mr. Suffield could labour so long and
 
 25 
 
 earnestly in this particular work. " Contrition," he 
 writes, " is a great and sincere sorrow for having 
 offended God, accompanied with a firm resolution 
 to avoid for the future all sin and the occasions of 
 sin, to adopt the means necessary for perseverance, 
 and to repair the injury done by your sins." Cer- 
 tainly he will not have lived in vain, however 
 mistaken his creed, who has, by preaching and 
 prayer, brought many of his brethren to such a 
 state of mind. Confession may be needless and 
 perilous, absolution a mere superstition, but this, 
 the necessary disposition for them, is what all who 
 believe in a moral law will approve. 
 
 Then foUows the "Eule of Life" recommended 
 to those who, by penitence, have entered on the 
 right way; and the rest of this section is taken 
 up with what is to a Eoman Catholic the supreme 
 act of religion and sovereign means of grace, namely, 
 the Sacrifice of the Mass and Holy Communion. 
 The "Ordinary of the Mass" is given in Latin and 
 English, and then follow various methods for adults 
 and children to assist at it with profit. 
 
 The Second Part consists of a great variety of 
 " devotions " or special prayers and litanies, such 
 as the Stations of the Cross, the Eosary, the Little 
 Office of the Virgin, Litanies of St. Joseph, St. 
 Dominic, St. Patrick, &c., Prayers to St. Benedict, 
 St. Charles, St. Aloysius, and other Saints. 
 
 The Third Part contains the Services of Vespers 
 and Compline, Meditations for every day of the 
 month, a selection of passages from the Scriptures,
 
 26 
 
 the Epistles and Gospels for all the Sundays of the 
 year, and a Catechism of Christian Doctrine. 
 
 There is not in our language so full and complete 
 a manual of Eoman piety, and as one turns its pages 
 the words of the greatest of modern converts come 
 forcibly to mind; he is speaking of one who had 
 had some experience of Eome and her ways and 
 thoughts, and was hesitating, as he himself hesitated 
 so long. "He was very strong on the point that 
 Eomanism and Anglicanism were two religions ; 
 that you could not amalgamate them ; that you 
 might be Eoman or Anglican, but could not be 
 Anglo-Eoman or Anglo -Catholic ; that the whole 
 system of worship in the Romish Church was different 
 from what it is in our own; nay, the very idea of 
 worship, the idea of prayers."* They only can know 
 how different who have had some experience of both 
 systems, but an half-hour spent in the study of the 
 "Crown of Jesus" should convince any Anglican, 
 however "High," that the difference between him- 
 self and the Methodist was a narrower gulf than 
 that which divided him from Eome. 
 
 It would be vain to search in this book for any 
 symptoms of doubt, or even of disposition towards 
 a more or less tolerated liberalism. As long as he 
 was in the Church's livery he was an honest and 
 faithful servant, and if he had as yet any difficulty, 
 and there is reason to suppose that he always felt 
 such, he kept the struggle secret within his own 
 breast. 
 
 * " Loss and Gain," by J. H. Newman, p. 168. Ed. 1848.
 
 27 
 
 But how awful a view of life it is if ever a man 
 comes to realise the meaning of words, which these 
 words, just a footnote, describe : 
 
 "It is an ascertained fact, that each day about 
 eighty thousand persons die eighty thousand souls 
 are judged, and receive their sentence for eternity. 
 Without true contrition none of these can be saved 
 from hell." 
 
 And when we turn to the meditation on hell, we 
 read, " How great would be our horror of the shrieks 
 of the damned, if their groans and blasphemies could 
 reach us. The sentence of their condemnation is 
 irrevocable. Hell is the dismal and eternal tomb of 
 souls, the cruel kingdom of Satan." Then follows, 
 " Make an act of faith upon the eternal duration of 
 the pains of hell. We must believe on God's word 
 what we are not able to conceive." 
 
 Do these words convey his own difficulty of faith ? 
 Certainly they show that he did not find it so easy 
 of explanation as some deem it. " We must believe," 
 that is all that he dare urge, and the shrieks and 
 curses of that kingdom, augmented by its thousands 
 a minute, went to his heart as a real and terrible 
 thing, till at last reason and conscience asserted their 
 lost supremacy, and in God's name he renounced and 
 denied the blasphemy.
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 FBIAR PREACHER OF THE ORDER OF ST. DOMINICK. 
 
 Meanwhile this work, on which he must have been 
 busily engaged during the last months of his secular 
 priesthood, was perhaps itself instrumental in drawing 
 him towards what he considered to be a higher and 
 safer life. Hitherto he had been employed far and 
 wide as a preacher, returning to his presbytery only 
 for the rest of somewhat different labour. Now there 
 had lately been revived in England an ancient Order, 
 designed by its founder expressly for this kind of 
 work and life, and so called the Order of Friar 
 Preachers, otherwise Dominicans, or from the black 
 cloak worn by them out of doors over their white 
 habit, the Black Friars. They had convents in all 
 the chief towns of England, but from the time of 
 the dissolution of monasteries had only survived as 
 solitary missionaries in charge of parishes, not 
 distinguished from secular priests except in owing 
 obedience to the General of the Order at Koine, 
 instead of to the bishop, and by some minor 
 peculiarities of ritual. But they shared in the influ- 
 ences of the Catholic revival of the mid-century, and 
 some time in the fifties a convent had been erected 
 for them by a wealthy convert on his estate at Wood- 
 chester. Novices had been attracted, and the regular
 
 29 
 
 observance had been started in its severest form. 
 No meat was permitted except to the sick ; during 
 seven months of the year there was but one full 
 meal a day, the apology for breakfast consisting of 
 two ounces of dry bread with tea, and the supper 
 of eight ounces of some kind of pottage. At mid- 
 night all rose to matins, and the day was spent in 
 study, meditation, and frequent attendance at church. 
 The only break in this monotonous round of labour 
 and prayers was the hour's recreation after dinner, 
 and perhaps half-an-hour after supper. Moreover, 
 scrupulous obedience regulated every act of life, and 
 none even of the elders might go out or engage in 
 any occupation without the sanction of the Superior, 
 who was himself in turn bound by vow to submit 
 his will to those in authority over him. 
 
 It might seem that such a life would be simply 
 repellant to a man who was his own master, and 
 could take his ease if so inclined. But it would 
 argue ignorance of history and of human nature to 
 so judge. Men and women alike have always been 
 won upon by austerity, and convents have been 
 invariably crowded in their days of strictest observ- 
 ance, and deserted when they grew lax. So it was 
 that many youths and adults entered the noviciate 
 at Woodchester, and among others this well-known 
 priest and missioner, now in his forty-first year, 
 who, it may be well imagined, was received with 
 no little hope and thankfulness as a recruit to the 
 Order. He left Newcastle in July, 1860, and went 
 to reside at Woodchester, but was prevented receiving
 
 30 
 
 immediately the habit of the Order, by the impedi- 
 ment of a vow made when he joined the Fathers at 
 St. Ninian's to serve the mission under the Bishop 
 of the Diocese. 
 
 It was on September 21st following that he was 
 "clothed," as they say, exchanging the black cas- 
 sock, which he had hitherto worn, for the white 
 habit which St. Dominick had adopted six hundred 
 and fifty years before from the Canons of St. Augustine. 
 
 It is usual in " entering religion " to take another 
 name instead of that associated with former life in 
 the world, and so he chose for himself the name 
 Eodolph, by which he became generally known hence- 
 forth among Eoman Catholics, and which he retained, 
 together with his baptismal name Eobert, to the 
 end of his life. Eodolph of Faenza, after whom he 
 desired to be called, was one of the first companions 
 of St. Dominick, and he was attracted to him by the 
 likeness of their circumstances, the one in the twelfth 
 century giving up his church at Bologna, the other in 
 the nineteenth his at Newcastle, both for the founda- 
 tion of a Dominican convent. 
 
 And now began a year wbich must have been a 
 singular and grateful contrast to the ten which he 
 had passed since his ordination in incessant and 
 exciting labour among the people. By the Consti- 
 tution of the Council of Trent for the remedy of 
 abuses which had before prevailed in monasteries, 
 it is ordered that no one can be admitted as a 
 member of any Eeligious Order, nor take the vows 
 which bind him to it, before he has completed his
 
 31 
 
 sixteenth year, and has, moreover, whatever his age, 
 passed a complete year as a novice on trial, practising 
 all the rules of the Order, and humbling himself in 
 entire obedience to his superiors. During this year 
 he may not sleep one night away from his convent 
 on any pretext however grave, but must persevere 
 in an uninterrupted trial of his patience, persever- 
 ance, humility, and bodily capacity of endurance. 
 
 The only relaxation made in his favour was the 
 permission given him to continue his work on " The 
 Crown of Jesus," and see it through the press, which 
 no doubt did relieve the monotony of the very regular 
 and quiet life of the simple novitiate, devoted by the 
 rule to exercises of piety, interrupted by no studies 
 except of the Constitutions of the Order and the 
 Plain Chant used in the Offices of the Church. 
 
 On September 21st, 1861, having completed his 
 full year of novitiate, he made his vows into the 
 hands of the Prior, Father Gonin, a convert of 
 Lacordaire's, and afterwards Archbishop of Trinidad. 
 The form of vow taken by Dominicans is one of 
 simple obedience to the General of the Order for 
 the time being, and his successors (quod ero obediens 
 tibi tuisque successoribus usque ad mortem), but it 
 is fully understood that this implies and carries with 
 it the obligations of perpetual celibacy and poverty. 
 So that, according to Eoman Catholic law, a "pro- 
 fessed religious " cannot marry, though he may, 
 of course, go through the form of marriage, and 
 cannot possess anything as his private property, 
 though he may maintain immoral and sacrilegious 
 hold of worldly goods.
 
 32 
 
 As long as he remained a believer in the Church 
 and its doctrine of the higher life, he faithfully 
 observed the obligations he had voluntarily taken 
 upon himself ; nor was any charge to the contrary 
 ever made against him. But when later he came 
 to think himself mistaken in so submitting his judg- 
 ment and conduct to the guidance of an external 
 authority, he had no hesitation in holding that he 
 was absolved from a vow taken under a false im- 
 pression. He was told, and had believed, that a 
 life of self-abnegation, single, poor, subjected to 
 another's will, was pleasing to God and the way of 
 perfection, and, not content with good, desirous of 
 better and the very best, he had chosen and bound 
 himself to such a life. When it had become to him 
 morally false and impossible, its superiority a mis- 
 take, and its observance a folly, then he cast away 
 from him the strait waistcoat which he had sworn 
 to wear all his days, under the delusion that it was 
 a royal robe, and distinctive of the favourites of God. 
 
 Indeed, the primary and only explicit vow of 
 obedience became in his new frame of mind almost 
 an absurdity. How was it possible to revolt from 
 the authority of the whole Church as a usurpation 
 of individual rights, and at the same time submit 
 to the orders of one of its chief servants ? A man 
 cannot be at the same time a Romanist and a 
 Rationalist, nor could he by any strain of conscience 
 be a Dominican and a Unitarian. 
 
 Immediately after taking the vows he was sent 
 back to Newcastle, which he had quitted the year
 
 33 
 
 before as the Eev. Eobert Suffield, and to which 
 he now returned, in new dress and new name, as 
 Father Rodolph ; but presently he was summoned 
 to London, where Cardinal Wiseman was anxious 
 to have a convent of the Order, and there lodged 
 with two other Fathers in a private house in Fortress 
 Terrace, Kentish Town, while the site at present 
 occupied by the fine monastic buildings in Maitland 
 Eoad, Haver stock Hill, was being negotiated for. 
 
 Here he remained for over two years engaged in 
 parochial duties, when not absent, as he very often 
 was, giving missions and retreats throughout the 
 United Kingdom. His life, indeed, was much that 
 of a Preacher, and very little that of a Friar, and 
 when the General of the Order, Father Jandel, a 
 disciple of Lacordaire and a devotee of strict ob- 
 servance, came to England on a visitation of the 
 province in the summer of 1863, he recalled Father 
 Eodolph to Woodchester, the only one of the five or 
 six Dominican communities where there were the 
 means of following out in its entirety the monastic 
 discipline. He accordingly returned there in Sep- 
 tember, and was, at his own request, made Parish 
 Priest, Master of the Lay Brothers, and Guest Master. 
 
 Here he remained for the next four years, but 
 the convent must have been rather his head-quarters 
 than his residence, if his mission engagements were 
 as numerous as they were the latter half of 1866. 
 
 Here is the list, copied from a half-sheet of paper, 
 in which they are put down, with alterations and 
 corrections in his own hand : 
 c
 
 34 
 
 Teignmouth ... August 26th to September 2nd. 
 
 Llanarth Sept. 8th (or 9th) to 13th (or 16th). 
 
 Peterborough ... Sept. (various dates put down and 
 erased) to October 4th. 
 
 Tadcaster October 7th to October 14th. 
 
 Everingham ... October 21st to November 4th. 
 
 Devizes November llth to November 18th. 
 
 Great Marlow ... November 25th to December 9th. 
 Manchester ... December 16th to 30th. 
 
 It was during these years at Woodchester that he 
 instituted "Our Lady's Guard of Honour," or "Per- 
 petual Eosary," and enrolled many thousands as 
 Associates, all of whom looked to him as their 
 chief. This devotion is one of many, founded on 
 the sentiment which has prevailed so much in recent 
 times among certain Protestant Churches, as well as 
 among Koman Catholics, that the forces of prayer 
 can be economised and made of greater efficacy by 
 skilful organisation. The idea of the " Perpetual 
 Eosary " is to maintain the recitation of the Eosary 
 uninterruptedly, day and night, all the year round. 
 Each Associate selects his own day and hour, and 
 undertakes to devote it to praying, after this ancient 
 form, for the Conversion of Sinners, the Salvation 
 of the Dying, and the Souls in Purgatory. He makes 
 known his choice by letter to the "Father Director" 
 at Woodchester, and his name is enrolled in the 
 register kept for that purpose.* 
 
 * It may be well to explain that the full Rosary consists of 
 one hundred and fifty beads strung together, and divided into tens 
 by fifteen larger beads. On the large beads the Lord's Prayer 
 is said, and the Angelic Salutation on each of the smaller ones ;
 
 35 
 
 In 1867 he was sent to take charge of the Mission 
 Station at Little Hampton, but seems to have had 
 but little more than a nominal appointment, his 
 services being in continually greater request through- 
 out the country. 
 
 The following sketch from the pen of a well-known 
 Irish politician will be read with interest as a per- 
 sonal experience of his work at this time. The writer 
 was unknown to Mr. Suffield till several years later, 
 when they met on a political platform, the one being 
 the chief speaker of the evening, and the ' ' Father 
 Bernard " of the article taking the chair. 
 
 "FRIAR AND PARSON." 
 
 " At a school in Ireland, wherein I spent some of my 
 earliest and most miserable days, the year was begun 
 by what is called among Eoman Catholics and, I 
 believe, of recent times among Anglo-Catholics a 
 Retreat. The season of Retreat, as the word implies, 
 is a period during which the penitent to those who 
 believe in Retreats, all human beings are or ought 
 to be penitents retires into himself from the world 
 without. Accordingly he does not utter a word to 
 any being except his confessor. He reads no books 
 but those of a religious character ; he attends several 
 religious services during the day, and his mind is 
 supposed to be wholly absorbed in meditation over 
 
 while fingers and lips are thus employed, the devout reciter medi- 
 tates on the "Mysteries of Redemption," as they are called, 
 beginning with the Annunciation, and ending with the Corona- 
 tion of the Virgin, devoting the time occupied in repeating ten 
 Hail Marys to each mystery. But generally a string of fifty 
 beads is used for convenience sake, and does service three times 
 over for the entire recitation.
 
 36 
 
 spiritual things the enormity of his sins, the cer- 
 tainty of death, and, after death, of judgment; the 
 delights of heaven, but still more the torments of 
 hell. At this moment the picture of our playground 
 during times of Eetreat is as clear as though I had 
 seen it but yesterday. I was once much impressed 
 by a photograph, seen under the stereoscope, of a 
 street in Paris during the siege. The shops were 
 open, the cab stood as usual in the thoroughfare, 
 and there were men and women apparently engaged 
 in life's ordinary occupations. But the stillness in 
 those streets where there had been noise, the repose 
 in that city of pleasure where passions had raged, 
 and the deathlike lethargy which had succeeded to 
 the hurried activity of the vivid Frenchman, threw 
 over the picture an air of unreality. Not unlike this 
 looked our playground during Eetreat. There were 
 the cricket-ground, and the trapeze, and the long 
 pole, as usual, stretched mast-like towards the sky; 
 but unused, untouched, they seemed the memories of 
 a dead past. There, too, were the eighty boys, still 
 full of youth's hotly-rushing blood ; but, entombed 
 in silence, and walking each by himself, they could 
 scarcely pass for the same lads who, a day or two 
 before, chattered and shouted, ran after the cricket- 
 ball and mounted the trapeze, hung in affection on 
 each other's arms, or waged bloody warfare on hostile 
 noses. There was nothing to relieve the monotony 
 of the sad time. The Eetreat was with us, indeed, 
 a time of prayer and humiliation, and we felt as 
 haxtpy when it was past as the released convict on
 
 37 
 
 his first day of freedom. As a rule, too, these days 
 of meditation left little impression behind. Father 
 Chester, the Jesuit, who preached one Eetreat, we 
 only remembered as very thin ; Father Zerbini, the 
 Italian, was a blank, save that he used strange words ; 
 and the Abbe Lemoinne was only remembered by 
 his terrible story of the wicked boy whom the 
 yawning earth one day swallowed. 
 
 " But one year a strange change came over the 
 school ; and there was a Eetreat such as never 
 had been known before. The summons of the 
 church bell was no longer like the toll to a funeral ; 
 the visit to chapel ceased to be the hour of darkest 
 misery ; the close of the Eetreat brought with it 
 some pangs ; for this was the occasion when Father 
 Bernard that wasn't his name was the preacher. 
 The influence this man gained over the school was 
 wonderful. He could make us at will laugh or weep, 
 or rise to the height of enthusiastic belief; so that 
 after a short time we looked forward to the visit 
 to the gloomy little chapel as the bright break in 
 the dark day. -Then, in individual intercourse, he 
 spoke to each boy as though he were his only son; 
 he appealed not so much to dread of hell as hope 
 of heaven, love for an all-good Father, veneration 
 for a Mother that had ever been pure. Those were 
 stirring times, when the Garibaldians were attacking 
 Eome, and how our hearts throbbed as he told us 
 of the Irish Brigade that had gone to do battle for 
 the Pope ! 
 
 "Father Bernard usually remained seated while he
 
 38 
 
 preached to us, so that \ve felt as if listening to a 
 kind friend who wanted to chat to us. But a moment 
 came when he wouid rise to his feet ; his kind eyes 
 grew bright, his small and slight figure became 
 majestic, and there rushed out a torrent of pictur- 
 esque description by which we were swept away 
 until hearts throbbed and eyes grew dim. To this 
 day I hear in my ears his parable of the young 
 man who sailed on over smiling and placid water, 
 under a blue sky, and, in spite of the loud warnings 
 from shore, to the all-devouring cataract beyond. 
 At last came the Sunday on which the Retreat 
 ended; and even in that small, shabby chapel the 
 Church of Rome was able to solemnise a service 
 which could move the heart and awe the imagina- 
 tion. On the altar w^ere tall candelabra, reserved 
 for great occasions; a score of candles were alight, 
 and clouds of incense floated in the air. I see before 
 me now the diminutive figure of Father Bernard 
 standing out from this brilliant background. Gor- 
 geous vestments partly hide the plain white flannel 
 of his friar's habit ; his face bears the marks of 
 fatigue from long fasting and the lengthened service, 
 and tbe words that restore to us speech and freedom 
 and joy sound to our ears rather as the sobbing 
 farewell of parting friends. 
 
 " And so Father Bernard left us; but his influence 
 remained behind. For many a week after he had 
 gone there was a soberer tone in the minds of the 
 boys, better thoughts, more frequent confessions. 
 And his power was far more prolonged than this.
 
 39 
 
 Whenever a boy of St. Mary's met another in after 
 years, one of his first questions was sure to be, 
 ' Where is Father Bernard ? ' and then his stories 
 were retold and his sermons repreached. To many 
 he was the one oasis fn the desert of spiritual 
 advisers. Amid the long array of cruel clerical 
 taskmasters, or gloomy fanatics, or worldly-minded 
 canters, he was the single priest whose sympathy 
 might soothe sorrow, whose aid might help wrestling 
 faith. 
 
 " Some fourteen or fifteen years after Father Ber- 
 nard's Eetreat, one of the boys on whom he had 
 made the deepest impression was passing along the 
 Strand. It was a drear night in October, when the 
 slight fog that precedes the heavier affliction of a 
 later season had spread over the town. Beneath 
 that melancholy pall there are few minds that can 
 preserve a cheerful mood, for it is the warning that 
 the heat, the light, the bright mornings and the 
 long evenings have fled before the approach of gloom 
 and frost and fog. He of whom I speak had nothing 
 to do in shape of work, and pleasure did not attract ; 
 and so, listlessly and for want of any other distraction, 
 he sauntered into a chapel. There was little therein 
 to rouse or to cheer. The place was plain, as he 
 thought, to ugliness, and cold to chilliness. For an 
 altar or a pulpit there was an ordinary reading-desk. 
 The seats were painted in a common-place colour; 
 and the place generally looked rather like the lecture- 
 room of a medical school than a spot where men 
 came to worship. The congregation, too, was sparse
 
 40 
 
 and mostly feminine, and highly uninteresting. Pre- 
 sently the preacher of the evening appeared, and 
 with a quietness of manner and of language that 
 suited the tranquil surroundings, declared the Bible 
 a myth and the Church of Borne a fraud. It was 
 he whom I had known as Father Bernard that thus 
 spoke. The Eoman Catholic friar had been trans- 
 formed into the Unitarian minister."* 
 
 Indeed, to those who knew Mr. Suffield only as 
 the quiet preacher of a rational faith, who appealed 
 to men just to hear and judge for themselves, whether 
 or not what he had to urge approved itself to their 
 judgment and conscience, to those who listened to 
 him, Sunday by Sunday, as their Unitarian minister, 
 it must be inconceivable how powerful and popular 
 and attractive he was as the Dominican missionary, 
 urging in the name of his infallible j Church, truths 
 which none might doubt of without peril of his soul. 
 He was everywhere sought after and everywhere 
 successful, if success be judged by the numbers 
 who were drawn to hear him and trusted to him 
 for their guidance in the way of salvation. 
 
 " When giving missions he led a most arduous 
 life ; so many people flocked to the confessional that 
 he had barely time for rest and food. He generally 
 stayed with the principal Eoman Catholic families 
 in the neighbourhood, and if the Church was on 
 their estate, as was often the case, he rarely went 
 outside the grounds. When travelling he always 
 took with him a desk and writing materials, and 
 C.P. In Weekly Despatch of December 21st, 1879.
 
 41 
 
 utilised his spare moments by writing his letters in 
 the waiting-rooms. The appointments of his houses 
 were the plainest possible, yet he was never without 
 visitors, and good people of wealth and position 
 thought it a favour to be asked to spend two or 
 three days with him to confer on religious matters, 
 and never gave a thought to the bare simplicity of 
 his household arrangements. Presents of game and 
 fruit were frequent, but everything else was of the 
 plainest possible description. He never asked for 
 money, but had large sums often entrusted to him 
 for charitable purposes." 
 
 So writes one who often heard him speak in his 
 simple way, without a thought of boasting, of his 
 earlier life, and the witness is fully confirmed by 
 the numerous letters belonging mostly to this time, 
 which he has left behind, many stamped with the 
 coronets of the highest Eoman Catholic nobility of 
 England, and many, ill-spelt and scarcely decipher- 
 able, from the poorest and most ignorant. Idle 
 schoolboys and young ladies of high family, noble 
 matrons and men eminent by name and office, digni- 
 taries and novices, poor working men and women, 
 all write in the same tone of the most loving con- 
 fidence. Indeed, those only who have themselves 
 had experience of it can understand how intimate 
 and affectionate is the tie which in the Eoman 
 Church unites the "Director" and the soul which 
 has committed to him its guidance. The 'confessor' 
 has to be taken as he is found, and often there is 
 no choice available, but the Director is one selected
 
 42 
 
 because believed to be the best adapted to help the 
 soul God-ward, and can be communicated with by 
 letter as if he were on the spot. Mr. Suffield had 
 a great dislike to the system as developed by the 
 Jesuits, but he must have had it forced upon him, 
 as a necessary consequence of preaching obedience, 
 submission of the will and judgment, and self-abne- 
 gation, as the highest virtues. It is the perfection 
 of the Jesuit novice to be "as a staff" in the hand 
 of his Superior, and even persons living in the world 
 might aim at some distant approach towards a like 
 merit. Between Jesuit and Dominican the question 
 could be only of degree, for both were bound to the 
 same standard of faith and morals. 
 
 To this time, the February of 1868, belongs the 
 lecture, delivered at West Hartlepool, to a mixed 
 audience of English and Irish Protestants and 
 Catholics, and published "permissu superiorum," as 
 is stated on the title page, a permission which does 
 credit to the courage of Superiors, so largely depen- 
 dent for the support of themselves and their subjects 
 on an aristocracy to many of whom its sentiments 
 were obnoxious. Writing of it in a letter to an 
 intimate correspondent, to whom he sends a copy, 
 he says, "This is the formidable and obnoxious 
 document. I am sorry your uncle and Lord L. are 
 so angry about it. F. got it read to the Queen by, 
 I think, Lady C."* 
 
 * It will be found reprinted in this volume.
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 THE BEGINNINGS OF DOUBT. 
 
 But other and graver differences from the views 
 commonly accepted by those among whom he lived, 
 and who looked up to him as an authority in religion 
 and morals, were now pressing upon his mind. The 
 impression made by many passing hints in his corres- 
 pondence is that he never held the Eoman faith 
 with the easy assurance of those who wondered and 
 shuddered at his " apostacy." He had written in 
 "The Crown of Jesus" of "the unbounded faith 
 with which your utmost soul cleaves to those sacred 
 truths which are the heritage of the Church. Out 
 of the Catholic Church an act of faith is impossible ; 
 there can be only the glimmering light of human 
 reason speculating with a painful earnestness to put 
 together a body of truth; and when the edifice has 
 been reared, even amidst labour, prayer, time, and 
 anxiety, there is nothing in it of stable, nothing which 
 may not be upset by others working with equal 
 earnestness and sincerity." 
 
 But this "unbounded faith" is not unfrequently 
 supported only by "a painful earnestness," more 
 painful far than is the honest seeking after truth, 
 even with a full consciousness of the difficulty of the 
 quest. And during the two or three last years of
 
 44 
 
 his priesthood, certainly if not long before he was 
 in this most trying position, believing still by force of 
 will, even while his reason revolted under the heavy 
 yoke. 
 
 So, perhaps, it might have gone on all his life, the sore 
 trial of his faith remaining unknown and unsuspected 
 of any but those to whom he confided the secrets of 
 his soul for the purpose of spiritual direction; but 
 about this time the question of Papal infallibility 
 began to be mooted throughout the Catholic world, 
 the Ultramontane party in the Church pressing for 
 its definition, so that it should be no longer a pious 
 belief, but a part of that accepted faith of Christen- 
 dom, which "except a man believe faithfully he can- 
 not be saved." Many there were who had, in a 
 general way, accepted it as long as it was not 
 obligatory, who now began to be anxious and fright- 
 ened when it was proposed to define its limits, and 
 make it a dogma of the Church. Mr. Suffield himself 
 had expressed the commonly received opinion when 
 he wrote,* "The Pope is 'os Ecclesiae,' the mouth 
 of the Church. Through him speaks the mystic 
 body of Christ; when the Pope, acting as the Supreme 
 Pontiff of the Universal Church, proclaims to the 
 world doctrine or decisions on faith or morals, he 
 is infallible. Acting in his private capacity he can 
 err in morals or in judgment ; but when summoning 
 around him his doctors, inaugurating solemn prayers, 
 consulting his sacred congregations, he shows that 
 he acts as the master and teacher of all; then his 
 * " Crown of Jesns," page 499. Italics are ours.
 
 45 
 
 decisions in faith and morals are overruled by Divine 
 Providence to be ever faithful and true." There is 
 no doubt that every word here was carefully con- 
 sidered, and full force was intended to be given to 
 those which limited this claim of infallibility, as 
 well as to the reason given for it. The Pope is infal- 
 lible, he would say, because he is head and mouth- 
 piece of the infallible Church; but therefore only 
 infallible when by openly associating himself with, 
 and taking advice of, the acknowledged authorities 
 of the Church, he shows that he is acting for and 
 with the Church. This is certainly not identical 
 with the decree of the Vatican Council, in w r hich 
 mention of assistance sought or given is expressly 
 withheld, and the conclusion is added that the defi- 
 nitions of the Pope are " irreformabiles," incapable 
 of amendment, not because the Church gives assent 
 to them, but from their own inherent force, " ex 
 sese, non autem ex consensu Ecclesiae." 
 
 But it will be best to give his own account of the 
 origin of the struggle which ended in his taking a 
 step which he would have himself regarded with 
 horror before the controversy on infallibility arose. 
 
 " My Eoman Catholic ecclesiastical life was one 
 of great peace and happiness, accepting, as I did, 
 everything on the authority of the Church an 
 authority which I deemed it wrong to question I 
 was content. But when the seat and mode of that 
 authority became a moot question during the years 
 previous to the Vatican Council, reading both sides 
 of the question in Eoman Catholic works, the
 
 46 
 
 gravest doubts arose in my mind, it becoming clear 
 to me that the claim to infallibility was equally false 
 in any of the received theories. Many minds became 
 anxious, some were determinsd not to investigate or 
 think, others were, by the circumstances of their 
 position, more or less reluctantly compelled to inves- 
 tigate and think. I was amongst the latter class ; 
 doubts arose, and were again earnestly banished 
 amidst unceasing work in missions, in preaching, 
 and in the confessional ; still they kept forcing them- 
 selves before my mind. In accordance with the sad 
 teaching of ecclesiastical theology, I regarded these 
 doubts, not as the noble utterances of the intelligence, 
 but as temptations to be suppressed. I tried to 
 remove them by reading, by occupation, and by 
 prayer." 
 
 And to these the private and personal remedies 
 always recommended, and so often, it must be con- 
 fessed, efficacious against doubt, he added what the 
 Church prescribes for all manner of temptations the 
 full revelation of his state of mind to a wise confessor. 
 Indeed, he consulted three, and, as in duty bound, 
 kept the matter secret from everybody else. One 
 of these told him that his "position was too pro- 
 minent, that it fostered pride, and from pride came 
 the temptation." His position was prominent, indeed, 
 more so, perhaps, than that of any priest in England, 
 but the temptations of such position are surely rather 
 to insincerity and affectation of belief, and suppres- 
 sion of any thought which might gender distrust, 
 than they are to dig about and undermine the very
 
 47 
 
 foundations on which it all rests. So certainly he 
 felt, and his comment on this commonplace of religious 
 teachers is " It often happens that those accused of 
 pride are, in fact, but the victims of disappointment. 
 What so sad as to give your mind and energy to a 
 service, and to begin to suspect that the service is 
 an illusion ? ' ' 
 
 "However," he goes on, "I asked leave to resign all 
 public offices. Worried, anxious, and, in consequence, 
 in bad health, I was glad to be allowed to withdraw 
 to a little mission in a country village, and here I 
 continued two years, only going away when the calls 
 of duty or of friendship rendered absence imperative ; 
 all the time I kept hoping that I might yet be able 
 conscientiously to settle down in peaceful belief. 
 Amidst peasants and village children and country 
 scenes I 'strove to forget the present, and to fortify 
 my faith by the theologies of the past." 
 
 " Many a long evening have I sat in my garden 
 at Bosworth, when a nightingale's song was the only 
 voice to be heard, and prayed that I might die ere 
 the illusion I had lived in and devoted my life to, 
 had utterly passed away." 
 
 Husbands Bosworth is a small village on the rail- 
 way between Leicester and Eugby. The Hall was 
 the seat of Mr. Fortescue Turville, and attached to 
 it was a priest's house and garden, which Mr. Suffield 
 christened "The Hermitage," and a small chapel in a 
 "very wretched" condition, according to the account 
 of the Bishop of the Diocese, the owner delaying the 
 rebuilding of it till his return from Canada, where
 
 48 
 
 he had gone in the suite of Sir John Young, the 
 Governor-General. There had been great difficulty 
 experienced in obtaining the services of a resident 
 priest, and the mission had been served for some 
 time by the Dominican Fathers from their convent 
 at Leicester. But this arrangement had for some 
 reason come to an end, about a year and a half 
 before this time, and the temporary tenants of the 
 hall pressing for a resident priest, application was 
 made to Mr. Suffield, on the chance of his knowing 
 "some Dominican, an invalid, or requiring rest and 
 country air, who might be permitted to be there 
 for a time." This was on the 15th of August, 1868, 
 just at the critical time when he was feeling the 
 need of quiet retirement, and it must have come 
 to him as a special providence opening out the way 
 for him, when he was straitened both in mind and 
 health, and knew not where to turn. But he had 
 certain engagements to fulfil before he might take 
 time for his own thoughts ; and having given pro- 
 mised Eetreats to the nuns of Stone and Wigton, 
 he concluded these years of his active mission -life 
 with the Cistercian Monks of Mount St. Bernard, 
 in Leicestershire. The strict observance was main- 
 tained at this abbey, as near as possible, on the lines 
 laid down by the great saint who instituted the Order, 
 and a letter from the abbot about the details of the 
 Retreat gives, for the purpose of arranging the hours 
 for the three daily discourses, a table of " The Winter 
 Exercises of the Choir," which will be read with 
 interest. It is strange to reflect how, in the midst
 
 49 
 
 of this railway-traversed England, mid the activity 
 and advancement and intense life of this nineteenth 
 century, there survives still the twelfth century, here 
 and there finding shelter for its faith and ways of 
 thought and religious observances and dress and man- 
 ners in secluded convent-homes, among men and women 
 whose earnestness and consistency all must admire, 
 however mistaken they deem them. And, after all, 
 surely it is for the good of the community that there 
 should be actual experiment made in our age too, of 
 all plans for the elevation of human life above the 
 material conditions which ever tend to degrade it. 
 If the result be failure, that, too, is so much profit, 
 at least as evidence that in our circumstances this 
 or that scheme of Saint or Socialist is unavailing, 
 and no time and means and energy to be wasted 
 in the effort to restore it. Here, then, is the order 
 of life observed in winter time by the brethren of 
 the choir in this Leicestershire monastery : 
 
 2 a.m. Eise. Little Office. Meditation. 
 
 3 ,, Matins and Lauds. 
 
 Angelus. Interval. 
 
 5 30 ,, Prime. Community meet in Chapter. 
 
 Interval. 
 
 80,, Tierce. High Mass. Work. 
 11 30 ,, Sext. Examination of Conscience. 
 
 Angelus. Work. 
 2 p.m. None. Dinner. Interval. 
 
 4 15 ,, Vespers. Meditation. Interval. 
 60 ,, Spiritual Eeading. 
 
 6 15 ,, Compline. 
 
 Angelus. Examination of Conscience. 
 70 ,, Eepose.
 
 50 
 
 It will be observed that there is provision made 
 for only one meal in the course of the day; in the 
 summer time there would be an hour allotted for 
 supper ; but all the monastic orders observe a strict 
 fast from the 15th of September, the feast of "The 
 Exaltation of the Cross," till Easter, and, in addition 
 to the midday meal of fish and vegetables and bread, 
 only a mere pittance is allowed morning and evening. 
 
 It was in this austere retreat of mediaeval piety 
 that he closed his active life in the Church's service, 
 and hence passed to his secluded country home, where 
 he was for two years to maintain within his own 
 soul an unequal and unsuspected warfare, striving to 
 fortify old faith against modern arguments, and sub- 
 due reason to the service of sentiment. 
 
 "The illusion" was sublime and sweet, as those 
 only know who have lived under its spell and yielded 
 themselves soul and body to its influence, and to die 
 while yet it lasted seemed to him preferable far to 
 the cold, stern realities of common life life without 
 angels, without sacraments, without a Queen and 
 Mother in heaven to love and be loyal to, without a 
 Divine Church militant on earth to serve and witness 
 for. And he prayed for death, and lived for many 
 years to thank God that his prayer had been left 
 unheeded, and that he had been spared to learn 
 that the ordinary life of men is better than dream- 
 land, and the sendee of humanity diviner than service 
 of any church. 
 
 May it not be that we shall aU, in the clearer vision 
 of a higher life, find like reason to bless God that
 
 51 
 
 many a longing desire of our hearts was never grati- 
 fied, that many a certain seeming good, earnestly 
 sought by us, was always denied? 
 
 It was on Saturday, the 10th of October, 1868, 
 that he arrived at Bosworth. He took duty on the 
 following day, and every Sunday in succession for 
 more than a year. Indeed, his diary gives no indica- 
 tion of absence from this quiet home, except for a 
 four days' Eetreat in Holy Week given at the Bir- 
 mingham Oratory, till September 14th, when he 
 preached at the laying of the foundation stone of 
 the new Dominican Church at Newcastle. Thence 
 he went to join the Annual Eetreat of the Friars at 
 Woodchester. His last missions were at Chelsea, 
 from January 9th to 25th, and Southport, January 
 30th to February 15th. 
 
 One would suspect that about this time he made 
 a last desperate effort to regain his hold upon the 
 Church ; as one learning to swim is frightened, 
 when for the first time he gets out of his depth, 
 and instinctively makes for the shore, and feels with 
 satisfaction the stones beneath him, though they be 
 rough and sharp, so does it often happen when we 
 begin to doubt about a faith we have long held for 
 solid certainty ; we dare first to read and think and 
 enquire, all the time believing still, till some day 
 comes the sudden discovery that faith is gone, and 
 frightened we grasp some friendly argument which 
 offers itself, and get back again, and tell ourselves 
 we are still safe a little while. 
 
 Such seems to have been his state of mind during
 
 52 
 
 this little spell of mission work, and a report of the 
 Chelsea Mission from the Westminster Gazette con- 
 firms this supposition. We see in the light of after 
 events how he was striving with doubt while he 
 preached faith, and conceding the utmost to save 
 what was essential. 
 
 " The holy mission, held by the Dominican Fathers 
 at the church of St. Mary, Chelsea, was brought to 
 a close on Sunday last.* .... Father Suffield 
 is a preacher of great power, and made a great 
 impression on his hearers. The sight of the striking 
 figure of the preacher, in the black and white robes 
 of his Order, standing on a raised platform in the 
 dim twilight of a winter's afternoon, and exhorting 
 his hearers to listen to the voice of God, and to 
 return to him the joy of their youth, could not fail 
 to impress anyone at all amenable to religious in- 
 fluences. His sermon on Purgatory, on the Friday 
 before the close, was a very able one, and, without 
 being controversial, was likely to influence non- 
 Catholics. Addressing himself to the converts who 
 might be present, he said he had been asked whether 
 it was lawful for them to pray for their deceased 
 Protestant relatives, and explained to them that, 
 although according to the discipline of the Church, 
 the priest could not publicly pray for non-Catholics 
 in the Mass, this by no means implied that we 
 might not do so privately. All they, he continued, 
 who followed Christ in sincerity and truth, and 
 acted according to the lights vouchsafed to them, 
 * "Westminster Gazette," January 29th, 1870.
 
 53 
 
 we might reckon as belonging to the soul of the 
 Church, although by the misfortune of their educa- 
 tion they did not belong to it visibly; many who 
 spoke against us, ridiculed iis, or even persecuted us, 
 would be saved, whom we, in our narrow way of 
 thinking, might be apt to condemn. The Catholic 
 Church was world- wide, and we must be careful 
 not to confound it with a sect in any way. The 
 royal heart of Jesus would exclude none who were 
 his true followers. In his experience as a priest 
 he had found many such, some even he felt conscious 
 were by far his superiors in spiritual life, though 
 external as yet to the visible Church. Such things 
 belong to the mysteries of the Kingdom of Christ. 
 The instructions on Spiritual Direction and Vocation 
 were distinguished by great prudence and wisdom, 
 addressed more especially to ladies, many of whom 
 attended the various services in all weathers, and 
 at great personal inconvenience, and their piety and 
 good example during the mission were very edifying. 
 "On Sunday evening last this highly successful 
 mission was brought to a close, Father Suffield 
 preaching a sermon of great eloquence ; the only 
 fault, if we may be allowed to say so, in his preach- 
 ing, is that he is apt to be a little discursive. On 
 this occasion his subject was ' Christ our King.' 
 Before entering on it he alluded shortly to a letter 
 of three Protestant gentlemen, sent to him during 
 the mission, on the ' Historic Evidences of Chris- 
 tianity,' and the difficulties they had on this subject. 
 He said the best answer they could have was the
 
 54 
 
 sight they witnessed that evening. He reminded 
 them that Catholics did not profess to answer all the 
 difficulties men might raise. The proof of Catholic 
 truth, like Christianity itself, was a moral proof. 
 Christ did not set about proving his mission, but 
 he appealed to the heart and conscience of men, 
 leaving it to them to accept or reject them. The 
 Catholic Church did the same, pointing to her won- 
 derful history, how she had spread from small 
 beginnings, not like Mahommedanism, propagated 
 by the sword, or like Protestantism, by the support 
 of kings; but in spite of the dreadful persecutions 
 of the Eoman Empire, how she eventually triumphed, 
 and even set up the throne of her Pontiff in the 
 palace of the Csesars ; and when later corruption 
 of morals crept over her, and bad Popes even, and 
 a luxurious clergy were too often to be found, how, 
 in spite of all she had lived on. Then came the 
 Eeformation, in part a just reaction against abuses, 
 and carried away multitudes from the unity of faith. 
 But she survived it all and why? Because Christ 
 was with her; and he had promised that the gates 
 of hell should not prevail against her. Whatever 
 the world might say, Christ had said those words ; 
 and Christ was Truth itself. And so she had lived 
 on to our days she alone, as a Church, had suc- 
 ceeded. Let those who reject her try and do 
 likewise ! they had not yet done so after three 
 hundred years. In this country there was no unity, 
 even in the essentials of faith, among those separate 
 from the Church. The Catholic Church, then, pointed 
 to her wonderful history, and claimed the obedience
 
 55 
 
 of all men. Men might reject her or accept her as 
 they did Christ himself ; only he called upon them 
 to examine whether there was not some secret 
 passion which was the cause of their doing so ; 
 whatever passion it might be, pride or some more 
 ignoble vice, which made them unwilling to submit 
 to the sweet yoke of Christ. As to intellectual 
 difficulties, he reminded them of the example of a 
 great man who had said that there were, no doubt, 
 difficulties and objections hard to answer, both as 
 regards the Church and Christianity itself ; but that 
 in spite of it all he accepted the Christian Faith 
 as the word of Christ, the Eternal Truth. Little 
 minds might say that these difficulties were easily 
 answered ; but it was not so the true proof of 
 Christianity was a moral one, after all. 
 
 "Father Suffield then asked his hearers to join 
 in a solemn act of the renewal of their Baptismal 
 vows, and made a powerful appeal to the men to 
 remain faithful to their allegiance to Christ their 
 King; he knew full weU the difficulties and tempta- 
 tions they had to contend against in a great city 
 like London ; the example of those they lived among ; 
 and so much on every side calculated to lead them 
 astray ; he fully sympathised with them, and exhorted 
 them to break for ever with Satan and his works; 
 and then concluded with reading the beautiful pas- 
 sage of St. Augustine, written after his last meeting 
 with his mother, St. Monica, on the joys of Heaven. 
 
 " The renewal of Baptismal Vows and the Papal 
 Blessing concluded the service. The church was 
 densely crowded."
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 THE CONFLICT WITHIN. 
 
 Henceforth he seems to have studied rather to 
 keep out of active work, such as he had been so 
 long accustomed to, and to have sought in the peace 
 of " The Hermitage," as he significantly called 
 the priest's house at Bosworth, to regain his old 
 certainty of faith. 
 
 It must have been a lonely time not for want of 
 correspondents, who were numerous, nor of visitors, 
 for so many came out of their way to see him in 
 his solitude and profit of his spiritual counsels, that 
 a farmer of the neighbourhood found it worth while 
 to set up a conveyance to take callers to and fro 
 between the house and the railway station but 
 lonely, in the secret isolation of his soul from all 
 with whom he had been wont to take counsel and 
 share confidences, and still more so in the anticipa- 
 tion of a severance ever becoming more inevitable, 
 and which could not be long kept secret. For it 
 must have become increasingly clear to him, month 
 by month, that the peace of the country was 
 unavailing to restore peace to his soul ; that it was 
 henceforth impossible that he would ever again, as 
 he had fondly hoped, " settle down with quiet con- 
 science in peaceful belief." And all the kindness
 
 57 
 
 shown him, the deep regard testified in so many 
 letters, the affectionate enquiries after his health 
 and welfare, added to the secret anguish of his 
 heart. For, spite of doubts about Eoman Catholic 
 claims, and scandals which were reported to him 
 from Kome, and disapproval of " the foreign eccle- 
 siastical scheming," which seemed to him in England 
 itself to have supplanted " the old straightforward 
 ways, I still," he writes, "regarded all those with 
 whom I had personal relationship with such tender 
 affection and high esteem that to be severed from 
 them seemed to be an agony." And no wonder, on 
 the one side, where he still lingered, and tried to 
 find firm footing, all was familiar and welcome ; 
 before him, life peaceful, happy, honoured, useful, 
 and promise more or less credible, worth the having 
 at any rate, of eternal reward ; on the other, all 
 was uncertain and strange what he should do ? 
 how he should live? what verities find to replace 
 the dogmas of the Church? what sphere in that 
 new world of use or honour ? 
 
 The diary, or rather the notes of his sermons 
 and engagements which he had roughly kept for 
 many years, breaks off with the 8th of April, 1870, 
 when he preached for four days at Devizes. There 
 follows in the thin quarto, which had lasted him for 
 all his notes since 1863, a few pages of extracts or 
 memoranda, in striking contrast, many of them, 
 with the earlier jottings of sermons and discourses, 
 so full of faith, and devotion to the mysteries of the 
 Roman Church. A few of them are here given, as
 
 58 
 
 showing how his mind was wrought by thoughts he 
 had tried in vain to suppress : 
 
 " Christianity has been tried and failed; the reli- 
 gion of Christ remains to be tried." 
 
 "Catholicism may long remain a verbal creed to 
 millions, a source of spiritual consolation and refresh- 
 ment, a guide amidst perplexities of conduct and 
 morals but resting on dogmas which cannot by any 
 amount of compromise be incorporated with know- 
 ledge and with facts ; assuming as the condition of 
 its existence an hypothesis condemned alike by 
 reason, history, and science ; upheld by an organi- 
 sation which is the assumed enemy of enquiry, of 
 liberty, of the rights of others it may still delude 
 devout and reverend and high-souled men, but it 
 cannot again regenerate society." 
 
 "If we ought, simply because we ought because 
 the law which we find within us, but did not produce, 
 controls us, haunts us, and claims supremacy over us, 
 then we find in such a fact the revelation of One from 
 whom the law has emanated. As Fenelon says, 
 ' Whence have I obtained this idea, which is so 
 much above me, which infinitely surpasses me, which 
 astonishes me, which renders the infinite present to 
 me? It is in me, it is more than myself; I have 
 not put it there, I have found it there ; it does not 
 depend upon me, I depend upon it.' " 
 
 " And Dr. John Smith, the Cambridge Platonist, 
 writes, ' God has so copied forth himself into the 
 whole life and energy of man's soul, as that the 
 character of the divinity may be most largely seen
 
 59 
 
 and read of all within themselves, and wherever we 
 look upon our souls in a right manner we shall find 
 a Urim and Thummim there.' " 
 
 " As Home Tooke says, ' The London Tavern is 
 open to everyone who can afford to pay the bill,' 
 so the Catholic Church is open to everyone who 
 can recite the Creeds." 
 
 " The Bible is the history of the highest religious 
 experiences of the race." 
 
 " St. Paul says that five hundred persons saw Jesus 
 after his resurrection was it once? all together? 
 after a stirring appeal? " 
 
 " Arguments did not convert to Christianity at the 
 beginning ; people saiv a higher, a purer, a nobler 
 life and they arose and lived it." 
 
 " The Roman Catholic Church satisfies every desire, 
 if only it can induce the mind to accept its creden- 
 tials unproved." 
 
 " Last century what did disbelief end in? a revul- 
 sion to Evangelicalism and Eomanism." 
 
 " Bowed down beneath internal conflict, Dante 
 wandering across the mountains of Lunigiana, knocked 
 at the gate of the monastery of San Croce del Corvo.* 
 The monk who opened it read at a single glance all 
 the long history of misery on the face of the stranger. 
 ' What do you seek here ' ? said he. Dante gazed 
 round with one of those looks in which the soul 
 speaks, ' Peace.' The scene leads our thoughts up 
 to the eternal type of all martyrs of genius and 
 
 * Situated at the extremity of Monte Caprione, which bounds 
 the Gulf of Spezia on the south. The story is told in a letter 
 purporting to be written by Fra Ilario, prior of the monastery.
 
 60 
 
 love, praying to his Father, to the Father of all, 
 upon the Mount of Olives, for peace of soul and 
 strength for the sacrifice. Peace ! neither monk 
 nor any other creature can bestow it upon Dante. 
 The hand that sends the last* . . can alone take 
 away the crown of thorns." 
 
 These and a few similar extracts and memoranda, 
 intended for no eye but his own, and bringing to a 
 close the twenty-years' notes of sermons, missions, 
 engagements of his active life in the Church, are a 
 truthful and effective record of the inner struggle. 
 We see him striving to make safe the natural 
 foundations of religion and morality, while the arti- 
 ficial securities he had so long trusted to are giving 
 way. The old way is wrong, he writes, in effect, 
 but before quitting it, let me make sure where the 
 right way is, lest I wander lost on trackless moors, 
 and exchange what is to me but a poor substitute 
 for truth for what is infinite error. 
 
 What especially weighed upon his mind at this 
 time were the scandals in high places, which, from 
 the position he held as trusted friend and counsellor 
 of people of rank and influence, he had more than 
 usual opportunities of becoming acquainted with. It 
 was not that this or that ecclesiastic was a bad man, 
 or even that the church in such a country, or under 
 such circumstances, was corrupt that he w r ould have 
 accepted as the inevitable result of a ministry which 
 God had confided to the hands, not of angels, but 
 of men. No ; what troubled him was that he heard 
 on every side how human infirmity, personal ambi- 
 * Illegible.
 
 61 
 
 tion, underhand devices, were being employed to bring 
 about a new definition of faith to induce the Holy 
 Spirit to declare His truth to the Church ! 
 
 In the month of April a private letter, addressed 
 by Dr. Newman to Dr. Ullathorne, Bishop of Bir- 
 mingham, had somehow made its way into the 
 papers, and writing about it to Father Suffield, its 
 author said, " Of course I never conjectured so un- 
 guarded a letter would get into circulation, but now 
 it is done, it is done and I can't be sorry and I am 
 glad to hear your judgment confirming me in my 
 impenitence." In this letter Dr. Newman spoke of 
 " an aggressive insolent faction " who were forcing 
 on the definition. " Why cannot we be let alone," 
 he wrote, " when we have pursued peace and thought 
 no evil? " Hitherto Eome had spoken only to inspire 
 the faithful with hope and confidence, "but now we 
 have the greatest meeting 'which has ever been seen, 
 and that at Eome, infusing into us, by its accredited 
 organs, the Civilta, the Univers, and the Tablet, little 
 else than fear and dismay. When we are all at rest, 
 and have no doubts, and at least, practically, not to 
 say doctrinally hold the Holy Father to be infallible, 
 suddenly there is thunder in the clear sky, and we 
 are told to prepare for something we know not 
 what, to try our faith we know not how. No 
 impending danger is to be averted, but a great diffi- 
 culty is to be created." Then, he added, " As to 
 myself, personally, please God I do not expect any 
 trial at all ; but I look with anxiety at the prospect 
 of having to defend decisions which may not be diffi- 
 cult to my own private judgment, but may be most
 
 62 
 
 difficult to maintain logically in the face of historic 
 facts." It was here that the two failed in sympathy, 
 and on this that they eventually parted company for 
 life. The one was prepared to believe whatever the 
 Council might decree, no matter what might be the 
 means used to coerce it. The other found insuper- 
 able difficulty both in the substance of the proposed 
 definition and in the mode of bringing it about. 
 Did the Holy Spirit act by intrigue and threats? 
 Was the truth of God opposed to 'historic facts?' 
 
 And when he wrote of such things to trusted 
 Catholic correspondents, the greater their piety and 
 simplicity of faith, the more entirely did they fail 
 to understand the gravity of what seemed to them 
 so much "gossip." Thus one old friend, who had 
 been his adviser and companion of his labours from 
 the first, and from whom he might have expected 
 a sympathy which he could not look for within his 
 Order, writes under date May 7th : 
 
 "Dearest Brother, Your letter is simply most 
 painful to me. Why listen to all this wretched 
 gossip about the Holy Father and the Jesuits ? 
 Surely you do not fall into the mistake of Dr. N., 
 who, in the words of Dalgairns, in his letter to the 
 Univers, 'exaggerates beyond measure the human 
 side, and ascribes the ever-rising and irresistible 
 current which is carrying the Church towards the defi- 
 nition of the Pope's infallibility to a few newspapers.' 
 Is the Church to abstain from teaching a divinely 
 revealed truth because of certain doubts and certain 
 so-called historical difficulties? She would be un-
 
 63 
 
 faithful to her commission if she could do so. And 
 as to difficulties, (1) there is a sufficient answer to 
 all that has been stated ; (2) if there were not, they 
 are not so good as the difficulties, historic and other- 
 wise, which are brought against the truth of Holy 
 Scripture. What nonsense to talk of historic diffi- 
 culties against what is admitted to be a truth of 
 revelation ! All this intrigue, misrepresentation, 
 abuse, attack upon the Holy Father, which is on 
 the side of the opponents, not of the defenders of 
 the definition, shows the absolute necessity of a 
 definition. To me it is a confirmation of the truth, 
 for it is evidently the work of the Devil." 
 
 So wrote one whom he had for years regarded as 
 his nearest and dearest friend ; and another, a 
 priest in the Order, who loved him well : 
 
 "You speak of Galileo, &c., but astronomers are 
 now coming round to the Ptolemaic theory again. 
 A recent pamphlet by ' A Wrangler,' discusses the 
 merits of Copernicus and Ptolemy, and the author 
 told me that it may now be regarded as an open 
 question as to whether the sun or the earth moves. 
 As to historical facts, may not history be wrong? 
 It is certainly not infallible. I heard it said that 
 our English history would have to be written again 
 on account of new records coming to light. I believe 
 history is full of mistakes. It seems unreasonable 
 to prefer to rest our souls on such sandy grounds, 
 and to want more than the ' soliditas Petri.' " 
 
 It was with such arguments his doubts were met, 
 and the only one which really impressed him was
 
 64 
 
 that of which he was himself only too conscious 
 that the difficulties were not confined to Papal infal- 
 libility, but were inherent in the system of a super- 
 natural revelation, whether through a church, a man, 
 or a book. 
 
 He had to go through the experience of every 
 convert ; his old companions could not understand 
 him ; it was not love, or sympathy, or respect, or 
 desire to help which was wanting, but the ability 
 to see the real force of the arguments which were 
 undermining his faith. To them it was all a tempta- 
 tion of Satan, they pitied and prayed for him who 
 was undergoing the assault, but to admit that such 
 difficulties were serious, would have seemed to 
 them like an act of homage to the tempter; the 
 utmost respect they could show would be to give 
 attention to discover the latent fallacy which, 'of 
 course,' was in them, It is so always ; if we firmly 
 believe, we can ill appreciate objections to our faith ; 
 and so we go through life, men of the same abilities 
 and like endowments, each marvelling how it comes 
 to pass that others can be of a different opinion to 
 himself. Those only who to themselves "may seem 
 to have reached a purer air," but have won it not 
 otherwise than " after toil and storm," can fully enter 
 into the difficulties of other minds. 
 
 No wonder, then, that at last he turned from 
 friends who all believed, nor knew what it meant 
 to doubt, to strangers who openly professed disbelief 
 of these things about which he was so troubled, ques- 
 tioning incessantly within himself were they true 
 or false?
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 HELP SOUGHT FROM OUTSIDE. 
 
 It was in May that he began a letter to the Eev. 
 James Martineau, then Principal of Manchester New 
 College, in London. How serious a step this was, and 
 how great a sin it would be accounted in a Catholic 
 Priest, to consult in matters of faith a schismatic and 
 heretic, those only can understand who have been 
 trained in the certainty that ' the Church ' is the one 
 divine guide and teacher of men. And that the writer 
 fully appreciated the gravity of his act is shewn in the 
 fact that though not a long letter it might be easily 
 and carefully written in an hour he took six days over 
 it. " May 19th, 1870," is the date, and below, "finished 
 on May 24th." " I am going to ask of you, " he wrote, 
 " a great favour, and perhaps a rather singular one 
 trusting to your honour. Will you do me the favour 
 of spending a fe\v days with me in my retired country 
 cottage? " It was assuredly a 'singular' request to 
 reach a Unitarian Minister from a Dominican Priest, 
 the one known to the world as an avowed advocate of 
 liberty of enquiry, the other known only hitherto as 
 a doughty champion of Roman domination. 
 
 " I am very anxious," he continued, "for my own 
 satisfaction, and as affording an additional help to 
 my own mind, to confer with you upon religious
 
 66 
 
 questions, which I could not go into by letter so 
 as to be understood, or so as to arrive at any 
 conclusion. I will but make this remark, there are 
 men at the present time who gravely doubt all 
 those portions of religion which rest upon historic 
 (Scriptural or Church) foundations, but who yet 
 having felt in their own minds the terrible danger 
 of removing a system entirely interwoven with faith 
 in God, in the soul, in the conscience, in the soul's 
 future as influenced by the life's habits, question 
 whether they would not better please God by con- 
 tinuing to throw themselves blindfold, and therefore 
 heartily, into a human religion, embodying and 
 successfully carrying into practise those great princi- 
 ples, though accompanied with tremendous exaggera- 
 tion, rather than to help in shaking in many minds 
 the essentials of all religion, of all virtue, and of all 
 happiness, by setting the example of renouncing the 
 system in which these are embodied. 
 
 " Some men are so circumstanced by their ante- 
 cedents, their character, their position, that they 
 almost necessarily pass from one teaching position 
 into another and their entire silence would be like 
 teaching that they had lost all faith and perhaps 
 because they had lost all virtue. Such men, though 
 individually undeserving of anything beyond average 
 influence and consideration, yet from antecedent and 
 existing circumstances unable to get themselves 
 simply ignored, are bound to consider whether, in 
 a clwice of evils, the shaking virtue and faith in 
 many minds without being able to substitute other
 
 67 
 
 grounds for faith and other supports for virtue, 
 may not be more evil and sinful than' the consistent 
 ' acting of a part,' by which one would seek to 
 present in exaggerated popular form the hidden 
 truths of God, of conscience, of the soul, and its 
 future. 
 
 "Possibly there may be Catholic priests perhaps 
 I know such who may say to themselves thus : 
 
 ' I have a great influence I am in a world-wide 
 society my Church teaches the great truths of God, 
 goodness, mercy, patience the influence of God on 
 the soul the respect for conscience prayer for 
 the souls' needs virtue hope. Now life is short, 
 my own has passed its meridian, I may destroy 
 in others what I can never replace I may be able 
 to confer but little happiness. I shall certainly cause 
 to very many the deepest sorrow ancient friend- 
 ships will be severed and I shall myself be re- 
 garded by thousands and tens of thousands who 
 have loved me, as a Judas who has betrayed his 
 trust, who must have had a bad motive thus, by 
 a single act, destroying the teaching as well as the 
 holy friendships and sacred confidences and beauti- 
 ful characters of twenty years and for what ? 
 Where could such a man, amidst the wildernesses 
 he had created for himself, covered with the ruins 
 of all his hopes, of all his beautiful friendships 
 where could he stand and say to his fellow-men, 
 ' I still believe in God and love Him, I still hope 
 in Him, though for the simplicity of His truth I 
 have become an outcast I still believe in the soul,
 
 68 
 
 in virtue, in conscience, in charity, and purity and 
 justice, though I may wander forth as an exile from 
 the human heart, every tongue cursing me, every 
 hand raised against me, and even the children and 
 the very poor who have delighted to call me 
 ' Father,' and to trust me as such, turning from 
 me as from a thing of horror and of shame.' 
 
 "And unless such a priest were to pass from one 
 insincerity to another, pass over many hearts made 
 sad, and many souls, perchance, made bad where 
 could he raise his voice and speak to convince both 
 himself and others that truth, and zeal, and love, 
 had not perished in his soul? Where could he tell 
 others to find a home for their soul where they 
 need not ' act a part ?' 
 
 "Perchance, amidst the unhealed misery of the 
 world they doubt God's omnipotence whilst they 
 believe and bless His goodness. They know not 
 where He is or how or What. Words cannot 
 describe His nature, or His past, or His future, or 
 His mode of government. But still firmly believing 
 there is such a One, and that He is holy, and just, 
 and goodness; and that in answer to prayers He 
 will operate on the soul, though probably not 
 changing at man's behest His physical and natural 
 laws. And supposing such persons do not know 
 any reason why they should pray ' through Christ ' 
 or ' to Him,' or practise any rites as if commanded 
 by Him but speak of Him reverently because His 
 name represents to so many millions the highest 
 expression of the beauty of holiness, and His teaching
 
 69 
 
 contains so much that is the purest and the most 
 sublime, and yet cannot attribute to the historic form 
 any dogmatic position ; still, on the other hand, 
 not wishing ever to shock or wound the feelings or 
 prejudices of others in whom piety is interwoven 
 with some recognition of His name or office. 
 
 " There are, perhaps, some priests, who really hold- 
 ing such opinions as these, hardly dare to own it to 
 themselves, because they see nothing outside popular 
 Eeligion except the desert strewn with ruins, or a 
 few individuals striving to erect a home for the soul 
 and ever failing ; whilst the popular Eeligion seems 
 to succeed just the more that it develops its dogmatic, 
 exclusive of the historic side, and such a priest says 
 to himself : ' Perhaps God intends gross, popular 
 Religion to be the only exponent of his truth, if I 
 were not in it, I would not now embrace it, but 
 perhaps I shall please Him better by continuing in 
 it now, during the short remaining years of life, 
 rather than that I should go forth to seek a shadow 
 followed by the tears or the execrations of all who 
 have loved me. As I am, I am united in conscious 
 sympathy and intercourse with countless numbers, 
 I am sustained by their example, encouraged by 
 their affection, helped by their prayers daily I 
 encourage and share their holiest aspirations I 
 know them to be cruelly maligned, and leaving them, 
 I shall seem to malign them the more, and shall thus 
 wound and wrong old tried friends, loved and revered 
 in the depths of my soul I love them, and I turn 
 their very love into a sad and bitter regret. And if
 
 70 
 
 I leave my pleasant village home to go forth and 
 literally starve as a pauper and obtain the sufferings 
 of a martyr, with nothing around me but unrealised 
 hopes, and a sad fear haunting me that whilst 
 seeking an ideal perfection of truth I have injured 
 souls I shall be powerless to serve, and destroyed 
 happiness I can never restore ! What then ? Surely 
 nothing would surround my latter years but despair.' 
 
 ' ' If such a man could find a religious home for his 
 own soul, one to which he could point and say : ' If 
 you share my doubts about EVEBYTHING taught by 
 historic religions, here you can be received without 
 a misgiving; and if you are a religious teacher, so 
 long as you do not hurt the feelings and honest 
 prejudices of others, you can be here and teach 
 here without compromise, and without continuing 
 in a modified degree the assumed dogmatism of your 
 present position', 
 
 " The character of Unitarians and their tone of 
 mind, and high moral standard, and their existing 
 organisation seems to provide an answer satisfactory. 
 Will you, my dear sir, in great confidence, come and 
 confer with me on these matters? 
 
 "Be so kind as to be very guarded, for if ever I 
 am compelled to act, my first communication must 
 be with my Provincial," so that I consult to the 
 utmost the feelings of others, and protect to the 
 fullest all the trusts reposed in me; and by some 
 
 * The Dominican Order is governed by a ' General,' who resides 
 at Rome, under whom is iu each Province a ' Provincial,' to whom 
 are in turn subject all the Priors of convents, and all the Friars 
 residing within his district.
 
 71 
 
 printed matter I send, you will perceive somewhat 
 what I mean. If there be no existing religious 
 substitute for the Catholic Church is it not God's 
 intention that the great religious truths of Theism 
 should be always exaggerated and embodied in a 
 gross popular form, as in ancient times we have 
 the esoteric and exoteric doctrine? 
 
 " Somehow, those who have abandoned the Catholic 
 Church, as far as I have heard about them, do not 
 attract me thoughtful, quiet, earnest men seem 
 almost more to approve those who remain than those 
 who leave and yet, although I have so sought soli- 
 tude here, and to withdraw from influence, I am 
 receiving persons (unsought by me) into the Catholic 
 Church; just lately the son of an M.P. has been 
 with me to be received into the Church, and the 
 only two persons of education and intelligence in 
 my village are likely to follow the same example ; 
 and a Protestant officer comes to me, and a Pro- 
 testant lady, to make a Eetreat w r ith the same object 
 next month. I am compelled to continue taking a 
 distinct side. Can you help me conscientiously to 
 weigh this grave matter, and to ponder this irre- 
 trievable and, to many, perhaps, fatal step? 
 " Believe me, very faithfully yours, 
 
 "EOBEBT EODOLPH SUFFIELD." 
 
 To this touching letter, in which he laid bare his 
 heart before one who had been hitherto an entire 
 stranger to him, but whose character and judgment 
 he seemed to have read in his published works, and 
 whom he found, as the event proved, fully worthy
 
 72 
 
 of the trust he reposed in him, Mr. Martineau 
 replied as follows : 
 
 " LONDON, May 26th. 
 
 "KEY. AND DEAR SIR, The deep and moving 
 questions raised by your very interesting letter can 
 be freely treated only viva voce ; so I will not try to 
 say any of the hundred things that crowd upon 
 me, but will simply offer myself to you for Mon- 
 day evening next, the 30th hist., if you can receive 
 me for a day, and let me return home on Tuesday 
 evening. A longer time I must not allow myself, 
 having duties, as Principal of a College, requiring 
 my presence at morning prayers and lectures on 
 the following day. 
 
 " Notwithstanding the unqualified expressions of 
 faith, which are at times so startling in Dr. Newman's 
 writings, and which are habitual with all my Catholic 
 friends, Archbishop Manning, Father Dalgairns, and 
 Dr. Ward, I have always supposed that in the higher 
 minds the hidden strife must be going on between 
 the Divine light and mythologic shadows, which the 
 Church and the Bible have blended, and I have often 
 wondered that the traces were so few of that terrible 
 and pathetic struggle. But now for the first time 
 have I full insight into all which the conflict involves ; 
 still, if it is not ours to manage for God and act as 
 His diplomatists, but to be simply led by Him as 
 children, a clear path may surely be found, often, 
 doubtless, the path of sacrifice. 
 
 "The religious life in our set of Protestant com- 
 munities is not in a satisfactory condition ; and
 
 73 
 
 the best that I can say for them is that they 
 offer no hindrance to either thought or conscience, 
 and may be receptacles and vehicles of spiritual 
 reformation. 
 
 "Believe me ever, yours faithfully, 
 
 "JAMES MARTINEAU." 
 
 It would seem as if a reaction followed on this 
 decisive step. His request was granted, yet perhaps 
 he would have been half pleased . had it been rudely 
 refused. The sympathy shown him by a stranger to 
 himself and to his Church, must have made him 
 realise more keenly than ever how fast he was 
 approaching the terrible ordeal from which every 
 nerve shrank. 
 
 So writing, under date " May 28th, 1870," after 
 giving particulars of trains, &c., he continued, 
 
 " I shall not mention your name to any one, thus 
 no curiosity is excited, visitors constantly thus come. 
 
 " Might I ask you to see the drift of the line of 
 thought in the ' Crown of Jesus,' which I send you, 
 from pages 64 to 80, and from the latter part of page 
 81 to the middle of page 91,* the note to page 264, f 
 and pages 498 to 501. J I wrote these passages ten 
 years ago, but they represent my entire line of 
 thought for above twenty years. 
 
 "The scheme of Catholic Doctrine w r hich I drew 
 up and placed in the ' Table of Contents ' will show 
 how, in my teachings, the moral life has been 
 
 * This page contains " A Rule of Life," instructions how to 
 live piously and well, most part of which all would approve. 
 f Quoted below, page 78. } See page 44.
 
 74 
 
 intimately interwoven with the Catholic dogma and 
 rites. 
 
 " Now, though delighted to listen to any obser- 
 vation of a controversial character you might wish 
 to make, I could not say that such is precisely my 
 desideratum. 
 
 " I want you first to realise the Catholic interior 
 life no one out of the Catholic Church ever seems to 
 understand it even remotely. Thus everything said 
 and written against us is merely like breath upon a 
 mirror, and a child can wipe it away. 
 
 " I want you to realise what the system of the 
 Catholic Church affords to every noblest thought, 
 to every purest and holiest aspiration, and how it 
 also gets hold of the lowest and roughest and coarsest, 
 and saves him from being a brute. If ever God 
 breaks the chain of gold that binds me to His 
 Temple and bids me look around and see that its 
 magnificence is merely a stately vision and a dream 
 of beauty one memory will ever follow me like the 
 last pleading look of the victim gazing into the eyes 
 of the murderer, and it will be the memory of that 
 love of God, piety, reverence, that tender charity, 
 that chivalry of devotedness, that chastity which 
 has never known a taint, interwoven in the most 
 intimate communications in which every secret of 
 the heart and life has been revealed. I look behind 
 me and around me, at our Priestly and Eeligious 
 Homes, at our Colleges and Convents, and then at 
 that other large circle of devoted friends in the world 
 whom God's goodness also gave me, and say to
 
 75 
 
 myself, Is there the same elswhere ? Truth is not 
 merely in the intellect; it is also in the heart. 
 Better to have moral beauty and credulity com- 
 bined, like the ivy eating the oak even whilst it 
 beautifies it, than to destroy at once the credulity 
 of mind and the moral beauty of the soul. So I 
 ask, What is to take the place? 
 
 "And I want to learn from you (for I perfectly 
 confide in your high-minded and unbiassed integrity), 
 what is the moral life, the piety, the high devoted- 
 ness, the unworldly generosity, the spirit of faith 
 and singleness of purpose, of those who are simply 
 Theists ? This matter comes almost entirely out of 
 my experience. Yet no one can read the works of 
 Professor Newman and of Miss Cobbe without saying 
 to himself, ' Here is moral beauty and truth com- 
 bined.' 
 
 "But as some are born princes of thought, so 
 there are others who seem to belong by right of 
 birth to a royal dynasty of virtue, and they would 
 have made their worship in the temple of Corinth 
 chastity ; and their pleasure in the garden of Epi- 
 curus fortitude. Are these merely exceptions ? and 
 exceptions merely because a high intellect has not 
 wished to stoop into the mire ? But amongst the 
 gentry, the young men, the tradespeople, the working 
 classes, what is the effect of the absence of all historic 
 dogmatic belief ? Can God and the conscience main- 
 tain their empire over the life ? 
 
 " That is what I want to learn. It is an unknown 
 world to me, but it does not come to me with a good
 
 76 
 
 report ; but what chiefly makes me shrink from it is 
 this what they say continually about us ; they always 
 impute to us Catholics, evil ; if we even do a good 
 thing, it is supposed we must have had a bad motive 
 in doing it ; if we affect kindness, it cannot be because 
 we bear no evil, but because we would catch a prose- 
 lyte ; if we do a charity, it is to buy ourselves out of 
 Purgatory ; the motive must be selfish, and all of us 
 are supposed to be playing a game for power, for 
 money, or for lust. In our communities there must 
 be tyranny, violence, impurity ; and amongst Priests 
 and ' Religious ' there cannot be chastity, because 
 they are single so they seem to argue. 
 
 " Now, I say to myself, ' Surely they reason from 
 themselves ; ' and every such attack has made me 
 draw closer to that ancient family wherein, if there 
 be the credulity ef childhood, there certainly is, too, 
 its bright joy of heart, its purity, its tenderness, its 
 devotedness ; and these have something to do with 
 God and Truth. 
 
 "That profound habit of government of thought 
 produced by the Catholic system would enable me 
 to banish ahvays, as I do now, except at formal 
 periods of consideration, all the doubts which arise 
 in my mind ; and I should be convinced it was more 
 pleasing to God to do so, and blindfolding my intel- 
 lect to let the old Church, to which I owe so much, 
 lead on another pilgrim through mystic rites and 
 dreams of ancient beauty to the Eternal Home, than 
 it would be to have satisfied the intellect by a nega- 
 tion, and flung myself from a citadel of moral security
 
 7? 
 
 into a battlefield of doubt, perplexity, uncertainty, 
 without a support, without an example, myself sus- 
 pected, doubted, an exile from one home, and never 
 obtaining another. 
 
 "You see the Catholic system. What is to take 
 its place ? It was once all contained in that upper 
 room over the beautiful Gate of the Temple. That 
 room contained the simplest faith, the purest hopes, 
 the grandest charity that had yet combined together 
 in the world. And as the vase of precious ointment 
 broke, and the fragrance unperceived spread far and 
 wide, so the gates of that upper room opened, and 
 one by one they went forth and died, the vase of 
 precious ointment broke, the fragrance possessed the 
 the world. 
 
 "Is there such a beginning now? The Unitarian 
 Society, with its high moral tone, its tolerance, its 
 gracious domestic life does it possess the mysterious 
 gift ? Has it the germ of a future and most glorious 
 career? or does it merely raise, though more charit- 
 ably, another protest, as if to afford another witness 
 to that ancient Church w r hich teaches, commands, 
 and is obeyed? 
 
 " If so, the heart returns to itself and says, ' God, 
 virtue, noble devotedness, must not be left without a 
 witness; that Society which presents the witness 
 the most perfectly must be the Truth, as far as God 
 yet permits it, to an evil generation.' 
 
 " I may as well add, I have read most of the 
 notable works against the Catholic Church and 
 Christianity, as well as all that I knew of a defence.
 
 73 
 
 Thus you see I seek not the controversial, but the 
 moral and existing evidence of a higher and purer 
 truth, if such exists. 
 
 " Ever yours, very faithfully." 
 
 One passage of his " Crown of Jesus," to which he 
 drew special attention, is worth quoting, as showing 
 the high ideal he entertained of the priestly office. 
 If Protestants cannot admit the assumption which 
 runs throughout of a distinct privileged caste, with 
 graces all its own, yet none can fail to admire the 
 character portrayed. 
 
 " The good priest is always on the side of virtue, 
 of justice, of truth ; he is always on the side of Jesus 
 Christ ; he is always advancing His interests, defend- 
 ing His cause, tending His flock, announcing His 
 Gospel, administering His Sacraments. From his 
 lips flow w r ords of mercy, pardon, consecration, hope, 
 encouragement, reconciliation, blessing, justice ; his 
 heart not limited in its affections by the mere circle 
 of relationship or private interest, dilates and em- 
 braces in its charity every form of virtue, of weakness, 
 or of suffering all in whom sorrow, tears, dereliction, 
 poverty, youth, shame, virtue, piety, or faith renew 
 the image of Jesus Christ. In the midst of an unbe- 
 lieving age and an unbelieving country, he bears the 
 reproach and the honour of Christ. To how many 
 souls does he, as the ambassador and minister of 
 Christ, bring pardon, virtue, peace, and hope ; how 
 many tears dry up ; how many good resolutions evoke 
 or strengthen ; how many wounded souls heal. Loved, 
 honoured, hated, dreaded, or despised by those who
 
 79 
 
 loved, honoured, hated, dreaded, or despised his 
 Master; by how many prayers of gratitude is he 
 borne up amidst his earthly trials ; from how many 
 temptations shielded by the sanctity and reverence 
 that environ his sacred office. And when at length 
 the gates of Heaven open to admit those who, having 
 turned many to justice, shine as the stars in the 
 firmament for ever, then he, the priest, the minister, 
 the ambassador, bearing radiant in his soul the august 
 character of the priesthood, bends before the throne 
 of Him who commissioned him on earth as the 
 representative and instrument of His mercy, His 
 truth, His grace, and from Him he receives the 
 crown, whilst the souls he has helped to redeem 
 leap from their thrones of light to hail his approach, 
 and to raise around their deliverer their sweetest 
 songs of love and joy." 
 
 Such was his " good priest." None knew better 
 than he did that some were bad, and many very 
 ordinary men, and that few indeed attained to be 
 what he pourtrayed. Yet we cannot wonder that 
 he was loth to abandon claim and effort to be such 
 a one, and belong to the company of such men to 
 take a step which would bring upon him the con- 
 tempt and dread of them all, and to substitute for 
 this high ideal the very prosaic type of the able 
 minister of a respectable congregation which he 
 distantly knew of as accepted by Unitarians. After 
 all, ideals must be tried by their working power; 
 what kind of men does such an ideal as this, in 
 fact, produce? Is the average priest, celibate, sepa-
 
 80 
 
 rate, believing himself gifted with supernatural 
 powers, a man superior to the average minister, 
 husband, father, citizen, bound to set good 
 example, but claiming no superiority to his hearers 
 except special training for his profession and special 
 knowledge of his subject? That is the question 
 which should be determined, and not which ideal is 
 higher; and when he came afterwards to determine 
 it of his own experience, his answer was clear and 
 certain.
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 FIRST INTIMATION TO THE PUBLIC. 
 
 Mr. Martineau came according to promise on the 
 Monday evening, and spent Tuesday with his Domi- 
 nican host at Bosworth. He himself gave a most 
 interesting account of the visit at a public meeting 
 held in the Hope Street School-room, in Liverpool, 
 on the 25th of September of the following year, 
 on occasion of the opening of the new Church in 
 Hamilton Eoad, Everton. After speaking of the visit 
 to England of Keshub Chunder Sen, "a kind of 
 second John, a soul most congenial to the soul of 
 Jesus," he went on, "an event has taken place 
 recently with which I have had in some degree the 
 privilege of a personal connection. 
 
 "A very eminent and remarkable man has given 
 up his adherence to the Catholic religion, and has 
 thrown himself among us as a preacher of pure and 
 spiritual religion. I allude to the Eev. Eobert Eodolph 
 Suffield. Now, before Mr. Suffield's name was heard 
 amongst us, at his own request I early paid him a 
 visit at his retreat in the country. I had intimate 
 intercourse with him, and learned precisely his state 
 of thought before he had made up his mind to the step 
 he has now taken, and I was especially struck with 
 the problem which was presented to his religious
 
 82 
 
 sense what is the real essence and nature of 
 Catholicism? Now, I found that the view Mr. 
 Suffield took of Catholicism was this : He said, ' I 
 see in the Catholic religion the only example in the 
 world's history in which the great and fundamental 
 principles of all natural piety and of all natural 
 conscience are made the actuating principles of the 
 life of multitudes and of nations. The great doctrine 
 of the moral government of God, the great truth of 
 the absolute supremacy of conscience, the great hope 
 of a future and better life, these things have imbued 
 the Catholic mind, the mind even of the youngest 
 children of the Catholic Church that have any intel- 
 ligence at all. They are realities to the Catholic 
 people. They speak of them with the same simplicity 
 and openness with which they would speak of the work 
 of their plough, of their spade, of their shuttle ; with 
 which they would speak of concerns of their houses 
 and their homes. There is no shyness concerning 
 them. They are absolute realities to them, and rule 
 their lives. We know that they control the passions 
 of young people, and, if they go astray, by appealing 
 to these images in their hearts, we can recover them 
 again. They are truly a power in life. And now,' 
 said Mr. Suffield, ' what 1 want to know is, whether 
 outside the Catholic Church those truths have the 
 same power and reality, whether they take their 
 places among the facts of life \vith the same certainty 
 and with the same efficacy.' He looked upon the 
 Catholic religion simply as an instrumentality for 
 bringing home to men the simple natural convictions
 
 83 
 
 of the human heart, and making them live in their 
 consciences and lives. Catholicism thus was to him 
 nothing but a great system of natural religion sup- 
 ported by the most artificial and unnatural of authori- 
 ties and supports. That is the view he took of it, 
 and he said, ' What I want to know is, if I dare to 
 throw away these artificial supports, shall I find it 
 possible to administer this spiritual theism to man- 
 kind, and get hold of the hearts of men ? Or am I 
 to believe that it is impossible for the weak mind of 
 humanity to grapple those truths, unless you have a 
 false mythology, and all sorts of pictures and images, 
 connected with them ? Does the religion enter by 
 means of the false imagination, or may we fling away 
 the false imagination, and trust to the spiritual power 
 of religion ? ' That was the problem he had to solve 
 for himself, and he said, ' I fear if I were to profess 
 myself a Protestant I should be propping up these 
 eternal truths with just as false and entangled a 
 machinery as if I were to remain in the Catholic 
 Church. For, if there is no infallibility in the Catholic 
 Church, neither is there in the Protestant Scriptures, 
 and whether I take the one or the other, I throw 
 away natural truths, and fling myself instead on an 
 artificial and unnatural support.' Well, I believe 
 myself that Mr. Sufneld here expressed a great truth; 
 and I think the changes which are now taking place 
 jn the Protestant Churches are all of this kind. The 
 tendency is to fling away the false dependence upon 
 artificial authority, and go back to the primitive 
 rights of religion in human nature and in human
 
 84 
 
 life. I said to him, I should feel it an impiety, and 
 infidelity the only thing I should venture to call 
 infidelity at all to doubt that what God has made 
 true could vindicate and justify itself to the human 
 heart without any human lies to back it up and sup- 
 port it. If we once found that a thing was a lie, and 
 was false, or even if it was precarious, it was at the 
 peril of all veracity and of all fidelity that we dared 
 to maintain and use it as a means of underpinning, 
 as it were, and supporting an eternal and all impor- 
 tant truth. I believe myself that the Churches are 
 at last discovering this. This next generation will 
 be, it appears to me, a great time for the tumbling 
 down of props. Many are so timid as to believe that, 
 if such be the case, the things also which have been 
 propped up will fall. But if we have been building 
 the supports and constructing all this machinery 
 under something which is made to stand by itself, 
 in that case they may crumble to the dust and the 
 superstructure will not fall. It was once believed 
 that some old mythological giant was necessary to 
 bend his back and support the heavens. Atlas has 
 long ago disappeared among the ghosts of the ancient 
 world, and the heavens still overreach us and have 
 not fallen. The old aqueducts of Eome, fitting type 
 as it seems to me of the artificial channels of grace 
 which are given by the modern Eome, lie now with 
 their piers broken and their arches strewed upon the 
 plain below, but the waters of life have not been spilt 
 and lost."* 
 
 * " The Unitarian Herald" Oct. 6, 1871.
 
 85 
 
 Mr. Martineau left him on Tuesday evening, and the 
 Friday following, he, for the first time, gave public 
 intimation of the difficulties in which his faith had 
 been so long involved ; difficulties unsuspected hither- 
 to by any but his most intimate friends, and even by 
 them looked upon as mere temptations which would 
 pass away after a while of trial. 
 
 But to explain the occasion of which he availed 
 himself to give this warning to so many devoted 
 friends, and prepare them for the greater shock of 
 his " apostacy," it will be necessary to give a short 
 account of a controversy in which he had been for 
 some time past involved. 
 
 A certain Mr. Urquhart, whose name will go down 
 to posterity in connection with the Turkish Bath, 
 which he was the first to introduce in this country, 
 was, in his day, well known as an able but eccentric 
 politician, who had specially made himself conspicu- 
 ous by his fanatical enmity to Russia, and his deter- 
 mined opposition to Lord Palmerston's policy in 
 China and the East. This gentleman had, in the 
 year 1868, when the General Council was summoned 
 to meet in Rome, made appeal to the Pope, to use 
 the opportunity so afforded to publish a solemn 
 declaration on the subject of unjust wars, and to 
 call the attention of all Christians to the guilt in 
 which those who took any part in them, were, accord- 
 ing to the ancient teaching of the Church, involved. 
 Mr. Urquhart was himself a Protestant, but he had 
 appealed in vain to the bishops and clergy of his 
 own Church; "on the occurrence of the first law-
 
 86 
 
 less brigandages in Afghanistan and China," he 
 wrote, " I applied myself to the Church of England 
 to obtain a day of fast and humiliation, and I 
 appealed to the Archbishop of Canterbury to excom- 
 municate the Queen ; but though some were brought 
 to seriousness and sadness, no priest or bishop was 
 got to move in a Diocesan Assembly for a day of 
 Fast. ::: " 
 
 To the Canon Law, then, Mr. Urquhart turned, and 
 there seemed to find full support for his contention, 
 and indeed many right-minded and zealous Roman 
 Catholics both French and English, were inclined 
 to co-operate with him, or at least work to the same 
 end. So a petition to the Holy Father had appeared 
 in the columns of The Tablet as early as the 15th 
 of August, 1868, and had received numerous signa- 
 tures. "The undersigned," it began, "implore 
 the protection of the Holy See : their concern is 
 aroused upon questions which have to do with their 
 conscience as Catholics, their duties and their rights 
 as citizens, and the interests of all Christendom. 
 They ask from the Holy See and the Council a decla- 
 ration of the principles which make the distinction of 
 lawful and unlawful war, which guarantee to the 
 armed citizen that he shall not be called upon to 
 exchange his character as defender of right for that of 
 an aggressor and assassin. It is no vain theory that 
 has moved them to this petition ; it is their conscien- 
 tious anxiety, their apprehensions for themselves and 
 for their children." 
 
 * Letter of August 5th, 1869.
 
 87 
 
 This will be sufficient to show how awfully serious 
 the case was for the numerous Eoman Catholics who 
 themselves were enlisted in the army or had soldier 
 sons or relations. It was a matter of heaven or hell ; 
 for according to the doctrine which some sought to 
 establish, a soldier fighting in what he knew to be an 
 unjust war, if slain on the field of battle, died in 
 mortal sin, beyond hope of salvation ; and moreover 
 the responsibility of determining on the moral aspect 
 of the war rested upon each individual engaged in it. 
 
 Now the custom had grown up, whatever may have 
 been the ancient usage, to consider this responsibility 
 incumbent only upon the governing authorities, and it 
 was generally held that the subordinate was excused, 
 in the sight of God as of man, on the plea that he was 
 obeying orders. Against Mr. Urquhart, who openly 
 reprobated this view, and some ecclesiastics who 
 supported him, but had not the courage to give their 
 names to the world, Mr. Suffield maintained that it 
 was the right and duty of the confessor to give absolu- 
 tion and admit to communion every soldier other- 
 wise fitly disposed who went to war when called 
 upon, making no enquiry as to the occasion or justifi- 
 cation of it. 
 
 He had written in July, 1869, " In this matter I 
 am not accessible to argument, but I am to authority. 
 All the bishops, theologians, professors, and confes- 
 sors, who have as yet written to me, signing their 
 names, entirely agree with me, and utterly repudiate 
 the opposite opinions "; and he refers to a passage in 
 a privately printed letter which he addressed to Lord
 
 Denbigh, " We are told that each soldier should 
 refuse to obey till he has satisfied himself that his 
 government had sufficient reason for going to war, 
 had previously tried fruitlessly in every way to get 
 the grievance redressed, had consulted pious men and 
 ecclesiastics as to the justice of the war, and had 
 proclaimed the war with due formalities. If he is 
 not satisfied on all these points he is to be told that 
 he becomes ' a wholesale murderer ' if he goes to 
 battle. If a Confessor should attempt to pacify his 
 conscience by telling him that his oath of allegiance 
 is certain, and his doubt uncertain ; that with the 
 slight information at his command he cannot arrive 
 at a conclusion sufficiently certain to justify him in 
 violating his oath ; that he may suppose his govern- 
 ment to be in possession of information, which if 
 communicated to him, would alter his own judg- 
 ment ; that in the meanwhile his duty is to obey all 
 those commands which are according to the present 
 laws of war, conscientiously abstaining from brigand- 
 age, or violence,, or crime, to which his passions 
 might prompt him ; that he is to dispel his doubts, 
 to form his conscience, and go to battle, a confessor 
 giving such advice, we are told, becomes ' a partici- 
 pator in murder.' " It was against such teaching 
 that Mr. Suffield felt called upon to protest, and 
 though supported by every authority to whom he 
 appealed, he yet had to endure much abuse and 
 misrepresentation both from Mr. Urquhart, and even 
 from Eoman advocates of peace, whose opposition 
 was all the more painful to him, that he largely
 
 89 
 
 sympathised with their action, though judging the 
 extremes to which they pushed their opinions, both 
 false in theory and cruel in practise. Not indeed 
 that there were any known to him who did carry out 
 in practise this theory of the confessor's duties, but 
 they condemned the custom which they followed, 
 while he maintained that it was right according 
 to Canon Law as well as expedient. 
 
 " During the time of the Crimean War," he wrote, 
 " at another period, and again quite recently, I have 
 been personally blamed with extreme severity, not so 
 much because my practise was like that of other 
 confessors, but because I defended it as being theo- 
 logically correct, whereas it was imagined that some 
 priests regarded such practise, even though followed 
 by themselves, to be an abuse which ought to be 
 reformed." 
 
 And among other authorities he was able to pro- 
 duce the following letter from Cardinal Wiseman to 
 a father who had consulted him at the time of the 
 Chinese war, which seemed to him unjust, as to 
 whether he was right in letting his son join the 
 army. 
 
 Talacre, Ehyl, Aug. 7, 1857. 
 
 Dear Sir, I do not see that you have anything to 
 do with your private opinions about the justice of a 
 particular war in deciding your son's going into the 
 army. You may freely let him obtain his commission 
 as soon as possible. 
 
 Yours very sincerely in Christ, 
 
 N. CARDINAL WISEMAN.
 
 90 
 
 But in spite of the universal practise and the sup- 
 port of the highest dignitaries of the Church, in spite 
 too of the manifest exaggeration by which his oppo- 
 nents gave their cause away, it is still clear that his 
 own mind was not at ease on the question. " I am 
 not accessible to argument," he wrote; and again, "I 
 shall be really glad if you will get the matter formally 
 and publicly settled by authority. Should the bishops 
 declare me to be in error, I shall be the first to 
 submit, and they will remove the obstacle to my 
 co-operating with you," and " should the Holy See 
 decree as you hope, the whole subject will to every 
 Catholic pass out of the range of argument or uncer- 
 tainty." And in a letter to The Tablet of Aug. 28, 
 1869, "There are those who, like myself, go far along 
 with Mr. Urquhart in his great, noble, and Christian 
 objects, and should the opinions which I have ex- 
 pressed prove to be in any way inaccurate, I can only 
 repeat now what I have said to individual Catholics, 
 that my advice and my practice will be instantly 
 changed at the bidding of ecclesiastical authority, and 
 of course my opinions too at any intimation from the 
 Holy See." 
 
 It sounds intensely loyal all this, and yet if any 
 Catholic could have then suspected one so universally 
 esteemed as Father Suffield, the thought might have 
 occurred that, like the Queen in Hamlet, he " does 
 protest too much." The fact is that he was in a 
 false position, defending on authority what he could 
 not, or dared not argue in support of, and appealing 
 to authority to decide against him. Mr. Urquhart
 
 91 
 
 had attacked him with considerable asperity, and 
 concluded his published reply with the words, " a 
 Catholic priest, who has seen your printed letter, 
 wrote these words, ' Father Suffield, whether he 
 wills it or not, is enrolled in the army of evil, and 
 never will you gain him.' " For a whole year he 
 made no answer, and allowed criticism and calumny 
 to have their way, but now at last he was em- 
 boldened to speak openly, and reveal in the following 
 letter what had all along been in his mind. 
 
 To THE EDITOR OF THE DIPLOMATIC EEVIEW. 
 
 The Hermitage, H. Bosworth, Leicestershire, 
 
 June 8, 1870. 
 
 SIR, Many of your readers and of my friends 
 have expressed surprise that, excepting the occa- 
 sional correction of an error, I have made no reply 
 to the strictures on my letter to Lord Denbigh. 
 
 Will you permit me to explain ? Some of the 
 strictures were personal ; others regarded the public 
 question of the degree of moral responsibility resting 
 on subjects in the event of a war. The personal 
 strictures were quite sufficiently answered by the 
 kind letter Lord Denbigh addressed to me as a public 
 reply, in which he signified not only his hearty 
 concurrence with the opinions I had expressed, but 
 also with the mode in which I had endeavoured to 
 help on the inquiry. This letter he sent round 
 rather extensively. The public question, so far as it 
 regarded Protestants, I did not enter into, beyond a 
 general expression of sincere admiration of those 
 engaged in the pursuit of higher views and practice
 
 92 
 
 of justice. As Catholics had sought my opinion, I 
 addressed my observations to them. To them and to 
 myself it was simply a question of the authoritative 
 application of admitted principles. The question re- 
 solved itself to us into whether, under certain speci- 
 fied circumstances, we could approach the Sacraments, 
 as that is the clearest test of whether the intended act 
 or state of mind is mortal sin. I pointed out to Catho- 
 lics the inconsistent position we should place our- 
 selves in if we denounced as sinful what, under the 
 authority of the Church, we were under those very 
 circumstances permitted and even ordered to do. 
 When Protestants objected that my statements on 
 this Catholic matter were erroneous and contrary to 
 episcopal judgments, I printed my statements, and 
 sent them round to all the bishops for their approval, 
 approval was given, and in no instance censure. 
 When it was stated that Cardinal Wiseman had 
 taught differently, I obtained an autograph letter of 
 the Cardinal's going far beyond anything that I had 
 stated. 
 
 But why did not I support these authorities and 
 the universal practice of the Church with proofs ? I 
 will frankly say why. Because, as a matter of argu- 
 ment, and in my individual conscience, I did not 
 thoroughly see my way to agreement with the 
 universal Catholic approved practice and doctrine. 
 I submitted to it because I knew it to be binding 
 on us. There are several other subjects on which, if 
 I followed my own judgment and conscience, I should 
 arrive at a conclusion very remote from, and tome-
 
 93 
 
 times quite opposed to, the teaching of the Church 
 and of our moral theology. On such subjects I am 
 not disposed to be an enthusiastic defender, but I 
 quietly point out to Catholics, " You cannot take 
 that line -without opposing the Church." Or "if 
 you admit such a position, you must necessarily 
 admit such a conclusion, which you know, as Catho- 
 lics, we are bound to reject." I did not wish Mr. 
 Urquhart to be deceived by the supposition that, on 
 account of strong general sympathies, we, as Catho- 
 lics, could carry out what he clearly thought we 
 could and ought. The Pope was gratified at Mr. 
 Urquhart's homage ; Catholics were gratified at his 
 recognising a power in our Church and in the Papacy ; 
 but in a very few years he will be the most vehement 
 in his declarations that I was right, and he was 
 deceived by the utterance of generalities and un- 
 realised hopes ; and then he, perhaps, will in his 
 passionate devotion to justice, reverse the title of the 
 memoir he published against myself. * 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 KOBEKT EUDOLPH SUFFIELD, O.S.D. 
 
 It does not appear that any immediate notice was 
 taken of this letter by his superiors in the Order. It 
 was perhaps judged useless to expostulate, and more 
 prudent to wait in silence for further developments. 
 But we have evidence how seriously it was regarded 
 in a subsequent remonstrance addressed to him by his 
 Provincial, Father Aylward, one of the many who 
 
 * The Effect on the World of the Eestoration of Canon Law ; 
 being A Vindication of The Catholic Church against a Priest, by 
 David Urquhart, London, 1869.
 
 94 
 
 loved and revered him. "In that letter," he wrote 
 on the 10th of August following, " which you lately in- 
 serted in the Dip. Bcv., there were expressions (quite 
 apart from the theological question of War) which 
 were strangely disturbing to me, and ominously enig- 
 matical. That no man would arrive by the following 
 of his own judgment and conscience at the conclusions 
 which the Church teaches as of divine revelation this 
 every believer in what is generally called 'revealed 
 religion,' is ready to confess. The saying of St. 
 Augustine, 'Evangelic non crederem nisi me Catho- 
 UCCR Ecclesia commoveret auctoritas,'* 'I would not 
 accept the gospel if it did not come guaranteed to me 
 by the authority of the Catholic Church,' is a favourite 
 text with Eoman controversialists. But the very 
 foundation of a science of supernatural theology is in 
 the belief that truths which reason cannot discover, 
 it will, wiien rightly exercised, support; and that con- 
 science will approve rules of life it could not itself 
 formulate and sanction. Therefore to write 'If I 
 followed my own judgment and conscience I should 
 arrive at a conclusion quite opposed to the teaching of 
 the Church,' was little short of an avowal of heresy. 
 It was like saying, 'I submit but do not agree.' " 
 
 Contra Ep. Fundamenti, cap.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 LAST DIFFICULTIES AND DECISION. 
 
 A few days later he wrote the following letter to 
 Mr. Martineau : 
 
 " June 7th. 
 
 "REV. AND DEAK SIB, Your very kind visit helped 
 me in three ways, (1) to realise more my own position 
 and its grounds, by imparting it to another ; (2) by 
 perceiving that you deem it, at least, not the most 
 conscientious ; (3) by giving me the practical informa- 
 tion and hope that piety, virtue, charity, and devoted- 
 ness are really nourishing amongst those who reject 
 authoritative religious teaching. 
 
 "I have now determined distinctly to submit my 
 position to Dr. Newman, in the letter which I enclose, 
 and which you might please return to me with any 
 suggestion. 
 
 "I shall not send that letter to him for several days 
 - for I cannot help prognosticating that whatever may 
 be the full result, at least, I shall withdraw from any 
 teaching position in the Catholic Church, and there- 
 fore I think I must pave the way so as to save peculiar 
 embarrassments to some who would be very intimately 
 affected, and for whom I must provide that they 
 should be as little as possible affected, by my abandon- 
 ment of a spiritual trust. Also I must give a private
 
 96 
 
 intimation to my Provincial, so that he may be 
 prepared to supply my place without causing any 
 unnecessary injury, or inconvenience, or harm. I have 
 already made an application to Eome to get myself 
 superceded as Head and Director of the Association 
 of the Perpetual Eosary, but without assigning any 
 reason; they knew I never desired office, and will 
 attribute my resignation (which I do not make till 
 my place can be quite filled) to love of quiet and 
 perhaps indolence. Also some other parties, such as 
 my bishop, and some special friends, I must communi- 
 cate with, so that the position I have occupied in 
 trust from the Church may not be abandoned in a 
 way calculated to injure the Church or them ; all this 
 will take about four weeks anyhow. 
 
 " Then a great practical difficulty of conscience 
 always arises to my mind, whether I ought to say 
 to the Provincial, or to the General of my Order, 
 1 1 will adopt any course you desire which does not 
 imply belief.' The General would in all probability 
 request me to go to Eome ; now without the over- 
 strained fears of many Protestants, I must acknow- 
 ledge not to desiderate Eome. 
 
 " Moreover, as the Catholic theory, the Catholic 
 conviction, is that to ' lose the faith ' is a grave and 
 the gravest of sins, the General would say, ' you need 
 not do anything against your conscience, but with- 
 draw to a Eeligious House in France, and make 
 retreat, and pray and remain in seclusion ; you will 
 be maintained there, and can read and pray and 
 think; you will thus bring no scandal on religion, 
 and not wound friends, or betray a trust.'
 
 97 
 
 " This is a subject I had also wished to have gone 
 into with you. Everything seems such a maze to 
 me in contemplating this vast change of the whole 
 habit of my mind, and life, and line of action, that 
 I do not see with even a proximate guess what is the 
 highest, most conscientious, and honourable line of 
 action. 
 
 " On the whole I incline to this, after I have done 
 all in my power to be just, and kind, and considerate 
 to those I leave, to seek some kind of occupation near- 
 est akin to that of my last twenty years, and there- 
 fore connected with some institution of a charitable 
 or educational character. I have no desire to be the 
 founder of a sect, or to push myself to the front as 
 a religious teacher, but if proprio motu, and heartily 
 a Congregation of ' Free Christians ' understanding 
 me to hold the convictions of Theodore Parker, 
 really confided in me, so as to request me to become 
 their pastor, it would be according to the habits 
 of my mind and life. 
 
 " Four years in a Catholic Ecclesiastical College, 
 and twenty years in missionary, pastoral, and con- 
 fessional duties, and now the peaceful meditative 
 seclusion of nearly two years, combine with the 
 pressure of these spiritual anxieties to disqualify me 
 for the ordinary business of life. 
 
 " These are the practical questions which arise 
 before me, but still there continues a conflict between 
 my intellect and my conscience. The true religion 
 should not be opposed to intellect, but it should be 
 chiefly approved by the conscience. My conscience 
 
 G
 
 seems continually saying to me, ' dispel all doubts 
 whichever is the best and most complete religion 
 must be the true one if you were as humble, pious, 
 good a man as such a one, or as learned as such other, 
 you would not be thinking of striking off into an 
 eccentric course.' 
 
 " I never perform any of my priestly duties with- 
 out my conscience saying to me, ' that is right in 
 its mystic signification it is the most complete pre- 
 sentation of the truth.' 
 
 " My dear sir, pardon my wearying you with the 
 details of my mental and spiritual agony. 
 
 " Accustomed to legislate for others, and authori- 
 tatively to teach others and guide them, as an indi- 
 vidual (in accord with Catholic theory) I never guided 
 myself : every action, movement, the very horarium of 
 the day, every minutest detail has been prescribed to 
 me, and the perfection set before me was to try to 
 carry it out as the expression of God's will ; belief on 
 authority, practise on authority, have been my law of 
 mind and life. Therefore the mere taking the whole 
 of this gravest matter into my own hands seems, 
 feels, like a grievous imperfection as well as difficulty ; 
 and the harbouring of a doubt is like the dallying 
 with a sin. 
 
 " Even as an Anglican I took all on the authority, 
 as it were, of a branch representing the One Church. 
 
 " Then I think if two years ago I had hastily acted 
 on a doubt, before I had accustomed my mind to accept 
 some great principles not on authority, it would have 
 been the shattering of my whole moral nature, and
 
 99 
 
 been more calamitous than the most degraded super- 
 stition would be if united with religious and moral 
 life. 
 
 " With great gratitude for your kind sympathy, 
 and for certain salient thoughts you suggested in our 
 too brief interview, 
 
 " Believe me, 
 
 " Yours faithfully, 
 
 " EOBEET EODOLPH SUFFIELD." 
 
 It will be hard for those who have never had to go 
 through a like trial, to understand this conscientious 
 scruple about an act which would seem to be one of 
 utter abnegation of self for truth's sake. Men may, 
 and do leave the Koman Church, and every Church 
 from motives of self-interest, or pride, or passion, or 
 from mere wantonness and love of change, but his 
 worst enemies could hardly assign such motives as 
 the cause of Mr. Suffield's ' apostacy ' ; he had every- 
 thing to lose in leaving the Church, position, liveli- 
 hood, friends, honour ; his temptation, as has been 
 many a man's, was not against the faith, but towards 
 it, to interpret, explain, accommodate it so as to be 
 able to profess it and not lie ; this was what every 
 selfish motive prompted. And how are we then to 
 explain this contrariness of conscience, whose office 
 it was to approve and support, not reproach and 
 disquiet him? Is it not simply that conscience 
 acquires habits just as do all other faculties of the 
 man, and when it has long been used to condemn 
 a course of action as wrong, it cannot all at once 
 conform to a changed judgment of the intellect,
 
 100 
 
 and reverse at its bidding the habits formed by the 
 painful discipline of many years. An instance of the 
 kind, true, though imaginary, occurs in Bret Harte's 
 poem of ' St. Abe and his Seven "Wives.' Abe Clew- 
 son, a Yankee convert to Mormonism, became an 
 ' apostate ' to the faith, and left his wives to sort 
 themselves, as they quickly did, with other partners, 
 while he fled with the one woman of them all whom 
 he loved, married her, and lived faithfully with her far 
 away. But telling his experiences to an old friend 
 whom he meets for the first time since the night of 
 his flight, five years ago, he says : 
 
 And I did the best I could 
 When I ran away for good. 
 Yet for many a night, you know, 
 (Annie too, would tell you so), 
 Couldn't sleep a single wink, 
 Could n't eat and could n't drink, 
 Being kind of conscience-cleft 
 For those poor creatures I had left. 
 
 Not that they would be deserted, or destitute, or 
 unhappy, that he knew well, but that the old Utah 
 habit of conscience still survived, and he felt that to 
 be wrong which he kneio to be right. Much more 
 must it be the case when the cause which has been 
 rejected, and as it were betrayed, is neither immoral 
 nor absurd, but one which men, at least as wise and 
 good as ourselves, still stand by. 
 
 It is this one of the sorest trials of every serious 
 and upright convert, that there is within his own self 
 that which sides with his old friends to reproach 
 and condemn his action ; and so his first experiences
 
 101 
 
 are of a constant appeal to the judgment of reason to 
 uphold and approve his action. 
 
 To this letter Mr. Martineau replied as follows : 
 " 10, GORDON STREET, 
 
 " LONDON, June 17th. 
 
 " REV. AND DEAR SIR, The closing days of an 
 Academical Session have brought me occupation too 
 incessant and imperative to allow of my writing 
 sooner. Yet almost hour by hour my thoughts have 
 been with you, since the last kindly grasp of your 
 hand at the railway station. As far as the different 
 habits of my mind permit, I try to think myself into 
 your position, and though I dare not even fancy my 
 sympathy with its difficulties complete, I see too 
 clearly the loneliness, the wounds of affection, the 
 tremblings of conscience which it involves, not to long 
 and pray for the power and privilege of rendering such 
 help in the crisis as brotherly appreciation may make 
 possible. The one difference between the Catholic 
 and the Protestant estimate of duty which your 
 letters bring home to me, and which I find it most 
 difficult to conciliate, has reference to the supposed 
 conflict of claims between the intellect and the 
 conscience. The proposition "The best and most 
 complete Eeligion must be the true," I can only read 
 conversely "The true Religion must be the best and 
 most complete"; nor, apart from its truth, could I 
 venture to measure the goodness of a faith. So little 
 can I escape from my Protestant reverence for 
 veracity as the primary and paramount condition 
 of any possible personal religion, and for any reality
 
 102 
 
 inwardly given to me as against the fairest fictions 
 recommended to me from without, that I cannot 
 understand the possiblity of invoking the Will against 
 honest doubt and dawning light, without the keenest 
 remorse as for heinous sin. I can enter into any 
 degree of self-distrust : personally, I feel it pro- 
 foundly, in the face of the collective judgment 
 against me of the Church, or even of any one or two 
 men whom I love and venerate. But this would 
 only drive me to a sorrowful silence in following the 
 little light I have ; and could never justify me in 
 pretending to have theirs. I say this, not in order 
 to argue the question, but simply to indicate my chief 
 difficulty in assuming your point of view and to 
 account for what I fear must seem to you the too 
 great rigour of my judgment on the problem which 
 we discussed. 
 
 " The wise and tender consideration with which 
 you are providing for all the interests affected by 
 your mental change, ought to protect you from the 
 reproaches and lamentations of your ecclesiastical 
 superiors and friends, and to secure you reverence 
 as a confessor, instead of reprobations as an infidel. 
 The perversion of the Moral Sense which prevents 
 this is itself enough to condemn the system respon- 
 sible for it. With regard to any ulterior mode of life, 
 it is difficult to see the possibilities till your decision 
 is so far taken as to render enquiry and consultation 
 practicable. No position, worthy of your antecedents 
 and gifts, is at present visible to me. But I think it 
 probable that some congenial sphere of duty, such as
 
 103 
 
 you indicate, would open to you, and on receiving 
 your permission, I would do my best to find the way 
 to it. But your appeal to Dr. Newman can hardly 
 fail at least to keep the problem in suspense for 
 awhile; and the marvellous subtlety and power with 
 which he knows how to speak to just the state of 
 mind on which you have consulted him, must be 
 expected to retard, perhaps to arrest, a change which 
 every influence resists, except the Divine simplicity of 
 truth. 
 
 " I mean still to fulfil my threat of burdening your 
 shelves with some printed matter that bears my 
 name. But I have not yet found time to put my 
 hand on what I want. On Wednesday week I go to 
 Scotland for three months, and before that day I 
 hope to send my address and something by book 
 post." 
 
 To this letter Mr. Suffield made no reply for three 
 weeks, having been, as he writes on July 7th, " in- 
 extricably involved by friends and others coming on 
 grave matters from a distance." And all this busi- 
 ness made it harder to take the step which yet 
 seemed inevitable, as he went on to explain ; 
 
 "Perhaps this very confidence, so unbounded, makes 
 it still more difficult to me to face the terrible alter- 
 native. Moreover, there arc three or four families 
 in which I am so interwoven as to be practically a 
 sort of guardian, where it might gravely embarrass 
 the carrying out of certain trusts, supposing my name 
 appeared as no longer a Catholic." 
 
 He then proposes a visit to Mr. Martineau in
 
 104 
 
 London, and in case he should be away, "I thought," 
 he wrote, " I might sustain my hopes of there being 
 a real religious resting place, and a tried successful 
 spiritual foundation outside the Catholic Church, by 
 intercourse with someone earnest, reticent, truthful, 
 and knowing the spiritual life in its other forms. I 
 have thought of Keshub Chunder Sen, and also of 
 Miss Frances Power Cobbe. Will you kindly give 
 me your opinion as to the prudence and benefit of 
 consulting these, and if you think it well, write me a 
 letter of introduction to inspire confidence." 
 
 " I thank you for your very kind promise of some 
 of your works, which will be greatly valued by me." 
 
 Mr. Martineau had left town for Scotland, and 
 replied to this letter as follows : 
 
 " TALLADH-A-BHEITHE,' 
 
 " KlNLOCH, PlTLOCHRIE, 
 
 "July 7. 
 
 " I am full of regret at missing your visit to town, 
 because I find it difficult to refer you by letter to any 
 friend who would avail for confidential conference. 
 Keshub Chunder Sen is travelling in the provinces, 
 and I do not know how to reach him ; Miss Cobbe has 
 left town, and will not be back for some months ; mean- 
 while I cannot help dwelling on the possible future, 
 and wondering whether I can in any way smooth its 
 difficulties. I am occasionally consulted about the 
 suitable filling of vacant positions of religious duty, 
 and just now have been asked whether I know of 
 anyone fitted to minister to a Free Christian Church 
 about to organise itself at Croydon. They have
 
 105 
 
 already bought a small Church ; the leading persons 
 in the Society are cultivated and liberal people, very 
 much in sympathy with Theodore Parker's theology ; 
 the constitution of the society will be perfectly open ; 
 and, as the organisation is now indeed unformed, 
 there are no habits or usages that may not be 
 moulded to the exigencies of a minister's conscience 
 and reasonable preference. I remember you saying 
 that if such a body of persons were to offer to 
 place themselves under your spiritual guidance the 
 duty would not be uncongenial to you ; and, as an 
 opportunity so nearly agreeing with this description 
 is of rare occurrence, I report it to you at once. Of 
 course I have no power in such cases, beyond that 
 of simple advice ; and the matter could not be de- 
 cided without a personal visit and public preaching. 
 If you could throw yourself in faith upon this post 
 of possible duty, I do believe you would find your 
 deliverance in it, and would help to a better spiritual 
 life those who are greatly in need of it." 
 
 This communication brought him face to face with 
 the dreaded necessity of a speedy decision. When it 
 seems to one that such a step ought to be taken, 
 often he thinks, and asks, and fears so much before- 
 hand, that this very state of uncertainty comes insen- 
 sibly to be accepted as if it could continue; and 
 when some suggestion which implies action is made, 
 he is frightened and shrinks back before it. So there 
 are in religion many life-long Hamlets, who are 
 always thinking of doing what tbey never do, and 
 whose ' conscience,' i.e. self-consciousness, ' makes 
 cowards ' of them.
 
 106 
 
 And thus the native hue of resolution 
 Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought. 
 And enterprises of great pith and moment 
 With this regard their currents turn away, 
 And lose the name of action. 
 
 And thus they abide, Anglicans always leaning to the 
 Roman Church; Eoman Catholics always doubting 
 whether they should not be Unitarians ; Churchmen 
 who are half sceptics, and so on ; never quite sure 
 that they are what they profess to be, hesitating to 
 act till the power of action is lost. Thanks to Mr. 
 Martineau's kind intervention, Mr. Suffield found 
 himself at length at the pass that he must needs 
 decide, and he wrote immediately, 
 
 " July 9, 1870. 
 "MY DEAK ME. MARTINEAU, 
 
 " I have just returned from town and found your 
 kind letter. You cannot but deem me at least partially 
 unworthy of your frank sympathy when you see me 
 still finding excuses (as they must appear to you) to 
 enable me to delay the act by which I am to make 
 myself an outcast from so many pure, and noble, and 
 loving hearts. If ever one had wronged me or irri- 
 tated me, it would have been easier to have acted, 
 for in the impetuosity of anger I might have forgotten 
 a thousand charities. 
 
 "However, there is no alternative. My chief 
 immediate difficulty is as to the right course to pursue 
 in regard to Catholics : probably very few would in 
 any case follow my example, but several would be 
 partially affected in their position, and that in dif-
 
 107 
 
 ferent degrees, according to the extent to which I 
 communicated my motives to them. As to my line 
 of action I should therefore be glad to help out my 
 conscience by conferring with Dr. Newman and with 
 yourself. 
 
 " For instance Lady simply waits to see 
 what I do ; she has told me so, and to prevent com- 
 plications, is freeing herself from a Catholic governess, 
 and has implored me still to ' guide her children.' 
 It is these kind of questions which I do not as yet 
 see through. I suppose I may make many mistakes, 
 but I must pray God not to make them wilfully. 
 
 " And now as to your very kind proposal. I had 
 noticed Croydon in the Unitarian papers, and the 
 very idea you suggest had passed through my own 
 mind, but I determined not to breathe it to anyone. 
 If they felt confidence and sympathy, it would quite 
 meet my ideas and wishes. 
 
 " After leaving Bosworth and conferring with Dr. 
 Newman, I suppose the best course would be for me 
 to go to London, to take lodgings, then, quietly and 
 unobserved, to frequent the places of worship with 
 which my future career would be most in sympathy 
 at least a couple of months should be thus occupied 
 I could then form my ideas on some practical points, 
 particularly on those which seem to me the least 
 satisfactory, the mode of public worship, and the 
 form of prayer. I cannot but feel that a printed 
 form is needed, which should combine real piety, 
 with absence of historic and ecclesiastical dogmas. 
 There are also some minor points, quite immaterial
 
 108 
 
 in themselves, but such as must be determined one 
 way or another in a chapel e.g. whether the voung 
 should be attracted by their innate love of the pic- 
 turesque, surpliced choirs, &c. Eegarding these 
 matters I am personally indifferent, but I want to 
 know, ' should anything of the kind be permitted or 
 encouraged ? ' 
 
 " I need not say how I should loathe making a 
 show of myself, or appearing under any circum- 
 stances which might seem antagonistic or hostile, 
 but I presume I might after two or three months be 
 asked to take occasional duty under circumstances 
 which would manifest my real intentions, opinions, 
 and feelings. 
 
 " In this delay there would be, I think, benefit to 
 myself and delicacy towards the feelings of others ; 
 moreover, experience of forms of religious life not 
 known to me except by books, would enable me more 
 effectually to serve others and win their confidence. 
 
 " If then your friends at Croydon thought it likely 
 we should enjoy mutual sympathy and confidence, 
 and if you thought the same, I do not know anything 
 or any neighbourhood I should like so well. It is 
 sufficiently near London to meet those few friends 
 who might dare to meet me ; and it is not a locality 
 where my residence would look hostile to Catholics, 
 and it is sufficiently unobtrusive. 
 
 "As to my religious convictions, in doctrine I agree 
 with Theodore Parker, but in mode I prefer a more 
 scriptural tone ; for instance, there is no prayer I like 
 so much as the Psalms, dropping out national aspira-
 
 109 
 
 tions and Oriental craving for revenge. As you said, 
 ' A Theist after the type of Christ,' but not fettered 
 by verbal statements attributed to him. I should 
 like that persons believing in the Atonement (in a 
 sort of way) could attend my Chapel without being 
 shocked, and so families need not be divided ; if the 
 husband held ' very advanced ' views, and the wife 
 were a sort of half ' Evangelical,' I would rather seek 
 to find the ground on which they could unite, than 
 use the sword to sever. 
 
 " I do not think we gain by shocking and wounding 
 the feelings or prejudices of those who have not 
 had time, or have not wished or dared to, think. I 
 should have no objection to perform a ceremony con- 
 sidered pious, if not deemed an obligation or a grace, 
 or to imply on my side belief in its efficacy. I could 
 not use the form ' through Jesus Christ our Lord,' 
 unless incidentally and in a figurative way. 
 
 " Ever yours, sincerely and gratefully, 
 
 " EGBERT RODOLPH SUFFIELD." 
 To this Mr. Martineau replied, 
 
 " PITLOCHEIE, July 13, 1870. 
 " MY DEAR FATHER SUFFIELD, 
 
 " I have availed myself of your permission to men- 
 tion, without name, the circumstances of your personal 
 struggle of conscience to my friends at Croydon ; and 
 I have stated that if they wish me to become the 
 medium of an ulterior introduction, it will be neces- 
 sary for them to arrange meanwhile for temporary 
 services during the next few months. There will be
 
 110 
 
 no occasion therefore for any greater haste than your 
 own proposal contemplates. Indeed I was not at all 
 anxious to press you into action faster than your con- 
 victions would spontaneously move you. But this 
 Croydon position appeared to me so special, that I 
 should have reproached myself if I had permitted it 
 to lapse by default. 
 
 " Your plan of looking around you in London, and 
 gaining insight into the religious life and worship of 
 your probable future associates, seems to me the best 
 possible. Only it is unfortunate that during the 
 autumn months, till October at all events, most of 
 the regular ministers are liable to be absent, and the 
 people so dispersed that the usual services are very 
 inadequately represented, and everything is at its 
 very lowest point. 
 
 " Your preference for a printed Form of Prayer is 
 now largely shared by our liberal Nonconformist 
 congregations. In my own Chapel, a book is used 
 containing Ten Services ; the first two adapted from 
 the morning and evening prayer of the English 
 Church : the last two written by myself : and the 
 intermediate services compiled (by my friend Dr. 
 Sadler) from old Liturgies or other books of devotion. 
 I will send you one of our sets of services ; but before 
 doing so I wish to have certain alterations made 
 with the pen, which, for ease of conscience, I have 
 found it necessary to introduce. They all of them, or 
 nearly all, have reference to such phrases as ' through 
 Christ our Lord," which, with yourself, I have a 
 scruple about using. Even with the alterations
 
 Ill 
 
 which I have introduced, there remain expressions 
 in the book which I should not myself have left 
 standing. But our congregations comprise persons of 
 many shades of theological belief, and expressions 
 which speak tenderly to some are almost silent to 
 others; and, on the whole, the volume fairly repre- 
 sents, when corrected, the average tone of religious 
 feeling ; more so, perhaps, than if I were to push my 
 own inward wish for alteration further. 
 
 " I do not think you would find any desire for enrich- 
 ments of the service addressed to the eye, such as 
 surpliced choirs, or symbolical acts. The tendency 
 amongst us is to a simplicity too bald and rationalistic, 
 and it is only in the direction of Music and Archi- 
 tecture that this tendency has at all given way. 
 I am often hurt and vexed by the prosaic coldness of 
 our people in these things. But it is connected with 
 one of their highest virtues, a profound veracity and 
 reality of religion, which will never profess anything 
 but what is rather within than beyond the truth 
 distinctly apprehended. 
 
 "What you say about Lady is quite 
 wonderful to me, as showing the extent to which 
 religion may become a matter of personal confidence. 
 "Where it is so, I do not see the duty of refusing the 
 guidance which is sought, and leaving the dependent 
 minds standing where they are. On the contrary, I 
 should frankly confide to them the grounds of my 
 own change, and leave the result to God. I could 
 not say to another ' I am going whither the light 
 leads; you had better stay where you are'; unless
 
 112 
 
 that other found upon the spot an adequate and 
 satisfying light. It is one thing to proselytise ; ano- 
 ther to help minds spontaneously feeling their way 
 along lines of experience already traced by us. 
 
 " I have asked Longmans to send you two vols. of 
 mine : and Triibner to send two, unless they are out 
 of print. And I forward a pamphlet or two which 
 may possibly be readable, though embarrassed with 
 allusions to others which you will not appreciate. 
 " Believe me ever, 
 
 " Yours very faithfully, 
 
 " JAMES MARTINEAU." 
 
 Mr. Suffield replied the same day on which he 
 received this letter. 
 
 " Thank you very much for the books and pamph- 
 lets just received, which I shall read with great 
 interest. Could you not publish a small public 
 prayer book, which should contain no expression of 
 doctrine beyond Theism, but which might contain 
 allusions to and expressions about our Lord in such 
 a way as not to imply any dogmatic belief, yet (1) 
 might meet the susceptibilities of those who regard 
 the omission of the name of Jesus to signify the 
 Deism of Eevolutionary France, and (2) might 
 awaken those pious associations belonging to all 
 who like ourselves have received religion through the 
 Christian medium? 
 
 " When in London last week, a Member of Par- 
 liament, nominally Anglican, really nothing, spoke 
 to me of your Chapel; he had been there, was 
 delighted with the sermon, but on account of the
 
 113 
 
 prayers determined not to go any more. He said, 'I 
 would rather explain away our beautiful Church of 
 England liturgy than join in a mutilated imitation, 
 implying almost as much which I disbelieve.' This 
 was six years ago before the changes you made. 
 
 "Your remarks rather shook me regarding the 
 benefit of a delay after I have taken my position. 
 I am now delayed simply by the delay and embarrass- 
 ment of my Provincial, to whom I have written con- 
 fidentially. I wish to comply with his desires and 
 requests as far as practicable. He has evidently kept 
 my application made to him a secret, for to-day's 
 post brought a letter from Lord a novice, 
 at Woodchester, about the most embarrassing I could 
 get. I send it to you that you may realise the diffi- 
 culties when I want to act honestly without taking 
 advantage of my position. 
 
 " As soon as I am free, I see my position and 
 course so clearly, that probably a delay might not be 
 very beneficial. I was influenced in suggesting it by a 
 desire not to give pain to others, and by an almost 
 painful diffidence that I should not be liked or 
 trusted. I am so accustomed to Catholics, and their 
 feelings regarding a priest ' falling away,' (as we 
 always say), that I cannot help attributing the same 
 thought to others. 
 
 "I would rather starve and die than be taken 
 through compassion by those who could not trust 
 me. 
 
 "The only real difficulty I had, regarded the 
 prayers. I dreaded the idea of initiating a novelty, 
 H
 
 114 
 
 and I did not hear of any existing forms of worship 
 which I could honestly use, and which those who 
 agreed with me could honestly sympathise with. 
 
 "If there be such, or if you would publish one, 
 and thus enable a Christian minister, unfettered by 
 historic dogmas, to conduct a service and have 
 prayers which he could use without inventing some- 
 thing new, my difficulty would be removed. 
 
 "My mind has turned upon these matters so much, 
 and is of rather a practical character, that two or 
 three weeks intercourse with others would enable me 
 to catch the great difference of modus operandi 
 between priest and minister. 
 
 " If, therefore, they had confidence in me, not 
 regarding me merely as a witness against Borne, but 
 as one who has fought a battle and wished to help 
 others before he died and if they felt honestly able 
 and wishful to receive me as a friend and helper 
 personally I would rather begin with them their new 
 work, and be thus bound with them in that first bond 
 of sympathy and charity."
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 QUESTIONS FOR THE PBESENT AND FUTURE. 
 
 It was a most difficult position in which he now 
 found himself, and which he himself would only have 
 excused on the ground of its essentially temporary 
 character. He was regarded by the world as a priest 
 of the Roman Church and a member of one of its 
 strictest religious Orders, .and as such he was per- 
 forming the daily duties of the priesthood, and his 
 advice was sought by all manner of faithful and 
 doubting Catholics : he was at heart a Unitarian, and 
 only waiting the opportunity to declare himself. But 
 a position of trust once accepted cannot be quitted in 
 a day, there must be some deference shown to those 
 from whom it has been received, and some precau- 
 tions adopted not to use it to their detriment. No 
 one held more strongly than Mr. Suffield that a 
 man's outward profession should be true to his 
 inward conviction, yet he found himself forced for a 
 few weeks to appear, what he had been in all sincerity 
 but was no longer; so he continued to wear the 
 habit of a Dominican, while in heart and allegiance 
 he had quitted the Order. The moral embarrassment 
 was painful enough, but it was greatly aggravated by 
 the necessity he was under of giving counsel and 
 direction to others.
 
 116 
 
 Eeturning the letter which he had enclosed, Mr. 
 Martineau wrote : 
 
 " PlTLOCHBIE, 
 
 " July 17th, 1870. 
 " MY DEAR FATHER SUFFIELD, 
 
 "I return you the affecting letter of your young 
 friend. It deeply moves my compassion and respect. 
 It is a Divine light of duty which he sees afar, and 
 to which he is drawn by pure and sweet affections ; 
 while he is chained down out of reach of it by invisi- 
 ble but irrefragable bonds of a religion which can no 
 longer be a true and peaceful piety to him. I do 
 hope you will be able to get him dispensed. Surely, 
 at his age, a mistake of his real call, a misinterpre- 
 tation of the Will of God respecting him, must be 
 recognised as possible by a Church so cognisant of 
 every mood of the spiritual life as the Catholic. 
 
 " I am sorry that you have had so unfavourable an 
 impression given to you of the Prayer Book used at 
 my Chapel. If it be well-founded, I fear the slight 
 changes since introduced will not modify it much. 
 But I must say the judgment expressed by your 
 friend appears to me hasty and one-sided : and I 
 shall be surprised if, on examining the book, you 
 find it dwell more than you approve on the historical 
 relations of religion. I think your Member of Parlia- 
 ment must have come in for the first service, and 
 been offended by the altered sound of what he was 
 accustomed to at the Parish Church. That is the 
 service which I myself like least : but for perhaps the 
 opposite reason, namely, that I never could enter
 
 117 
 
 into the admiration constantly expressed for the 
 Church of England Liturgy. The whole structure 
 of the Morning Prayer appears to me framed upon 
 a low type of worship, involving abject conceptions 
 both of human nature and of the Father of spirits. 
 Having joined in the production of this book, by 
 contributing the ninth and tenth services, I could 
 not well desert it to frame another. Indeed the 
 multiplication of such books is an evil which I have 
 always regretted : and I would rather employ an 
 imperfect form which was in general use among 
 those Churches with which I am in fellowship, than 
 the best which was special to one or two places. It 
 is possible for any congregation which prefers it to 
 have from the publisher two, or four, or six of 
 our ten services without the rest. A friend in Lon- 
 don will shortly send you the book. I am sorry to 
 find that one of the volumes which I directed to be 
 forwarded to you is out of print, the more so, as it 
 contains the papers which alone, it is probable, would 
 have much interest for you. I meant also to send 
 a volume of miscellanies, containing a paper or two 
 on Catholicism, in particular one, ("The Battle of 
 the Churches,") on the so-called " Papal Aggression," 
 which might at least have amused you with its here- 
 sies and perhaps its blunders : but the volume is out 
 of print. 
 
 " I have heard from my Croydon correspondent 
 that the Committee of the Society was about to meet, 
 and that the substance of my letter would come 
 before them, evidently with favourable predisposi-
 
 118 
 
 tions. I feel sure that if anything comes of this, 
 you will have no distrust to fear. No doubt, in the 
 first approaches to one another of minds drawing 
 together from such distant points, there must be a 
 temporary awkwardness, and something tentative in 
 method till the communion of spiritual life is ma- 
 tured. But the tact of natural sympathy, and devo- 
 tion to common objects of human good, will soon 
 wear the first stiffness away. You will have to 
 forgive, I fear, something frigid, some want of gra- 
 ciousness, some prominence of the critical temper in 
 our manners and character. But, believe me, there 
 is a deeper and a tenderer soul behind than this 
 repulsive exterior would lead you to expect. 
 
 " Will this vote of the Council and the French 
 War, occurring together, hand over Eome to the 
 Italians?" 
 
 With this letter came " The Ten Services " as it is 
 commonly called, the Book of Prayer in most frequent 
 use in Unitarian congregations, and the perusal of it 
 seems to have set Mr. Suffield's mind at rest as to 
 the difficulty he anticipated in conducting public 
 worship after the Nonconformist type. It was not, 
 however, adopted by either of the congregations to 
 which he afterwards ministered, and he did not feel 
 free to use any of the services, except the ninth and 
 tenth, when asked to preach in Chapels where this 
 book was used. 
 
 His reply, dated July 21st, is as follows : 
 
 "The 'Common Prayer for Christian Worship,' 
 which you so very kindly sent me has been a great
 
 119 
 
 relief and consolation to me. How strange that 
 writing to three marked places for the best Prayer 
 Book for Unitarian and Free Christian Churches, 
 this was not sent ! but instead, books full of orthodoxy 
 and water with very little unction or manly piety. 
 This little book I greatly admire, and if my Member 
 of Parliament friend alluded to this, I do not agree 
 with him. I should feel disposed to use the pen in 
 perhaps ten or a dozen more places, e.g., several of 
 the benedictions at end of service are quite truthful 
 and beautiful, others I do not like. 
 
 "This book quite encourages me, for I now see my 
 way to the adoption of a pure and beautiful form of 
 prayer, ready to hand. I have been so accustomed 
 to rest upon authority, that the idea of having to 
 invent something new for myself fills me with addi- 
 tional dread and almost horror. 
 
 " I am gradually and one by one cutting the cables, 
 but pardon my weakness when I say it each time I 
 have to pierce through my own heart. I understand 
 now that there is an agony in life greater than the 
 agony of death. 
 
 " My place will be supplied here by the Provincial 
 on the 12th of August, and a day or two before that 
 I leave for Birmingham. I asked leave from the 
 Provincial to take my books. He wrote very kindly 
 and did not seem surprised, but hoped that the cloud 
 might pass away : he was sure I must have had 
 many mental struggles, and he arranged exactly 
 what I asked. 
 
 "He is a good natured and ordinary young man,
 
 120 
 
 without any very deep feelings or thoughts, and takes 
 things easily, thus I am saved the distress of witness- 
 ing what would have been the agony of mind of our 
 last Provincial. But letters from dear and intimate 
 friends who partly guess, breathe a tone of pathetic 
 sorrow, so that each post makes me feel what I lose, 
 and what I inflict. 
 
 " The Secretary of the Committee of the English 
 Clergy for petitioning the Pope wrote to me for my 
 signature. My reply was sent by some one to the 
 Westminster Gazette last Saturday, and this has 
 served to prepare everyone for what they now feel 
 to be likely. It has caused a formal complaint from 
 York Place and other authorities ; perhaps it is just 
 as well. 
 
 " On receiving Father Newman's reply kindly 
 inviting me, and the Provincial's leave, I announced 
 in Chapel last Sunday that after August 7th I should 
 be going for several weeks to Birmingham, to confer 
 with Dr. Newman on literary matters in which I was 
 
 " Many now anticipate and fear my intentions, 
 but no one knows anything. Here there is not a 
 suspicion. 
 
 " Commending myself to your prayers, 
 
 " Believe me, &c. 
 
 Mr. Martineau's answer was as follows : 
 
 "TALLADH-A-BHEITHE, PITLOCHEIE, July 28. 
 " MY DEAR FATHER, SUFFIELD, 
 
 " Your narrative of the gradual loosening of the 
 old ties is truly pathetic, and enables me to realise
 
 121 
 
 the inner as well as the outer history of this great 
 crisis. I suppose all grand transitions take us into 
 the desert, and have their forty days of anguish. 
 But, through faith and patience, they are the begin- 
 ning of a diviner life, and their very sadness turns in 
 retrospect to something of a tender glory. 
 
 " I am glad you are going to Birmingham, to 
 confer with Dr. Newman, of all living religious 
 writers the man I perhaps love and honour most, 
 though the more I study him, the more do I wonder 
 at the submission of such a mind to the Eoman 
 Catholic theology. Your intercourse with him will 
 have its painful elements mixed with the benefits of 
 his wise and loving counsels. But his large expe- 
 rience will secure a sympathy and appreciation 
 of your recent history which few Catholics could 
 manifest, and which will qualify the estimate of it 
 required by the rule and habit of his Church. 
 
 " My Croydon friends having been induced to 
 break off the negotiation for the purchase of a small 
 iron Church, and being obliged to begin worship in 
 a large room, have determined to postpone their 
 services till October, when the summer dispersion is 
 over. They express thankful interest in what they 
 have heard from me, and will beg me, when all is 
 ready with you and with them, to go over and be 
 the medium of a personal introduction. Everything 
 at present is anonymous. I fear the postponement 
 may be rather longer than you would desire. But 
 till October everything is in a state of suspended life 
 with us.
 
 122 
 
 "It is a relief to me to find that you can give so 
 much approval to the Common Prayer. I quite 
 agree with you about the benedictions and some 
 other similar sentences. But in cases where there 
 was an alternative given, and one of the sentences 
 was such as I could use, I left the other untouched, 
 even though it was objectionable to me. The altera- 
 tions are not a measure of my personal wish and 
 feeling, but are the least that I could do with. I 
 do not yet despair of getting the book revised in 
 accordance with them." 
 
 Before him, Mr. Sum eld had written acknowledg- 
 ing the receipt of the books, and expressing the satis- 
 faction their perusal gave him. There was true devo- 
 tion, he was now convinced, outside the Catholic 
 Church, and independent of all so-called 'super- 
 natural ' revelation. 
 
 " I must now tell you how greatly your own works 
 have interested me. I have not read yet (at least not 
 to say read) those of a more philosophical character. 
 I never doubted the existence of thought outside the 
 Catholic Church, but if I might give praise, which 
 must seem to you very arrogant and absurd, the tone 
 of the moral and spiritual works entirely concurs 
 with whatever is highest in Catholic literature ; 
 yours is so evidently not a mere protest, or like 
 some publications I obtained, a mere attempt to 
 make sermons without any religion. I was not sur- 
 prised that such work had emanated from you, but it 
 encouraged me to think that it could command 
 the sympathy of others. It seems to me a singular
 
 123 
 
 providence that I should, apparently without a motive, 
 certainly without a suggestion, have opened com- 
 munications with you for everything you write or 
 say harmonises with my own mind and heart, and I 
 can perceive in it a tone of faith and reverence which 
 would elevate, and also amidst trials and death, 
 sustain. Nor can I tell you what a relief it is to me 
 to find a mind thoroughly honest and independent, 
 and reared in that independence, still holding with a 
 tender reverence the Christian spirit and tone without 
 the verbal dogmas. 
 
 "What amongst other considerations has kept me 
 back so long has been the fear of simply throwing 
 myself into a protest, and amidst people speaking 
 tall-talk about "free thought," &c. It is easy enough 
 for our thoughts to be free w r e want them trained by 
 the holiness and fatherly liberty of God. 
 
 " The Prayer Book I admire more and more it, to 
 my mind, only needs the gentle emendations of a 
 second edition from your hands now to make it quite 
 perfect. I like also a little Tract Prayer Book put 
 out by the Hindoo but he has not caught the pure 
 graphic English, which give additional help to the 
 English mind. 
 
 " Some practical details as to myself I really do 
 not see my way through. I, as a Dominican, took 
 a vow of obedience to our General to my own con- 
 conscience and feeling (so to speak) this does not 
 seem to me to bind, but the whole is so new a field 
 of conscientious difficulty to me that I really do not 
 see the right, or the reason to give. I see and feel
 
 124 
 
 how delicately and thoughtfully I ought to act and 
 indeed I have given them every advantage over me 
 if they choose to be ungenerous but I do not see 
 my way clearly ; for instance, they have written to 
 the General ; now suppose the General desires me to 
 go to some House in France or Eome and to remain 
 in seclusion, what he would call in Ketreat ? 
 
 " Before God in conscience and in honour what 
 strikes you should be my reply ? 
 
 "Probably these difficulties seem to you almost 
 weak and frivolous, but you can hardly realise the 
 minute obedience we have been accustomed to render 
 as of conscientious obligation. 
 
 " I feel in my own mind that as they consider that 
 the Pope can dispense the vow if the conscience of 
 one man can do so, so can the conscience of another. 
 As a matter before God, I really do not feel anxious, 
 but I do not see what would be the best line to take 
 whether to obey and leave the rest. 
 
 "In ordinary matters I trust them as good men; 
 when it touches this kind of matter I do not, for the 
 theory obliges them to treat doubt as a crime, and 
 thought as a rebellion. Thus, men ordinarily kind 
 and good, would be quite disposed to order me to an 
 unhealthy foreign Priory, where sickness and the 
 climate would enfeeble mind and body, it would be 
 done ' to serve the souls of others, and to give me 
 thus a better chance of saving my own, by having 
 less to answer for.' 
 
 " I should not like an ordinary Protestant to know 
 this quite so bluntly, for it would encourage the
 
 125 
 
 vulgar prejudices which are true only in a certain 
 sense, and under peculiar circumstances. 
 
 " How does this strike your own conscience ? 
 " Sincerely and faithfully yours, 
 
 " KOBEET EODOLPH SUFFIELD." 
 
 "P.S. I am ashamed to have forgotten to thank 
 you about Croydon. I am not at all sorry for the 
 delay. I think to others it will at least feel better, 
 and with a prospect before me, I could easily borrow 
 a few pounds to help me in the interim without being 
 thrown on help which would be meant to com- 
 promise me and my independence. 
 
 " Besides having made the greater sacrifice of all 
 friendships I can bear the rest." 
 
 So as the way of truth became more and more 
 clear did the difficulties increase, interest, affection, 
 conscience seemed all allied to stop the path. To 
 become a martyr, yet doubt whether you are not 
 wrong in your very sacrifice, whether the better 
 course would not be to submit is cruel suffering, and 
 through this was he now passing. Happy for him 
 that he had chosen as counsellor one who had the 
 rare gift of sympathy with creeds he had never 
 believed, and states of mind he had never himself 
 experienced. 
 
 " KlLTGBIE, KlLLIN, GRIEF, 
 
 ''August 5th. 
 " MY DEAR FATHER SUFFIELD, 
 
 "I feel already that I owe you a great deal for 
 introducing me to new problems of duty which lie 
 beyond the usual casuistry of our Protestant life. It
 
 126 
 
 is only too clear to me how difficult it is to escape 
 from this network of early vows without needless 
 hurt to the conscience of others. The mischief, 
 however, which is inseparable from the collapse of an 
 illusory system has to be encountered ; and it is best 
 minimised, as it seems to me, by the simplest and 
 directest action, based upon the true grounds which 
 satisfy the agent's own conscience. You justly feel 
 that a vow or engagement of unconditional obedience 
 for all time to the will of any human being is ultra 
 vires for a responsible conscience ; being a formal 
 conveyance to another of an accountability which is 
 intrinsically inalienable ; and undergoing repeal ipso 
 facto the moment the will of the official superior 
 clashes with the immediate inward voice of the Holy 
 and Truth-loving God. This repeal having plainly 
 occurred in your case, I see no legitimate course 
 remaining but to refuse an obedience which has lost 
 its obligation in the presence of higher and incom- 
 patible claims. This is only to act on a principle 
 recognised (is it not?) by all Catholic casuists, viz., 
 that there can be no binding engagement to commit 
 a crime ; and that it is less offensive in the sight of 
 God to break a promise or a vow, than, on the 
 strength of it, to commit more heinous or continuous 
 sin. Whoever asks me to play the hypocrite, in order 
 to keep my word, makes a demand which, in being 
 uttered, is self -condemned. 
 
 "It may indeed be urged that, in being ordered 
 into retreat, you are not asked to commit any sin, 
 the act being one of mere abstinence and silence.
 
 127 
 
 The proper answer seems to be : ' This negative 
 suspense is no complete act of itself, to be judged as 
 an insulated thing. It is an instrumental discipline, 
 with a view to an end, and assumes that that end yet 
 remains to be determined. If that assumption were 
 true, the discipline might be obediently accepted. 
 But I know it to be false. The end in view is 
 already out of reach : the discipline of retreat and 
 devotion has been honestly tried, and to try it again 
 would be a fruitless waste of life, and dallying with 
 the call and appointed term of duty. There must 
 sometime be a moment for decision. I have ex- 
 hausted the allowable preliminaries. It may be 
 proper for my superior to gain time ; if possible my 
 care must now be not to lose it.' 
 
 "In short, to take from the General of the Order 
 a medicine on which he rests hopes, but which is 
 foreknown by you to be ineffectual, is to mislead him 
 under the guise of obedience. The ultimate dis- 
 obedience is not escaped, but only postponed: and 
 the date at which it must come cannot be rightly 
 determined, except by the self-knowledge of the 
 personal conscience. 
 
 " No doubt, we must always come with a spirit 
 humbled and apologetic into the presence of one to 
 whom we have made promises we cannot keep : and 
 when he charges us with wrong, we cannot deny the 
 fault, only we transpose it, and in answer to his, 'you 
 should not have broken your word,' must reply, ' we 
 should not have given it.' I must confess, however, 
 that towards a superior who would adopt the sort of
 
 128 
 
 policy of banishment at which you hint, I should 
 find it difficult to feel due penitence. 
 
 " Your admirable reply to the Papal Committee* 
 delighted me beyond measure ; and I see it has 
 elicited Mr. Oxenham's good word in the Saturday 
 Review. I cannot help looking for some large and 
 conspicuous results of the Council, if not in this 
 country, in Austria and South Germany ; except that 
 this dreadful war suspends the working of all ideal 
 interests." 
 
 Meanwhile he had been busy severing as firmly and 
 gently as he could the ties which bound him to the 
 Eoman Church. 
 
 On July 14th he wrote to the editors of The Rosary 
 Magazine, with which he had been identified from the 
 beginning, that his connection with it must cease. " It 
 has so happened that correspondents abroad and at 
 home have of late been sending questions which I could 
 not reply to, with w y hat I deemed truth and historic 
 accuracy, without going counter to your feelings and 
 opinions, and to those of a large portion of your 
 readers. Now you will be able to obtain the services 
 of a learned priest, whose ecclesiastical tendencies 
 tally with your own, and I am convinced that the 
 Magazine will gain by my withdrawal." 
 
 This letter would have been generally interpreted 
 only as the consequence of his opposition to the 
 proposed definition of Papal Infallibility, which was 
 generally popular amongst English Catholics. He 
 signed himself as of old "Prefect of the Guard of 
 * The letter referred to will be found on pages 129, 130.
 
 129 
 
 Honour and Apostolic Missioner." But the postscript 
 was more ominous, in which he expressed his anxiety 
 ' to resign the Directorship of the Perpetual Eosary 
 as soon as the place can be supplied.' The last of 
 the ' Answers to Correspondents,' which responsible 
 work he had always taken upon himself, and with 
 this August issue was giving up, is also significant of 
 his state of mind : it runs as follows : 
 
 "M.S. We will pray for you as you desire, but 
 we need your prayers as much." 
 
 But before this was in print a much moreiimpor- 
 tant and public declaration of his state of mind had 
 appeared in the columns of the Westminster Gazette. 
 At this time signatures were being sought to an 
 address to the Pope from English Catholics, praying 
 for the definition in dispute. Not content with a 
 mere refusal to sign, which indeed he was free to do 
 or not, he gave his reasons and sent them to the 
 press. It would be with pain and dismay that many 
 who had been wont to revere him as a teacher, read 
 in their weekly paper on July 16 ; 
 
 " We have been requested to publish the following 
 reply sent to the Secretary for the petition to the 
 Holy Father, which we do without comment : 
 
 "Dear Eev. Sir, It would not be respectful to 
 your zeal and toil simply to ignore the reception of 
 the proposed address, in which petitioners request 
 the Pope to define his infallibility. 
 
 "Knowing with what earnest desire the enemies 
 of our religion, with taunting speech, at once urge 
 us and defy us to proclaim, after 1800 years, the
 
 130 
 
 foundation of Christianity ; knowing the deep repug- 
 nance with which, under the pressure of ecclesiastical 
 opinion and ecclesiastical prospects, canons, priests, 
 and bishops have signed declarations pleasing to 
 ecclesiastical superiors and repugnant to their private 
 opinions ; knowing with an intimate and sad know- 
 ledge, that the mooting of this question has led to 
 investigations, and then to inquiries, which have 
 paralysed the faith in the minds of numbers of the 
 clergy and of the intellectual laity, and with not a 
 few destroyed it, I must respectfully decline to sign 
 a document in which petitioners ask for a definition, 
 the animus and consequence of which few can be so 
 thoughtless as not to perceive. 
 
 " If we get a Pope, vain, obstinate, and in his 
 dotage, shall we ask him to be confirmed in his 
 powers of mischief? 
 
 " Do we wish, by exalting the lessons of the 
 encyclical, to render political life impossible to every 
 honest and consistent Catholic, and to render the 
 possession of political and religious equality impos- 
 sible to any except those sort of Catholics who would 
 use the language of liberty when they beg, and the 
 precepts of the Pope when they refuse ? 
 
 " Your faithful and obedient servant in Christ, 
 
 " ROBEET R. SUFFIELD, O.S.D. 
 
 " The Hermitage, H. Bosworth, Leicestershire, 
 "July llth, 1870."
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 EEMONSTEANCES AND EXPLANATIONS. 
 
 On the Monday following the publication of this 
 letter, the doctrine it impugned was solemnly declared 
 by Pius IX. to be "a dogma divinely revealed," and 
 anathema pronounced upon any who should presume 
 to question it. This made the position he was main- 
 taining all the more impossible, and remonstrances 
 soon began to pour in on him. 
 
 On the 19th, a relation and attached friend who 
 held a high position in society, wrote : 
 
 " My Dear Father Suffield, We were all so dis- 
 tressed and horrified to see your letter in the 
 Westminster. I could hardly believe it could be the 
 same Father whom I used to suppose to be so full 
 of devotion to the Church and its head, as one of 
 such an old Order ought to be. What can have 
 changed you so much? Surely you are not going 
 the way of Dollinger and the anti-Catholic Liberals. 
 I do hope sincerely that few will read your letter. 
 I really could not help letting you know how aston- 
 ished and distressed everyone is who has seen it. 
 There must now be an end of these discussions for 
 ever, and, whether people like it or not, they must 
 believe what the Council has decreed; and how 
 delighted Catholics ought to be, and good ones are,
 
 132 
 
 to have an opportunity of proving their love for the 
 the successors of St. Peter. Do write soon, some- 
 thing to remove the bad impression your letter has 
 made. I trust you will pray that you may not have 
 caused scandal against your intention." 
 
 So some wrote on whose minds had never dawned 
 the idea of " truth," as distinct, or possibly distinct, 
 from the Eoman faith; but even more sad were the 
 letters of those who themselves were tried by doubts, 
 and felt the shock of his words as loosening their 
 hard hold on faith. One, unknown to him personally, 
 wrote: "I am but a young Catholic, having only 
 been three years in the Church, but they have not 
 been happy ones. I have been troubled, almost with- 
 out cessation, with temptations against the faith, and 
 have been unable to cast away a terrible fear that 
 all may be a mistake and delusion. But I have been 
 more distressed and frightened by a letter of yours, 
 which I read yesterday in The Westminster Gazette, 
 than by anything else. If we are to believe that the 
 Holy Ghost is inspiring the Council, how can he 
 dictate that which has ' paralysed the faith in the 
 minds of clergy and laity,' or must I doubt whether 
 he has presided there, and then where is the infallible 
 teaching of the Church, which is to most Catholics 
 the anchor of their faith? And then, Father, that 
 terrible sentence about the Popes ! Can it really 
 mean what it seems to express ? If you only knew 
 the misery your words have made me suffer, you 
 would forgive me writing this way. Your own 
 ' Crown of Jesus ' seems to speak such different
 
 133 
 
 language. . . If it looks like disrespect to write 
 this, I entreat you to impute it to ignorance alone, 
 for I am, reverend father, your respectful, but very 
 sad-hearted, servant in our Lord, . . ." 
 
 To this letter he seems to have given an answer 
 which revealed his whole position, for a few days 
 after there followed another communication from the 
 same writer, which it must have given him even 
 greater pain to read. " I dearly prize the confidence 
 you place in me, but the pain your letter gives me 
 is very sharp. My own troubles seem lost in thinking 
 of what you must suffer. Oh, I have prayed with 
 all my might that these clouds may be cleared away 
 from your soul. I would be content to go on my 
 own clouded path to the end, if only the Light of 
 Faith might again shine upon you; for I may keep 
 my trouble to myself ; no one depends on me for help 
 and direction but for you, dear Father, I see and 
 know what your sufferings must be. I have read 
 your letter over and over again, and it makes my 
 heart fail with fear, lest I hardly dare write the 
 words lest Faith is gone. Can it be that you believe 
 less than the Protestants ? . . . The first day or 
 two after I got your letter the shock almost made me 
 lose all sense of security. I wish I knew what you 
 mean by writing, ' Beware of resting the Eternal 
 Truths of all Eeligion upon any ecclesiastical founda- 
 tion.' But I must not presume to argue with you." 
 
 Then follows, as in many another letter, pages of 
 pious advice, constantly checked and apologised for ; 
 S3 unnatural to his correspondents seemed the posi-
 
 134 
 
 tion of advising one who had bean the counsellor of 
 them all. It was such a strange reversal of their 
 respective positions, a duty they deemed it, and yet 
 it had an air of presumption and impertinence which 
 they could not forget. 
 
 It was not for three weeks that any public notice 
 was taken of the protest, a delay due perhaps to 
 the hope that the efforts made to induce him to 
 withdraw and apologise, in view of the Decree of the 
 Council, might yet prevail ; but on the 6th of August 
 there appeared the two following letters in The 
 Westminster Gazette, the one from the head of the 
 English Province of Dominicans, the other from the 
 Prior of their house in London. 
 
 " To the Editor of ' The Westminster Gazette,' 
 July 30th, 1870. 
 
 " Dear Sir, I cannot express the grief and surprise 
 that I felt on my attention being called to Father 
 Suffield's letter, which by some means became inserted 
 in your issue of the 16th inst. In my own name, as 
 Provincial of the Dominican Order in England, and 
 in the name of all my confreres, I utterly repudiate 
 that letter both as to sentiment and expression. I 
 wish to be all the more energetic in this disclaimer, 
 as I had already been but too glad to accede to a 
 suggestion made by Father Aylward, my predecessor, 
 
 to the very opposite effect 
 
 Furthermore, I rejoice to say that the pain Father 
 Suffield's letter has occasioned me is very sensibly 
 mitigated by the many communications which have
 
 135 
 
 duly reached me from Fathers of the Province since 
 the publication of that deplorable letter, each one 
 for himself protesting against its being supposed to 
 express the views and feelings of our Province ; and 
 I am, moreover, happy to state that this is also con- 
 firmed by Father Suffield himself, who, in a letter 
 lately received from him by Father Aylward, says, 
 ' Your letter made me recognise one great duty, 
 namely, that of my signifying in a very marked way 
 that such a letter represents in no degree the feelings 
 of the English Fathers.' 
 
 " I remain, yours sincerely, 
 
 "F. GEO. VINCENT KING." 
 
 The Prior wrote : "I am in no way Father 
 Suffield's Superior, and therefore have no right offi- 
 cially to publish anything condemnatory of his 
 opinions or language as expressed in his letter of 
 July 16th ; moreover, it is a great pain to me to 
 be thus at conflict with one whom I not only love 
 as a Brother of the same Order, but whose personal 
 friendship I enjoyed before either of us became 
 Dominicans, and whose zeal and apostolic spirit I 
 have ever held in the greatest admiration. But, 
 lest it might be supposed that the opinions of so 
 prominent a member of our Order are held by other 
 Dominicans, I feel bound [and he goes on to repu- 
 diate all sympathy with the opinions expressed]. 
 "F. AUSTIN M. EOOKE, O.P." 
 
 His reply was written immediately, and appeared 
 in the next week's issue, August 6th, 1870 : 
 
 " Sir, Our Provincial and the Prior of London
 
 136 
 
 last week wrote to disclaim for themselves and the 
 English Fathers the statements of a letter of mine, 
 which had been elicited by an accidental circum- 
 stance. That disclaimer was doubtless a duty on 
 their part, and the duty was discharged with that 
 frankness, delicacy, and tenderness which has always 
 impressed me as the gracious prerogative of the 
 Superiors of our Order. 
 
 " The writer of the striking and accurate articles 
 which forms a complete history of the Council, 
 observes, in the Saturday Review of July 30th, that 
 ' Father Suffield would not have ventured on so 
 bold and remarkable a letter unless assured of the 
 moral support of his Order,' and strengthens the 
 inference by the example of Cardinal Guidi. 
 
 " Will you permit me to give an explanation which 
 is not needed for the protection of those within the 
 Order who must be revered, loved, and trusted by 
 all who have intimately known them but which 
 will be a satisfaction to others, as also to relatives 
 of our novices and friends of our Order. 
 
 " If it be a consolation to confide to the sympathy 
 of intimate friendship the struggles of the mind and 
 the sorrows of the heart, it is at once a pain and 
 humiliation to reveal to the curious and indifferent 
 the sorrow with which a stranger meddleth not. 
 That sorrow is now mine. 
 
 " An incident, not regretted by me, has revealed, 
 almost by accident, the hidden struggle of years ; 
 and now, this, that, and the other will be said 
 against me ; it will be said that I am proud, and
 
 137 
 
 self-willed, and cannot bear restraint. I know not 
 what might have been the case if I had been fated 
 to bear the trial of others' faults, but it did not need 
 much virtue to obey those whom I revered, to carry 
 out the wishes of those I loved. During the twenty 
 years of my priestly life I have never been otherwise 
 circumstanced. 
 
 " But first, permit me to defend friends outside the 
 Order who have been deeply pained by recognising the 
 position of my own mind ; if they were less generous, 
 they would reproach me and say, ' We leaned upon 
 you, and you were a reed, and you broke, and you 
 pierced the hand that trusted you.' I can only reply, 
 ' A heart that loved you was pierced first, but it was 
 not done by you ; if you suffer, I suffer more : and 
 your goodness, tenderness, and forbearance have been 
 the unceasing arguments, making my heart contend 
 with my intellect.' 
 
 " Many known to be intimate and attached friends 
 will be pained because they will be supposed to sym- 
 pathise with my views. Their friendships have been 
 very profound, and cast about my life a joy like the 
 charity and purity of Heaven ; but it so happens that 
 very few of these but are intensely loyal to the 
 Pope, and enthusiastic about everything Catholic 
 and Koman. Therefore my praise of others must 
 never imply a censure upon their Catholicity. Those 
 friendships, interwoven with the honest sympathies 
 of years, presenting to me in the midst of mental 
 struggles the gracious influence of the highest virtues, 
 are in no ways compromised to my opinions.
 
 138 
 
 " Regarding my Order it will be said that the 
 tendencies and influences were un-Catholic, or that 
 laxity permitted such to exist or to assert themselves. 
 Anything more false it would be impossible to utter. 
 At this moment, when I might be supposed most 
 tempted to say the opposite, and to reply to the 
 pathetic appeals of many by throwing the blame 
 elsewhere, the members of other Orders will more 
 than pardon the filial devotion which makes me 
 praise above others an illustrious Order with which 
 they have entered upon a noble rivalry. 
 
 " I did not learn my theology in the Dominican 
 school. I have received from the Dominicans no 
 influence except those which inevitably arise from 
 the witnessing of lives utterly blameless, of charac- 
 ters of noble truthfulness and trust, of hearts at 
 once tender and strong, of an authority at once 
 vigilant, considerate, and just ; of an obedience 
 rendered the more cheerfully, for it was rendered 
 to those who deserved it. 
 
 " Amongst our English and French Fathers and 
 Brothers, I question whether there is one who does 
 not repudiate utterly opinions they understand me to 
 hold. They do not like to speak, for many amongst 
 them have been to me as sons before they were 
 brothers, and w r hilst censuring me in their conscience 
 and in their mind, they remain silent, lest words 
 uttered should seem like a treason against memories 
 too beautiful to perish. Lest their silence should be 
 imputed to them as a fault, let me still perform for 
 them the familiar office of a friend, and declare that
 
 139 
 
 nothing existing in our noviciate, nothing existing 
 in our teaching, nothing existing in our discipline, 
 nothing encouraged amongst us or allowed, would 
 tend in the direction of my opinions. 
 
 " Even in the matter of politics, now somewhat 
 interwoven with religion, they mostly have taken a 
 line the reverse of my own ; all our Superiors, I 
 think, entirely so. 
 
 " Attention has been drawn to one expression in 
 my letter, an expression, I think, comparatively un- 
 important, wherein, speaking before the definition, 
 I suppose the case of a weak Pope invested with 
 the additional influence that would be conferred on 
 his ordinary acts by a definition which would enable 
 him at any moment to support such acts by an 
 infallible approval. 
 
 "As in late years we have not had bad Popes 
 the endeavour in the election has been to select 
 good men, but not remarkable for sanctity, learning, 
 or strength I thought it more decorous not to 
 imagine the re-creation of the moral deformities of 
 the days of old ; but and unless failure of reason be 
 impossible to an aged Pope, it becomes essential 
 that there should be some means at least of recog- 
 nising when his decrees are to be regarded as the 
 acts of the man as well as of God. A man who 
 centralises all ecclesiastical, political, and scientific 
 authority in himself, and who by an irresistible 
 sentence can destroy the prospects and character 
 of any member of his gr3o,t religious organisation, 
 must necessarily obtain a vast increase of power
 
 140 
 
 when it is defined, that whenever he chooses he 
 can issue a decree more binding than the gospel, 
 because he can overrule by his explanation the very 
 words of the Christ. 
 
 " But the passage of my letter, which really was 
 gravest, has elicited the attention only of minds 
 suffering like my own ; and, if such thoughts from 
 many anxious minds had been more adverted to, 
 perhaps even those in the highest authority might 
 have awoke from their dreams of power, and asked 
 themselves whether they would rather rule, like the 
 Christ, mildly over the multitude of many minds, 
 and guide the troubled and the weary to the two- 
 fold charity, or, as one lately said, rule over a 
 lessened Church, and almost hail as a deliverance 
 the exodus of minds that desired to believe, and 
 hearts disposed to love and to obey. 
 
 " Thus, partly, I unveil the depths of my doubts 
 and of my sorrows, and doing so, I, at least, clear 
 those whom I love. It is not the Dominican Fathers 
 who have created for me this mental struggle, which 
 has been the hidden agony of years. Do not blame 
 them, they had nothing to gain and nothing to lose. 
 With the charity of pure and noble hearts, blindfold 
 they have gone forward, and they have obeyed. 
 
 "It is not the aping of humility when I say, 
 perhaps they may have chosen the highest. The 
 great and holy God knows ; I do not ; but I know 
 this, that they are not compromised by me. No 
 word of theirs has stung me ; no impatience of theirs 
 has hurried me ; no fault of theirs has scandalised 
 me; no distrust of theirs has aggravated me.
 
 141 
 
 "It is almost my only happiness in the midst of 
 that 'paralysing of the faith,' which the 'mooting 
 of these questions has produced,' to render the 
 homage of my affectionate reverence at the feet of 
 those I love ; and I love them not so much because 
 they have been kind to me, as because they have 
 ever been true to what they believed the highest. 
 
 " When life advances nothing is sadder than to 
 have to touch the monument of hope, which, day by 
 day, through years of toil, of sadness and of joy, we 
 have been building with painful labour. 
 
 " If a passing incident wrings from the mind the 
 expression of difficulties concealed, or in every other 
 act disowned, do not suppose it to be the daring of 
 one who broke to play a part. He only sought first 
 solitude in the cloister, then solitude greater in a 
 country village, amidst simple people and the children 
 of his flock, that he might dispel difficulties and 
 doubts. 
 
 "If these difficulties and doubts have been wrong, 
 none but the highest rulers of the Church have been 
 responsible for them ; they have not been a pleasure, 
 but an agony ; not a pride, but a humiliation. 
 
 " And if ever to any readers of these words, one has 
 given joy in the midst of sorrows ; hope when all was 
 dark ; perchance in the hour of need, you can return 
 the same to him. [sic.] 
 "Yours faithfully, 
 
 " EOBEKT EUDOLPH SuFFIELD, O.S.D." 
 
 " P.S. Might I add some remarks which, after 
 posting the above letter, occurred to my mind as
 
 142 
 
 omitted. At St. Sulpice my chief guide was a strong 
 Ultramontane ; as to Ushaw, and most dear, revered, 
 ecclesiastical friends in the north, amongst whom all 
 my Catholic thoughts were framed, it is needless for 
 me to say how deeply they deplore opinions I have 
 expressed with which they have no sympathy, and 
 which represent almost the exact opposite to their 
 own. If loyalty to the reputation of my Order com- 
 pels me (unknown to them and unasked) to clear 
 Dominicans from blame, loyalty to the most tender, 
 intimate, and ancient friendships makes me wish 
 to render this tribute to those so unbounded in their 
 devotion to the Pope, and so in harmony with the 
 highest Catholic tone of thought, and who have left 
 on my own heart the example of every virtue, and 
 the memory of a confiding love that never changes. 
 They know how, impelled not by curiosity, but by 
 the questionings of others evoked by the events of 
 later years, I was driven by my very position and 
 circumstances into those enquiries which have at 
 length wrung from me thoughts which trouble com- 
 pelled me in some way to make known ; not giving 
 reasons, to shake others, but simply stating the facts. 
 They know the anguish I experience in grieving those 
 I love so intimately and whom I had hoped never to 
 have pained, and often I prayed to God I might 
 die before the day should come." 
 
 His former Provincial, a man revered by all for 
 his piety and wisdom, and tenderly attached to Mr. 
 Suffield, wrote to him under date August 10th, en- 
 closing a translation of his first letter into French,
 
 143 
 
 which he had made by desire of the General of the 
 Order, " that you may bear witness that nothing is 
 extenuated, and nothing is set down in malice." He 
 goes on to say, " I have also sent you a rough copy 
 of my translation of your second letter of August 6th, 
 which I have just finished (with how heavy a heart 
 I will not attempt to say for pardon me, if I write 
 it it looks like a farewell to the Church. I am so 
 sad to be obliged to say so). Others also of your best 
 and dearest friends (for you had many) in the north, 
 seem possessed of the same horrible thought. In the 
 meantime we are all praying for you, both at the altar 
 and in private. God give you grace and humility 
 to make what reparation you can for the scandalising 
 of your Brethren. Truth and love for Christ's 
 Church extort such words from me, for you have 
 brought scandal on the Church, and dreadful ruin 
 on your own soul. The little children have only to 
 take up the ' Crown ' and condemn you out of your 
 own mouth. 
 
 " Yours, dear Father Eudolph, 
 
 " Truly and affectionately, 
 
 " J. D. AYLWAKD." 
 
 And another wrote in the strain of the last sen- 
 tence of the above letter : 
 
 " To the Editor of the ' Westminster Gazette.' 
 
 " SIR, Father Suffield says, in the letter which 
 appeared in your columns last Saturday, that ' his 
 intimate and attached friends,' with very few excep- 
 tions, are ' intensely loyal to the Pope, and enthusiastic 
 about everything Catholic and Koman.' Were it
 
 144 
 
 otherwise, it would be nothing short of a marvel ! 
 Many years of the closest and most valued friendship 
 with Father Suffield have assured me that few indeed 
 could have been much under his influence, whether 
 public or private, without becoming so. I appeal to 
 his public exertions for the Holy Father to his 
 having been the first to establish the revival of 
 Peter's Pence in this country to his magnificent 
 open-air meeting of sympathy for the Pope, at New- 
 castle; also to his exertions, as I believe, the first 
 in England, in encouraging the enlistment of Papal 
 Zouaves, among a host of other public instances. 
 Who, indeed, that has heard him give the Papal 
 Benediction at the close of his missions, can forget 
 the burning words of love and reverence, which 
 seemed to carry his hearer straight to the feet of 
 the Holy Father ! But were that all, the Prayer 
 Book connected with his name has probably been 
 more instrumental than any other popular manual 
 in spreading faith in the dogmas of infallibility 
 wherever English-speaking Catholics are to be found. 
 " Faithfully yours, 
 
 "T.O.S.D." 
 
 The reproach was fully justified, and arose out 
 of the very nature of the case. Converts, such as 
 are thoroughly sincere and compelled by conviction 
 too strong for them, those who go over heart and 
 soul to an alien faith are men who have, heart 
 and soul, believed what they before professed; and 
 as they have believed they have spoken. They have 
 said strong things against the cause which they felt
 
 145 
 
 inwardly to be strongest against their own position ; 
 have striven to fortify themselves against ' temptation', 
 and have imparted of their own devotion to all who 
 came under their influence. If the lukewarm and 
 indifferent change their faith, they will do so from 
 some light motion of gain or vanity, or on account 
 of arguments which have come to them with the 
 attraction of novelty. They can never be reproached 
 for past zeal, nor their former protests be adduced 
 to counterbalance their after-denials. But such 
 reproaches are in reality testimonials of character ; 
 they should be taken as assurance that he against 
 whom they are directed is truthful and zealous ; 
 that his fault is that only to which he himself 
 pleads guilty that he was mistaken that he is 
 but a man.
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 ALONE IN THE WORLD. 
 
 In a letter of June the 7th, which will be found in 
 Chapter VIII., Mr. Suffield tells Mr. Martineau of 
 the determination at which he had arrived as one 
 result of their recent conference, to submit his posi- 
 tion to Dr. Newman ; and he enclosed the letter 
 which he purposed sending after a delay " of several 
 days." He seems to have looked upon it as a decisive 
 step, after which the position of a priest and preacher 
 might be no longer tenable, and he did not care to 
 ask advice until he felt prepared to follow it, what- 
 ever might be the consequences. Meanwhile he 
 was trying to do all that was kind and just towards 
 his Superiors to whom he had vowed obedience, and 
 yet more towards the many who looked up to him as 
 the guide of their souls. A sudden rupture would 
 have been cruel to them, and would certainly have 
 been generally attributed to moral or mental indis- 
 position. "The several days" of which he had 
 spoken were lengthened out to several weeks. The 
 first page of the letter is wanting in the copy of it 
 in his own handwriting which has been preserved, 
 but judging from the date of Dr. Newman's reply, 
 it'cannot have been sent before the middle of July. 
 For six weeks he had kept it by him, probably 
 rewritten and corrected it, and it represents, as we
 
 147 
 
 give it, at least no hasty or angry judgment on a 
 cause so intimately known to him. It is not the 
 outcome of an hour of despondency or a mood of 
 bitterness, but the conclusions of years of trial set 
 down in all calmness of spirit. He begins his story 
 ten years back, at the time when he had given him- 
 self more entirely than ever to the Church's service. 
 
 "During my noviciate at Woodehester, doubts on 
 the foundations of Catholicity took form in my mind, 
 but I enjoyed it nevertheless. Finding myself in the 
 company of simple-hearted and virtuous young men, 
 I could have gone on with it for years, but at the 
 desire of the Cardinal I was moved to London. I 
 then came across the system of ' Direction,' as pursued 
 by the Jesuits and imitated by others ; it filled me 
 with disgust to find pretences of higher spirituality 
 used as means for worldly power, and money, and 
 influence. ^It was the first great shock. I saw it 
 as a regular system, not like a sin such as a weak 
 or bad Priest might be betrayed into, or abandon 
 himself to irrevocably, but it was the life and system 
 of those specially commended as the spiritual-minded 
 Fathers. Here and there an honest and indignant 
 Jesuit revealed to me his disgust at what he saw. 
 I then looked into books and history and contem- 
 poraneous events, and found that, as it seemed to 
 me, all the popular impression regarding the Jesuits 
 was true ; I began to find that Bishops and Priests, 
 tJwse who had experience, tuhen they dared, said the 
 same. I remembered that the Pope had said to a 
 friend of mine in former years what tended in the
 
 148 
 
 same direction ; and then I saw the Pope beginning 
 in later times to use the Jesuits as the tools of his 
 power. Having obtained a moral disgust at the 
 entire system of the Jesuits, and the entire system 
 of ' Direction,' I felt myself becoming critical. Then 
 all I had heard for years from holy Priests and 
 Bishops regarding the want of all justice and honesty 
 at Home among all the officials, began to be revived 
 and confirmed by obtaining greater insight into the 
 working of things. It was not a question of gross 
 sins : I began to discover that testimony after testi- 
 mony of the holiest and noblest men bore witness 
 that all the more subtle sins were dominant there in 
 their fulness. The habitual spiritual pride of those 
 considered good came to me as more loathsome than 
 a gross sin into which a man might have fallen and 
 repented. The most clear and certain information 
 shewed me that the Pope and his entourage were 
 using all influence for power. Holy Bishops and 
 Priests assured me that we were governed by some 
 weak-minded and some sharp ambitious flatterers, 
 who, by flattery, governed the flattered. I saw the 
 noblest minds cooling in their enthusiasm towards 
 ecclesiastical authority the more they learned of it, 
 and presently they began to resent it. Never, I 
 think, did I see such minds after long intimacy with 
 it impressed with the opposite. I saw it was very 
 .human, the tactics of diplomacy, or of an ordinary 
 club, composed of rather selfish, narrow-minded, and 
 ^ordinary men, not over scrupulous about faults, and 
 not at all so about honour. I began to find the same
 
 149 
 
 vice more or less pervading all the ecclesiastical 
 organisations. They showed themselves quite as 
 human as anything in the world, but all done in 
 the name of God, so that the managers of these 
 schemes probably deceived themselves into an idea 
 of their own spirituality, as much as they deceived 
 our ordinary lay visitors at Eome. 
 
 "Then Ward advanced the fullest claims for this 
 authority, and I read his articles, I might almost say, 
 intending to agree with them all. 
 
 " I considered we all held Papal Infallibility in a 
 sort of way, though like many truths left somewhat 
 vague. I had always considered myself at liberty to 
 follow the testimony of our Vicars Apostolic and con- 
 troversialists in denying practically the extravagant 
 claims of Eome. I always believed that the fullest 
 toleration to all sects was consistent with the most 
 faithful and courageous Catholicity. I should have 
 scorned to have petitioned for any favour for our- 
 selves which I was not prepared loyally and honestly 
 to have conceded to every sect if we had been in 
 power. 
 
 " The Pope's Encyclical shocked me, it seemed to 
 me that all our line of political and social defence of 
 ourselves was, in spirit, at least, condemned. Sorrow- 
 fully I resolved to obey it. A line of action and thought 
 which my conscience disapproved, my conscience also 
 told me to adopt because it came from Eome. Such 
 probably would have continued my state of mind, as I 
 never permitted doubts touching faith to remain at all 
 in my mind. But the investigation started by Ward,'
 
 150 
 
 when flung as an open question among Catholics, I 
 determined to go into, and the numerous enquiries 
 of others addressed to me, compelled me even the 
 more. Oppressive doubts as to the entire Catholic 
 theory began to possess my mind, but then inter- 
 woven with a sort of hopeless scepticism ; these 
 made me feel sad, hopeless, desolate. I believed, 
 but without heart and doubtfully; I recognised the 
 same working in other minds ; I began to wish that 
 I had never been a Priest ; I wished that I had in 
 former years retained my money, so that I could 
 have retired unobserved, and said Mass without doing 
 any other priestly duty, and without being under- 
 stood to believe the Papal claims ; for I saw that if 
 the claims now made mean anything, they mean a 
 great deal more, as soon as the power of enforcing 
 the more arrives. 
 
 " A general breaking down of health, influenced 
 chiefly by these mental anxieties, gave me an excuse 
 to ask of my Superiors that I might get into some 
 retired place; just then Bosworth was offered, and 
 I came. For a short time I seemed like one still 
 believing in the Catholic Church, and yet hardly 
 believing in God or a future; this cloud passed, 
 your brother's work* helped me in dispelling that 
 dark cloud of utter scepticism. Then I began, as 
 now, to rejoice again in God, in prayer to God for 
 my own soul's needs, and for the needs of the souls 
 of the living and of the departed, to bless God, to 
 seek God's pardon and guidance, to look forward 
 
 * " The Soul, its Sorrows and its Aspirations," by F. W. Newman.
 
 151 
 
 again with an almost more realised happy hope than 
 ever to a future life, dependent at least for a long 
 time on the habits formed here, but where there 
 would be a state of being probably not so very unlike 
 our present. 
 
 " Throughout I always was happy in saying Mass, 
 especially when the cloud of scepticism passed off 
 from my soul; I looked on it as a great and holy 
 sacrifice ; God is in all things, I said, God is in the 
 Holy Host. Even on my saddest, darkest days as to 
 belief, the holy mass has always been offered by me 
 under a mystical explanation, but truly and worthily. 
 
 " I am not aware of having ever neglected a single 
 duty which, as a Priest, I owed to others, but in the 
 minutest matters I have, I think, acted, and when 
 so acting, thought just as any fervent Priest would. 
 
 " But as to the Catholic doctrines, I became quite 
 convinced that the Papal claims were merely a human 
 development. I had never any particular belief in 
 the veracity of many narratives in the Scriptures ; I 
 believed the Scriptures because the Church told me 
 to do so, but each question I looked into brought me 
 to the intellectual conviction that it was a human 
 development of something never contemplated by 
 Jesus Christ. Then I began to notice that every 
 doctrine has had the same history that our Lord 
 flung out a few grand truths about God the Father 
 of all, the beauty of goodness and the excellence of 
 charity, and that God so blessed his words and his 
 devotedness, that belief in the unity of God, in his 
 goodness, and a high and pure morality, more or less,
 
 152 
 
 was diffused in the world owning Jesus Christ as its 
 founder. Beyond this, everything seemed uncertain. 
 Intellectually, this seemed to me the only conclusion 
 I could come to. I waited until your last work 
 appeared,* to see if you presented any other ground 
 intellectually. For anything beyond the great truths 
 about God, the soul, virtue it seemed to me that 
 you could only appeal to what had been always my 
 own reply the conscience and the argument of success. 
 
 " The latter has been my chief argument for Catho- 
 licity ; the miracles of the Gospel never struck me to 
 be an evidence at all ; the manner in which they were 
 wrought, and the manner in which they were recorded, 
 always seemed to me to deprive them of any weight. 
 But men have tried to establish sects and schools of 
 thought, and failed, while the Catholic Church has 
 succeeded to a very large extent. It is a great 
 argument ; it would be greater if its members could 
 enquire logically into its claims and continue its 
 subjects, and if we saw more men of intellect 
 joining it, not merely as the compliment of a pre- 
 vious position reposing on a fallacy. 
 
 " The adaptation to the conscience is also a great 
 argument ; but there are some doctrines of authorised 
 practice which do not really approve themselves to 
 my conscience, but of which I say ' somehow it must 
 be all right, but I do not know how;' ex. gr., the 
 precise line of sin, whereby a single mortal sin, such 
 as missing Mass, sends the soul to Hell ; whereas the 
 entire moral character, lowered by habitual selfishness, 
 
 * " The Grammar of Assent," dated February 21st, 1870.
 
 153 
 
 petty vanity and caprice, lesser sensualities, habitual 
 but none enough to be a mortal sin, would terminate 
 in Heaven the broad line, so to speak, between the 
 two states of soul (contrary to our experience and 
 our conscience) the making disbelief a sin and the 
 greatest sin, so that we have continually to explain 
 away our doctrine when our conscience points out 
 thousands outside better than ourselves the theo- 
 cratic position of the Pope, and indulgences, and the 
 contradictory decrees of Popes and the evasion by 
 which we conceal these. The Pope professing to be 
 practically inspired, and yet using every precaution 
 not to make a mistake. Spiritual direction, the 
 frequent practice of confession, the protection attri- 
 buted to certain things such as Brown Scapulars, the 
 Agnus Dei, &c. These are amongst matters which 
 I have received thoroughly, and still carry out, and 
 act on thoroughly, and yet which have never com- 
 mended themselves to my conscience any more than 
 many convent regulations. 
 
 " Thus, if I were not now a Priest and religious, 
 but with no previous obligations fettering my con- 
 science, and supposing I were as a teacher in a 
 position like that of the Eev. James Martineau, in 
 London, or else holding a wordly position joining in 
 worship with those who hold the truths revealed to 
 our conscience, and brought home specially to our 
 conscience by Jesus Christ, but without any dogmas 
 resting on an historic ground (persons who I believe 
 go now under the general name of "Free Christians " 
 or Unitarians),' and supposing that the Catholic.
 
 154 
 
 system was presented to me as it now seems to me, I 
 should certainly not embrace it. 
 
 "Thus I show that the argument to my mind is 
 narrowed to this considering the obligations which 
 I have willingly taken on my own conscience that I 
 have with my free will embraced a religion and its 
 obligations that this religion contains all needed 
 for the spiritual life, and rests on the foundation of 
 all religion that it commands me to banish from my 
 mind thoughts against its claims, and tJiat I can do 
 so if it be right to do so, and practically I only pre- 
 sent to myself the consideration of these under a sort 
 of mental reservation and guard that in itself the 
 life and duties of a Priest are to me of the sweetest 
 happiness, (and my only apprehension is whether I 
 can morally continue such when I know what would 
 be my decision if I had to begin again), that to aban- 
 don my priestly life would be the source to me of the 
 most intense misery this misery intensified by the 
 knowledge not only of the deep pain it would inflict 
 on all I love, but also of moral and religious injury 
 to so many religious, because it would make many 
 lose all heart ; it would be the betrayal of a trust ; it 
 presents itself to my mind like a treason, like the 
 act of Judas, but as if I should do for the intellect 
 what he did for money. Then my conscience says, 
 1 and if you, in a dream of romantic integrity, aban- 
 doned your priestly and religious obligations and 
 went forth into the world, repudiated, hated, des- 
 pised, doubted, dreaded, supposed perhaps to have 
 joined yourself to the brutal deriders of all you love
 
 155 
 
 and worship with the heart's fondest memories and 
 gratitude have you moral strength to bear all this ? 
 and then those might offer in your abject and abso- 
 lute poverty, destitution, desolation, to serve and 
 help you, whose very help would be an indignity, 
 almost a crime to accept ; because you would know 
 it was meant to make you seem to blacken those 
 whom you revere. What complications ! what moral 
 difficulties ! and who else does this ? The two wisest 
 of the ancient philosophers were sceptical about the 
 religious exaggerations and excrescences which formed 
 the popular religion, but they practised these, and 
 advised the same to others. Is it conscientious for 
 you to fancy yourself so very wise that you see 
 through all this, and, by an eccentric act, destroy 
 more than ever you repair ; when men like Dr. New- 
 man remain do you see clearer than he ? is it not 
 pride ? You are blinded by self-confidence. Do not 
 rush into moral dangers you know not of; consider 
 the obligations you have taken on yourself ; carry 
 them out as well as you can ; do not take an irre- 
 parable step. Beware, form your conscience, remain, 
 dismiss all enquiry, be at peace.' 
 
 " Such language I often address to myself, and it is 
 supported by the intense affection I have for so many 
 Catholics and by my almost utter ignorance of every- 
 one outside the Catholic Church ; while everyone and 
 everything in the Catholic Church are to me as 
 part of home. Then the sort of people who have left 
 the Church, and those who attack it, all fill me with 
 loathing. Then the piety, goodness, purity, charity,
 
 156 
 
 gentleness of those almost countless whom I know 
 and love. Then the desert as it seems to me without ; 
 it is like looking out of a happy home on to a wild 
 moor, or into a street of bustling men of business. 
 Then the thought that in the midst of the agony of 
 such a state of mind, and such a desolation, I must 
 begin life again, and at once think how to live, and a 
 fear lest then I should in a sort of despair accept 
 something which would be a compromise. 
 
 " I have not gone into any arguments or reason, 
 for all these are familiar enough to you, and one of 
 the strongest arguments affecting my conscience on 
 the Catholic side is your individual example, and my 
 reverence for your great knowledge and lofty con- 
 scientiousness. I simply try and describe the results 
 so sad to my own happiness, so sad for the happiness 
 of those who love me. 
 
 " Perhaps I might add that, in asking to come here, 
 I anticipated not only a time for calm and continuous 
 thought, study, prayer, consideration unaffected by 
 every influence except the gracious influence of the 
 country and of a few simple poor, but also I expected 
 to have escaped doing anything beyond helping to 
 piety and virtue a little flock of old Catholics ; but 
 my difficulty of action has been increased by this, 
 that without leaving my cottage-garden, except for 
 the Chapel, the Protestants have come quite unasked 
 to me, and I have received several into the Church ; 
 at the present moment the two most intelligent of 
 the higher class are anxious and enquiring; also 
 Protestants come from distant places. Not a month
 
 157 
 
 passes without Catholics coining from different parts 
 to confer with me. Then an immense correspon- 
 dence, in consequence of my being still the Director 
 of the Perpetual Eosary Association, which I founded 
 six years ago, and which numbers now thirty-six 
 thousand, and going out occasionally to give Missions 
 and Eetreats, and as Extraordinary to Convents. 
 Thus I am still continually compelled to take a 
 distinct position in the whole of the Catholic move- 
 ment, and anything I do must grieve and wound 
 innumerable souls. I have often wished that God 
 would mercifully, by death, free me from this dreadful 
 alternative, and I wonder whether others have suf- 
 fered this. And did not they do not they resolve 
 that they can continue till the end of this short life, 
 surrounded by this stately dream of the days of old, 
 inducing themselves to believe that it is true, because 
 it environs all that exists to them of happiness, of 
 friendship, of peace. 
 
 " My own dear Father, before God, what do you 
 say ? Tell me. 
 
 " Your loving son in Christ, 
 
 " EOBEBT EUDOLPH SuFPIELD." 
 
 It was of this letter Mr. Martineau, to whom he 
 had sent a copy, wrote, after expressing "heartfelt 
 thanks" for the perusal of it: "Your confidence 
 could not be given to anyone more worthy to receive 
 it, and more skilful to help in moral difficulties than 
 the venerable and noble-souled Newman. Only there 
 are crises in life when one has to rise into a truth 
 higher than the human. But you have laid the
 
 158 
 
 problem with faithful explicitness before one of the 
 most experienced of spiritual counsellors." 
 Dr. Newman's reply was as follows : 
 "THE ORATORY, 
 
 11 July 17th, 1870 
 " MY DEAR FATHER SUFFIELD, 
 
 " I expect to be here next month, and shall be 
 rejoiced to see you, as you propose. Write me word 
 beforehand. 
 
 " Yours most sincerely, 
 
 " JOHN HENRY NEWMAN." 
 
 Next month they met as proposed, and for the last 
 time. There was never any ill-feeling between them 
 or a harsh word said on either side, but it was not 
 possible that they could continue on terms of inti- 
 macy, and henceforth friendship was transferred from 
 the illustrious convert to Komanism to his scarcely 
 less illustrious brother, the convert to Theism. Of 
 their interview on this occasion Mr. Suffield gave 
 the following account in a letter to Mr. Martineau, 
 under date August 17. 
 
 " Dr. Newman fully concurs in what was your own 
 opinion and mine that in conscience I had no alter- 
 native but to act as I am doing, and that my vow 
 does not bind in conscience, and that if the General 
 would desire me to leave the country for a foreign 
 Priory I should refuse. But he also agrees with me 
 that it will be more graceful and considerate toward 
 the Order and towards Catholic feeling to apply for 
 a dispensation." It must, of course, be remembered, 
 in justice to Dr. Newman, that these are not his own
 
 159 
 
 words, and that the advice was sought of him by one 
 whose resolve to leave the Church had already been 
 carried out. The question presented to him was not, 
 am I under any obligation still to believe and to 
 obey ? but this only. Having ceased to believe, how 
 far am I bound to an obedience which has to a great 
 extent become impossible ? 
 
 To a faithful Catholic the question scarcely admits 
 of an answer. It is to him as if a man should confess 
 'I have committed a great sin, and purpose standing 
 by it ; how far am I warranted in a lesser transgres- 
 sion which more or less follows on it?' Faith, entire 
 and steadfast, in all the teachings of the Church, is 
 the fundamental obligation of every Catholic ; that 
 broken, it would seem impossible to maintain any 
 which depend upon it. There can remain no recog- 
 nised obligation but those of the natural law of justice 
 and kindness. So if an English subject were to deny 
 the authority of Parliament to levy taxes of him, or 
 make laws for him, it would be useless to question 
 how far he were bound in conscience by this or that 
 particular law. For good or evil he would be free of 
 any and every obligation consequent upon the Acts of 
 Parliament, and be bound only to the moral law. No 
 doubt he would be constrained by force to obey, and 
 so would the Church constrain or punish if it had 
 power, which it happily has everywhere ceased to 
 possess ; but the offence would be, not the special 
 acts of disobedience, but the apostacy which was the 
 quasi- justification of them. 
 
 At last the day came on which he had to take the
 
 160 
 
 fatal step which was to cut his life in twain. On 
 Wednesday, the 10th of August, he turned his back 
 upon the faith and friendships, the habits and asso- 
 ciations of twenty years, and became of his own 
 deliberate choice an object of pity and horror in the 
 eyes of all who had hitherto loved and revered him 
 as a champion of their faith. Recalling the occasion 
 long after, and when now under the sentence of a 
 fatal disease, he wrote, "as I walked through the 
 quiet straggling village on foot, I passed the old 
 church and the little Roman Catholic school, and 
 listened for a moment to the children's Morning 
 Hymn to our Lady and left the past for ever 
 behind the stately, not unpoetic past ! and it 
 ranged itself among the grand mythologies of the 
 days of old ; like the statue of a goddess in a 
 niche of a colonnade. You admire it, and you 
 leave it behind. The road leads through the images 
 of gods and heroes to the temple of the Universal. 
 
 " Roman Catholics naturally regarded my secession 
 as an error, but if they knew the facts they would be 
 obliged to admit that it was a profoundly conscien- 
 tious act. Every motive, affection, temporal comfort, 
 self-interest, urged me to remain. My personal means 
 had long since been sunk in the Roman Catholic 
 Church. At the age of forty-eight I had to go forth 
 as a pauper among strangers, with no apparent means 
 of livelihood. I had literally no inducement to leave 
 the Church ; nothing but sincerity. I again and again 
 considered whether I might not, like the old philo- 
 sophers, hold an exoteric and an esoteric faith
 
 161 
 
 publicly conforming to the popular mythology, pri- 
 vately holding a philosophic negation. But I dared 
 not face death in such a state." 
 
 On the day after his arrival in Birmingham he 
 wrote the following interesting letter : 
 
 "32, ANN STBEET, BIRMINGHAM, 
 
 "August llth, 1870. 
 " MY DEAR MR, MARTINEAU, 
 
 " Thank you so very much for your most kind 
 letter. The die is cast. Last Sunday I closed my 
 duties with those dear people. It was a day that 
 I had dreaded, and well I might. I quietly told them 
 that I had some religious difficulties which did not 
 concern any one there ; that they had better avoid 
 controversy, and go on as good Catholics. English 
 country people are not very susceptible; but after 
 Benediction in the evening, they, of their own accord, 
 assembled under the trees. I could see them from 
 the Sacristy window. They were all in great sorrow. 
 I believe nothing was said, but they raised a little 
 offering for me, to which even the children gave their 
 mite. I told them I had not courage to wish 
 them singly good-bye, and begged them to look on 
 it as an absence of a short time, and that they 
 must meet me in some excursion; but they felt it 
 was more than that, and outside the Chapel door, 
 
 young E , a Christ Church man and convert, threw 
 
 his arms round my neck, and burst into tears ; and 
 
 dear J , a young Grenadier Guardsman, whom I 
 
 had tried to get away on some visit, would not be 
 
 E
 
 162 
 
 persuaded, and lost all his spirits ; he never left my 
 side during the next two days, and then accompanied 
 me to Eugby, and when he took leave of me, his 
 grief was so great that one of the men asked whether 
 ' the gentleman was going to emigrate.' The poor 
 fellow said, ' Oh, it is worse my own dear Father.' 
 All this is very sad for to the young and to the good 
 it seems like a fall like a treason. There is now no 
 longer need for secrecy, every friend is saddened, and 
 nothing more can be any matter to them, except that 
 they should see that in no way is anything unneces- 
 sary done to wound them. Heretofore all communi- 
 cations addressed to me have been in language of 
 deepest love and sympathy, with a delicacy of feeling 
 almost wonderful. No doubt many will attack me 
 afterwards, and many, no doubt, have done so pri- 
 vately; but as yet the Catholic papers have, I believe, 
 spoken kindly, and, thank God, ' religious black- 
 guards ' have saved me the indignity of their praise. 
 I hear one of their organs has attacked me, which I 
 am glad of, and said that my letter in the Westminster 
 Gazette would do more harm than my example could 
 do good. 
 
 " Two Catholics whom I had formerly served, very 
 good people, wrote apparently without concurrence, 
 in a very nice way, hoping that I would retire into 
 obscurity, and offering to provide the means of my 
 so doing. But though it was done in a thoroughly 
 honourable and beautiful spirit, I felt it implied what 
 I could not certainly always observe, and I gratefully 
 and kindly declined.
 
 163 
 
 "The intensity with which these matters are re- 
 garded by Catholics must seem to you quite strange. 
 
 " Some letters have, however, amazed me greatly, 
 revealing doubts in quarters I had hardly anticipated, 
 but these persons generally dream of Anglicanism 
 or such like, and when they realise my own opinions 
 they will be shocked. 
 
 " I find it better to express my opinions as in 
 sympathy with the Unitarians. ' Christian Theism,' 
 they would suppose, implies ' Deism ' in its former 
 irreligious sense, and ' Free Christians ' they do not 
 understand, and the name does not suggest religious 
 ideas to those who are unfamiliar with it; whereas 
 they understand Unitarianism to express a rational- 
 istic but religious and moral form of Christianity. 
 
 " I have not yet seen Dr. Newman, indeed no one 
 in Birmingham knows that I am here. I feel that 
 I have practically decided all that I had contem- 
 plated conferring on with Dr. Newman, excepting what 
 passed with him on former occasions, and now my 
 object would be only the consideration of such ques- 
 tions as those you so kindly and wisely touched in 
 your last letter ; also I meant it partly as a con- 
 ciliatory act towards Catholics, that I might not seem 
 to be throwing myself at once into another camp. 
 
 " I have taken lodgings here, close by the Free 
 Library, Library of Eeference and Free News Eoom, 
 and being remote from the Oratory and Catholic 
 Cathedral, my position will not be obnoxious to any- 
 one, and unless some unexpected reason should arise, 
 I shall remain on here until something casts up : I
 
 164 
 
 shall remain here quite quiet, but just step in on the 
 Sundays to one or other of the Unitarian Chapels in 
 a quiet unobserved way, as this will be a help for 
 the future, and, except private interviews with Dr. 
 Newman, I shall keep aloof from Catholics, as I know 
 such would really be their preference, especially as 
 regarding their Colleges at Edgbaston and Oscot, 
 where I am so well known. 
 
 " By the way, the most venerable priest in England 
 wrote to me to congratulate and thank me, to my 
 surprise and went on to tell me that at the recent 
 gathering of the Bishops, Dr. Manning had revoked 
 the question of my being formally censured, and that 
 the matter was referred to Eome. Considering that 
 I have resigned every office, and am not saying Mass 
 or exercising any ecclesiastical faculties, I think they 
 might save themselves that trouble. 
 
 " Believe me, &c. 
 
 "P.S. Two other proposals from Catholics, appa- 
 rently without concurrence, have come to me. They 
 are from men of high honour of feeling, and offered, 
 without any expressed or implied condition, but I 
 thought it best to decline them as being hardly 
 fair upon them, and hereafter more fettering to 
 myself than perhaps at present I quite realise." 
 
 It must indeed have been a very tempting offer to 
 him every way, for he was all but friendless and 
 nearly penniless. Mr. Martineau was the only per- 
 son in the world who knew of and sympathised 
 with his position, and precious and faithful as 
 was his friendship in this hour of trial, it was but
 
 165 
 
 of very recent date, and only on one occasion 
 as yet, had they met face to face. Bound as a 
 Dominican by the vow of poverty, he possessed 
 nothing as his own by right, but had a mere use 
 granted to him of the property which belonged to the 
 community. Of such moneys as were in his hand he 
 ventured to carry away with him, the sum of 4, 
 which he might indeed have regarded as a small 
 acknowledgment for ten years of devoted service, but 
 preferred to consider as a loan, which, as soon as he 
 was able, he returned. Of the unsolicited generosity 
 which enabled him to meet the necessary expenses of 
 the first few weeks of his strange life, till he made 
 friends and found work, it is not permitted here to. 
 speak. That, too, he was desirous to repay when 
 in a position to do so, but it was not allowed him, 
 and he was obliged to content himself with appro- 
 priating a like sum to certain purposes which would 
 he deemed helpful to enquirers after truth. 
 
 In reply to the above letter, Mr. Martineau wrote 
 on August 15th, from Scotland, where he was spend- 
 ing his summer vacation. 
 
 " KlLTGKIE, KlLLIN, GRIEF, 
 
 " August 15. 
 " MY DEAR FATHER SUFFIELD, 
 
 " My heart bleeds for you in this rending of pre- 
 cious and sacred ties, the modern counterpart of 
 martyrdom. Soon, I trust, the anguish will be suc- 
 ceeded by the blessed crown of a lightened and 
 joyous conscience, clear of human complications, and 
 bright beneath the approving eye of God.
 
 166 
 
 "H. W.'s letter would be very touching, were 
 not its weakness too obtrusive. Indeed, the insight 
 which I have gained through your recent experience 
 into the working of the Catholic system, deepens 
 my impression of the essential childishness of mind, 
 and untrustful narrowness of piety, which deform the 
 highest graces nurtured by it. To believe that the 
 All -holy God will treat a soul as lost, which, in 
 obedience to Him (or at all events what means to be 
 such) performs an act of heroic self-sacrifice, what is 
 this but a debasing superstition, applying the power 
 of religion to the corruption of the moral sense ? It 
 is in the highest degree considerate and delicate in 
 you to speak so tenderly as you do (e.g. in the West- 
 minster Gazette) of the spirit of the associates you 
 leave. But I must confess that with my view of 
 their narrowness of mind, compared with your own 
 large comprehension of things, I cannot but feel your 
 tone of humility excessive. It would not be self- 
 assertion, but only homage to the Divine truth which 
 has alighted on you as its organ, to hold your head 
 a little higher. The Westminster Gazette letter 
 seemed to me almost to imply a penitential feeling, 
 as if you not only desired to release others from 
 responsibility of participation in your acts, but almost 
 looked upon yourself with their eyes. I know you 
 will forgive me for saying this : it is perhaps due to 
 my own defective meekness." 
 
 With this gentle criticism of the exaggerated meek- 
 ness of the letter referred to'' :: , non-Catholic readers 
 
 *See above, page 140.
 
 167 
 
 will all incline to agree. And indeed at a later date, 
 when he had freed himself from the ties of old asso- 
 ciations, and learnt to stand on his feet as a man, 
 instead of making it a virtue to let himself be car- 
 ried as a child, he would have joined in condemning 
 this excessive humility and self-disparagement. But 
 it is hard to take a step which all whom you reverence, 
 or who have reverenced you, are unanimous in their 
 emphatic condemnation of nay, which your own self 
 so short a while ago would have been horrified to 
 contemplate the very possibility of and not feel as 
 if it were somehow matter for humbleness and 
 apology ; right, perhaps, and inevitable from the 
 purely intellectual standpoint, and yet on the human 
 and social side, wrong and unkind. 
 
 His own view he expressed in this reply : 
 
 "BIRMINGHAM, August 17. 
 
 "My DEAR MR. MARTINEAU, 
 
 " I thank you for your remarks regarding my letter 
 to the Westminster Gazette. If a Catholic renounces 
 the Catholic Church and has neither conscience or 
 gratitude, his course is very clear for he is embar- 
 rassed by no responsibilities. But if he be compelled 
 to the act not, as ' converts ' would say, ' to secure 
 his salvation,' but in obedience to a higher law of the 
 conscience, his position, I mean his spiritual and 
 mental position, is more difficult than even you with 
 your lofty conscientiousness and high intellectual 
 gifts and knowledge of life can fully comprehend. 
 I believe that only by degrees could you realise it. 
 
 "The transition is a moral and spiritual state,
 
 168 
 
 in which there are no landmarks, or such as attract 
 one's attention only to be avoided. 
 
 "To have obtained a certain amount of influence 
 over the consciences and over the happiness of 
 others to have obtained it by the carrying out of a 
 well-meant mistake to cause by withdrawing injury 
 and unhappiness to those who gave to me the means 
 of influencing them, does make me feel more penitent 
 than exulting, and I have withdrawn from the 
 Catholic Church like a son from the home of a father 
 who has never wronged him. 
 
 " All those entitled to know, are now fully aware 
 that I am no longer acting as a Priest or as a 
 Catholic they know also my religious opinions and 
 my probable future. 
 
 " My letter in the Westminster Gazette fulfilled 
 one intention which I had it has saved me from the 
 ignominy of vulgar and bigoted praise, and made 
 persons understand that I had no protest to offer, 
 excepting the protest of my disbelief. 
 
 " On Sunday I went to Mr. Dawson's Chapel. He 
 follows no sect. I was struck by the quiet recpl- 
 lection of the great congregation, and the evident 
 earnestness of a large number of young men of the 
 class of merchants' clerks. 
 
 " I have remained quite quiet, and in reality have 
 spoken with none but those few Catholics who, living 
 in the neighbourhood of Birmingham, happened to 
 hear of my being in their neighbourhood, and who, 
 with the delicacy of an unobtrusive reserve, seemed 
 only to wish to shew to me their affection.
 
 169 
 
 " Amongst your many acts of kindness let me 
 thank you for your communications with Croydon. If 
 it takes a little time to prepare itself, so much the 
 better." 
 
 To this Mr. Martineau replied : 
 
 " KILTGKIE, August 21st. 
 " MY DEAR FATHER SUFFIELD, 
 
 " Without time to write much at length, I return 
 these interesting letters. It is a great relief to me 
 that Dr. Newman's judgment offers no resistance 
 to the course on which your own conscience has 
 decided. I have so great a veneration for his feelings 
 on such matters, that his opposing verdict* would 
 have seriously disturbed me. Yet the assumptions 
 from which he starts so often seem to me precarious 
 and misleading, that I felt no security about his 
 judgment on the case. 
 
 " Into your sorrowful, almost penitential, feeling 
 in tearing yourself away from so many sacred and 
 tender ties, I believe I can enter. But then, is not 
 the question this : What is it that justly stirs 
 compunction and regret? Is it the present act of 
 conscience ? or is it the mistaken guidance given in 
 the past? given in good faith, but now found to be 
 illusory. The position you now take no more calls 
 for apology that Paul's repudiation of the Mosaic 
 Law. And I feel jealous of any concession, out of 
 self-accusing humility, to the false Catholic treatment 
 of your present state of mind as criminal. I did not 
 see why you should justify your late associates so 
 much at your own expense, as if releasing them from
 
 imputed participation in some real offence. I say 
 this, not from any desire to revert to my criticism, 
 but because I doubt whether I made my meaning 
 clear. 
 
 "It is curious that you went at once to George 
 Dawson's Chapel. I had been doubting whether to 
 write to him and ask him to call. But though he has 
 noble qualities and much religious power, I did not 
 feel sure that his rough and bold ways might not 
 repel you : so I refrained. But I am glad that you 
 have heard him preach. He is very unequal, some- 
 times verging on the coarse and irreverent, but at 
 others, really great. He was originally a Baptist. 
 I do not think anyone knows his present theology : 
 not perhaps even G. D. himself. He is not a thinker 
 or a student ; but he has wonderful skill as an 
 eclectic, in appropriating and distributing the best 
 thoughts of others, with sufficient colouring caught 
 in passing through his own." 
 
 By the time this letter reached him he had already 
 had some experience of Unitarian manners and forms 
 of worship, and he expressed himself respecting them 
 in the following reply : 
 
 " BlBMINGHAM, 
 
 "August 26th. 
 " MY DEAB MB. MAETINEAU, 
 
 "It is too bad to write to you still egotistically, 
 but I know your kindness would make you desire it. 
 
 " As soon as the conscientious questions as to 
 Catholicity and my Order were fully decided and 
 acted on, and the matter closed, I could then
 
 171 
 
 distinctly throw my thoughts and spiritual life into 
 my altered position. You will be glad to hear that 
 this causes me no difficulty, no void, no pain, but 
 quite the reverse. Of course I am grieved, as I ought to 
 be, at the honest grief caused to friends, but no longer 
 with the sense of self-reproach which I experienced 
 in considering the matter before acting (as in that 
 letter written from Bosworth, to which you allude, 
 and which was copied into other papers a fortnight 
 after its appearance in a Catholic paper.) 
 
 "Those who oppose through mere anger or spirit 
 of party I am quite indifferent to. But I now dis- 
 tinctly recognise my position, and the genuine pain 
 of others does not in the least degree cause my 
 conscience apprehension, and therefore I sympathise 
 with their sorrow without being sad. 
 
 " Also I can already perceive that the etJws of the 
 persons and systems (if it can be called so) which 
 will surround me, instead of revolting and offending, 
 and grating something in my mind, exactly conforms 
 with what I have really always preferred. The sub- 
 mission of manner and word to the Priest has never 
 pleased me, and I have always rather tried to adopt 
 a manner calculated to lessen such in others, and 
 the honest kindly independence and equality which 
 I recognise with those whom your kindness has 
 brought me in contact with, makes me feel quite at 
 home ; nor does the system I perceive pursued in the 
 management of Chapel affairs offend me, though 
 doubtless in the hands of vulgar and self-sufficient 
 minds, it might occasionally make me wince.
 
 172 
 
 " Also the witnessing the behaviour, the tone dis- 
 played in the public worship, removes from me the 
 sense of shame-facedness and apprehension I had 
 that all would hang on the Minister I perceive that 
 in reality the instinct of religious reverence keeps 
 things straight. 
 
 " On the whole I do not regret the appearance of 
 my letter, as it has, I find, entirely silenced the praise 
 of Protestants, who are very angry at my praise of 
 Catholics. They now see that I cease to be a 
 Catholic because I disbelieve, and not because I can 
 gratify them by joining in a factious or controversial 
 opposition. 
 
 " This will not gratify the spite of those who 
 specially employ themselves in abusing Catholics, 
 but perhaps to thoughtful minds it makes my act 
 the more significant when it is clear that it has 
 resulted solely from the experience of conscience. 
 
 " The only point now not quite clear to my mind 
 is my right line towards those who are rather un- 
 settled and write to me ; from the dread of helping 
 to destroy spiritual props in minds in which I might 
 not be hopeful of such being replaced, I probably 
 take too much the ' Catholic side,' and ' do not be 
 rash,' ' and you do not feel obliged in conscience to 
 investigate, so you must not, &c.' I do deeply feel 
 the danger if I am hasty or rash in this matter, 
 though I may push this perhaps too far? 
 
 " Yours sincerely and gratefully, 
 
 " EOBEKT EODOLPH SuFFIELD."
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 NEITHER ANGLICAN NOB EVANGELICAL. 
 
 In Dr. Newman's religious novel, " Loss and 
 Gain," the Story of a Convert from High Anglicanism 
 to Eomanism, there is a scene which would be more 
 amusing were it less exaggerated, in which the young 
 man whose dissatisfaction with the Church of his 
 fathers has somehow become known, but who has not 
 yet publicly and definitely declared himself, is visited 
 by representatives of various sects and opinions, who 
 one after another seek to win him to their particular, 
 and to them infallible, form of faith. Mr. Suffield 
 had a somewhat similar experience when making the 
 far journey in an opposite direction, and before yet 
 he had clearly declared himself a Unitarian. One, 
 an Anglican " abbot," wrote, congratulating him 
 " that the true and really infallible head of the 
 Church is leading you to embrace true Catholicity, 
 by which alone we can hope for the reunion of the 
 visible Church. How gratefully and humbly would 
 countless numbers of English Catholics welcome such 
 as you among them. How more than pleased I 
 should be if you would give to me such a visit. The 
 few of us who are here do most earnestly desire to 
 be true Monks, and have learnt to love trials and 
 sufferings in order that we may grow in our Blessed 
 Lord's likeness under our Holy Eule. A visit from
 
 174 
 
 you would help us on our road." Nor was this cor- 
 respondent discouraged by Mr. Suffield's reply : " My 
 dear reverend brother in Christ," he wrote, " thank 
 you very much for your kind note. I am pained by 
 what I hear of your most terrible trial. It is the 
 most intensely agonising one that a Christian soul 
 can know. I myself have endured something of your 
 agony, but I think and trust these fearful failings of 
 the understanding have quickened in me the faith 
 of my heart, and now my understanding is growing 
 stronger also. But all through my struggle I would 
 not have shaken the faith of another for worlds, or 
 given to the enemies of our Lord a triumph in my 
 case. Very dear brother, may not this battle-field 
 even yet see you come off ' more than conqueror.' " 
 It must have seemed strange to him, this fervent 
 appeal in language he was so used to, but coming 
 from one outside of his Catholic Church, and setting 
 up the particular faith of his own choosing as some- 
 thing for which to sacrifice reason and life. 
 
 Another well-known Evangelical Nonconformist 
 wrote, " I have gone over the position you occupy in 
 repeated mental conflicts, and therefore am perhaps 
 qualified better than many to offer a word in season. 
 I earnestly hope and pray that you may not take up 
 your abode in the tents of the Unitarians. I have 
 been a zealous Protestant from my youth, yet of the 
 two I would rather have the Creed of Archbishop 
 Dupanloup than that of Dr. Channing. May I recom- 
 mend to your notice one of the most interesting 
 books I ever read, " Teachings of Experience," by
 
 175 
 
 Joseph Barker. He passed through Unitarianism 
 on his downward course. I am not anxious to gain 
 you for the Church of England, but for Evangelical 
 Christianity, rightly so called, as I believe I have 
 seen its blessed fruits in living and dying." 
 
 Many such well-meant affectionate entreaties 
 reached him, of which one more may be given in 
 full, as a striking illustration of that delusion which 
 is common to men of every religion, making the 
 individual confident that the particular opinions he 
 at present holds are the final truth of God, to which it 
 should be his prayer and effort to lead all his fellows. 
 
 " Keverend Sir, It was with the greatest delight 
 that I read your manly protest against Papal Infal- 
 libility. Subsequently, you left, I understand, the 
 Eoman Church for the Protestant. Believe me, I am 
 fully able to appreciate this your step, as I too, about 
 thirteen years ago, left Eomanism for Protestantism. 
 I was Priest and Professor of Divinity at the Univer- 
 sity of After I left the Church I went to 
 the British Museum, and devoted myself to Syriac 
 studies. Meanwhile my religious experience had 
 shown to my mind the utter untenableness of Pro- 
 testantism, which represents not liberty but licence. 
 Among Protestants the most vital points are contro- 
 verted, so that, to a great many, Christianity is but a 
 loose system of morality. There are, indeed, Evan- 
 gelicals, Ritualists, Baptists, &c., of a high confessional 
 colour, but is their belief anything else but inconsis- 
 tency ? They cling desperately to certain tenets of 
 their sect, because they feel the cravings of a believing
 
 176 
 
 soul. But such stubborn, self-made belief, cannot save. 
 Where is the Church of Christ and His Apostles ? 
 Our Saviour promised us that the gates of hell 
 should not prevail against her. Thus she, visible, 
 like every other historical institution, must exist 
 somewhere, and, if we open our eyes, we must be 
 able to find her. Where is, then, this One Holy 
 Catholic and Apostolic Church ? Up to the Great 
 Schism there was but One Catholic Church, com- 
 prising the whole world, east and west. Then Eome 
 and the west separated from the common Catholic 
 ground, which the east preserves unaltered (neither 
 adding nor subtracting anything) up to this hour; 
 while Eomanism, rushing from innovation to innova- 
 tion, introduced Papism and its tail of new doctrines, 
 shifted the basis of Apostolical Church institution, 
 and led its sectaries to hypocrisy or unbelief. 
 
 " After having passed through the Koman domain 
 of false doctrine and papal tyranny, after having wan- 
 dered through the dreary desert of Protestant indi- 
 vidualism, I have reached (some years ago) the safe 
 port of the Holy Orthodox Catholic Church, and I 
 have found perfect rest for my soul, and a safe prospect 
 in the hour of death ! I cannot tell you how happy I 
 am now, and how much I am satisfied with the 
 impregnable fastness of truth and heavenly comfort, 
 which is the Orthodox Church. I know you will not 
 and cannot take amiss, that I, a perfect stranger to 
 you, beseech you to turn your eyes towards the Holy 
 Orthodox Church. As we were once "confratres" 
 in the same Church, as we passed the same way
 
 177 
 
 through Protestantism, so I hope we shall one day 
 meet again in the Orthodox Catholic Church. Tet, 
 though I am a stranger to you, you are not a stranger 
 to me, for many a beautiful song of your " Crown of 
 Jesus " we sing in our household devotions. May the 
 God of Truth lead your steps in the right direction. 
 
 "Yours, &c." 
 
 It was time for him to speak out and define for the 
 benefit of the religious world his settled position. All 
 these alternatives to Eomanism seemed to him at 
 once less reasonable and less attractive, and he had 
 not thrown off the yoke of a world-wide faith to bow 
 his understanding with pain and difficulty under some 
 denominational or local or party dogmatism. He left 
 a Catholic Church for what he believed to be a still 
 more catholic one, w r hose faith was that common to 
 all religions of civilised men, and one which imposed 
 no sort of penalty on free inquiry ; accordingly there 
 appeared in Church Opinion, of August 27th, the 
 following : 
 
 "Through the kindness of a friend we are enabled 
 to publish the following interesting letter from Father 
 Suffield to a clergyman of the Church of England. 
 It will be seen that Father Suffield's ecclesiastical 
 position is not at all what had been anticipated, and 
 will be as little satisfactory to the Anglicans as to 
 " Evangelical and orthodox" Dissenters. It seems to 
 us a sort of Christian Theism with the minimum of 
 dogmatic belief, like what is ably described in the 
 little book of F. Pecant, " Avenir du Theisme 
 Chretien." A religion edified by Christian experiences,
 
 178 
 
 but in reality reposing not on revelation, as such, in 
 the ordinary sense of the term, but on the conscience, 
 and the manifestations of God. Whilst thus entirely 
 differing from him in his conclusions, our readers will 
 be interested in learning what they are : 
 
 " BIRMINGHAM, Aiujiist 22nd, 1870. 
 
 " MY DEAR SIB, 
 
 " Private communications are so very numerous at 
 present, that I cannot conveniently add to my occu- 
 pations by contributing the literary help you do me 
 the favour of offering. Moreover, your able periodical 
 partakes somewhat of a controversial character, and 
 is regarded as anti-Catholic in its position. I am 
 peculiarly circumstanced, having resigned all offices in 
 the Catholic Church, and ceased the exercise of 
 priestly and Catholic rites : from the intimate manner 
 in which I have been interwoven in the Catholic body 
 in England, this act causes great pain to those whom 
 the least 1 should like to wound ; and I am anxious 
 to do nothing but what is demanded by the exigences 
 of circumstances or the requirements of conscience, 
 which could in the slightest degree grieve those who 
 have so many claims upon my affection, gratitude, 
 and reverence. 
 
 " After long and deep thought, study, prayer, and 
 counsel, I decided that it would be impossible for me 
 honestly to continue to act as a priest. The infalli- 
 bility of the Pope and of the Scriptures alike, I question, 
 and the dogmas resting solely on either of those 
 authorities, I am not able on that account to admit.
 
 179 
 
 "It is my desire to unite with others, and to assist 
 them in the worship of God and in the practice of the 
 two-fold precepts of charity, unfettered by adhesion 
 on either side to anything beyond those great funda- 
 mental principles as presented to us by Jesus Christ. 
 
 "Though relieved from all the obligations of my 
 Order, I do not wish to consider myself as alienated 
 from the Catholic Church, or from other Christian 
 communities, by any personal act. I leave none, and 
 join none: I assume a position hostile to none; if 
 one man hurls an anathema, another man is not com- 
 pelled either to accept it or to retaliate it. 
 
 " Having understood that those who are commonly 
 called Unitarians, Free Christians, or Christian 
 Theists, thus agree in the liberty inspired by self- 
 diffidence, humility, and charity, to carry on the 
 worship of God, without sectarian requirements or 
 sectarian opposition ; that they possess a simple, but 
 not vulgar, worship, and a high standard of virtue, 
 intelligence, and integrity, and these after the 
 Christian type, moulded by the Christian traditions, 
 and edified by the sacred Scriptures ; holding the 
 spirit taught by Jesus Christ, and the great thoughts 
 by virtue of which he built up the ruins of the moral 
 world ; and yet not enforcing the reception of com- 
 plicated dogmas as a necessity, or accounting their 
 rejection a crime ; a communion of Christian wor- 
 shippers, bound loosely together, and yet by the force 
 of great principles enabled quietly to maintain their 
 position to exercise an influence elevating and not 
 unimportant, and to present religion under an aspect
 
 180 
 
 which thoughtful men can accept without latent 
 scepticism, and earnest men without the aberrations 
 of superstition, or the abjectness of mental servitude 
 to another such approved itself to my judgment, and 
 commended itself to my sympathy. 
 
 " I intend adhering to the pursuits of the clergyman 
 and of the Christian teacher, and communications are 
 in progress in another part of England which may 
 .terminate in my accepting .thus a duty conformable 
 to the habits of my life, and which will not throw me 
 into a position of hostility, or embarrassment as to 
 those honoured and loved Catholic friends, with 
 whom so greatly I should prize to maintain kindly 
 intercourse, inasmuch as I am only externally severed 
 from them by my being unable to believe certain 
 dogmas which a Catholic is bound to regard as 
 essential. Thus I hope I have not only thanked you 
 for your obliging offer, but adequately explained my 
 position, and shewed that the future you were com- 
 missioned to hold out to me in the Established 
 Church, would not be deemed possible by the 
 authorities who have done me the honour and kind- 
 ness to communicate in my regard, as soon as they 
 are made aware, that the Articles and the Athanasian 
 Creed would be amongst the insuperable barriers to 
 my entertaining such a proposal. 
 
 " Many write to me evidently under a grievous 
 misapprehension. They anticipate from me the 
 denunciations of that vision of beauty, which I have 
 left simply because, like a vision, it had everything 
 but reality. Allied as I am by relationship with
 
 181 
 
 several of our ancient Catholic families, allied by the 
 ties of friendship with nearly all of them, I feel it is a 
 shame to myself that any stranger could suppose one 
 word of my lips, one thought of my mind, could cast 
 a reproach on those beautiful and honoured homes 
 where old traditions received a lustre greater even 
 than antiquity and suffering can bestow crowned 
 with the aureola of charity, nobleness, purity, and 
 devotedness. Such memories print on my heart their 
 everlasting record. To cease to believe and to 
 worship with them was a martyrdom, which none but 
 the Catholic can understand. 
 
 "I have ascended now to another stage of my life, 
 to rise to it needed sufferings of the mind and of the 
 heart, the sacrifice of everything in the world I cared 
 for ; but I perceive a work to do, and by the blessing 
 of God, I shall strive to perform it. Youth, strength, 
 vigour, and hope return to me with the expectation. 
 Truth obtained by suffering is doubly dear to the 
 possessor. 
 
 " Very sincerely yours, 
 
 " EOBEET EODOLPH SuFFIELD." 
 
 In accordance with the advice of Dr. Newman he 
 made application to the General of the Order for a 
 dispensation from his vow of obedience ; it had 
 become impossible for him to be faithful to it any 
 longer, but it seemed "more gracious and con- 
 siderate " to seek remission of it through the 
 recognised channels. On the other hand it was 
 impossible for his Eoman Superiors to enter into his 
 view of the case ; to ask dispensation on the ground
 
 182 
 
 of loss of faith appeared to them as if a wife were to 
 seek the annulment of her marriage on the ground 
 that she had been unfaithful to her husband. The 
 answers he received from his English Superior and 
 from the General of the Order were as follows :-- 
 "THE MONASTERY, WOODCHESTEE, 
 
 " August 15th, 1870. 
 
 " MY VERY DEAR FATHER SUFFIELD, 
 
 " My heart is too full of sorrow to say much, 
 although what you confided to me from time to time 
 in past years invariably made me fear some such 
 denouement as the present. Your mind always 
 seemed to me to be struggling with difficulties which 
 were an enigma to me, and several times that you 
 said you would like to die suddenly convinced me 
 that you were in a state of mind few would be able to 
 understand. Still I always hoped that a time of 
 peace and calm would come. For it is anguish itself, 
 my dear Father, to think of you severed from us and 
 from the Church, and that too in the very eventide of 
 your life, and with a future before you which at 
 present, I am sure, cannot look anything but gloomy 
 and dark. The prayers, however, of many fervent 
 hearts will follow you, and I trust support you in what 
 I must call your lonely wanderings. I feel, however, 
 what you say in your letter, 'there is no alternative,' 
 and I will therefore not delay in putting your case 
 before our General, and asking for the dispensation 
 from your vows. Believe me, yours, with all sym- 
 pathy and affection. 
 
 "FR. GEO. VINCENT KING."
 
 183 
 
 To a Eomau Catholic sudden death is dreaded, 
 because it implies death without the last sacraments, 
 without absolution, or extreme unction, or the viati- 
 cum which sinners trust to for salvation and saints 
 long for as last preparation to meet their Lord. To 
 desire sudden death means, therefore, to have no 
 regard for these solemn rites, and the fact was, as he 
 long after avowed, that he did shrink from a dying 
 avowal of faith when his mind was full of doubt. 
 
 The General wrote : 
 
 " EOME, 28th August, 1870. 
 
 "It is under the auspices of St. Augustine, whose 
 rule we prof ess, * that I write you this letter, inspired 
 alike by my fatherly affection and my profound grief. 
 Your Provincial has written to me that you have 
 commissioned him to apply for a dispensation from 
 your vow of obedience, but you cannot be ignorant 
 that the Sovereign Pontiff alone is able to dispense 
 you from it ; and you ought to know too that he does 
 not grant such dispensations even to those who 
 are allowed to become secular priests. 
 
 " And wiiat legitimate motive can you have more- 
 over to justify such a demand ? You say you have 
 lost the faith ; it is beyond doubt a tremendous 
 calamity, but not without remedy, and is by remaining 
 in the Order that you will discover that remedy and 
 apply it. Your fall, it seems to me, has been your 
 
 * The 28tb of August is the feast of St. Augustine, whose brief 
 rnle>f Clerical life is the foundation of " The Constitutions of the 
 Order of St. Dominic."
 
 184 
 
 own fault. You speak in your letter to the papers, of 
 years of strife and anguish and doubt that you have 
 had to go through, and yet not one of your brethren 
 had ever a suspicion of it ; you exhausted yourself in 
 your lonely struggles, in which you counted too much 
 upon yourself and your individual reason, passing by 
 the means of assistance which Providence had put at 
 your door, and which you would have found in the 
 counsel of your brethren and the direction of your 
 Superiors. Then when this inner struggle has ex- 
 hausted your strength and the moment of weakness 
 has come, it is the public of whom you have made a 
 confidant, and by a newspaper that we have the pain 
 to learn it. 
 
 " Yours has been a great fault, and at the same 
 time a great misfortune. May your own eyes be 
 at least opened to see it. Think of the great number 
 of souls whom God has given you the grace to lead into 
 the truth and establish in the ways of justice, and do 
 not force upon them the cruel spectacle of the blind- 
 ness of the guide who had led them into the light. 
 Near to the threshold of eternity do not belie, do not 
 dishonour a life consecrated to the Apostolate by the 
 shame of an apostacy. 
 
 " Follow the counsel that my affection for you and 
 my desire for your salvation inspires. Withdraw to 
 one of our convents, or if you prefer it, to one of the 
 Passionists', or of any other Order, and there make a 
 serious retreat, closing the door upon all the noises of 
 the world, and occupying yourself exclusively on the 
 great business of your salvation.
 
 185 
 
 "For the present I ask no more of you, and I 
 beseech it of you rather than command it. 
 
 "Adieu, my son, I will unite my prayers to yours 
 to implore our Lord to enlighten and bless you. 
 " FK. A. V. JANDEL, 
 
 " Mag. Ord." (Master of the Order). 
 
 It is a type of thousands of like letters written by 
 those who stay to those who go. They mingle 
 reproach, and prayer, and entreaty, and insist upon 
 infallible but impossible means of recovery. " Come 
 back, put yourselves under the old influence, banish 
 the new ones, and if you are earnest and persevering 
 in your efforts, you may yet be as we are." So they 
 cry to us from out the narrow room which they 
 imagine the vault of heaven, but we cannot return till 
 we grow blind ; we have seen the real sun and the 
 stars, and cannot again be persuaded that the painted 
 ceiling is the sky. " Why didn't you seek advice?" 
 they say. Because, dear friends, we knew so well all 
 you could and would say to us ; why pain you, why 
 expose our trouble and your shame before the time ? 
 
 It is singular how both of these letters speak of him 
 as an old man drawing near his end, while he was 
 really in mid life. The fact probably was that 
 austerity and anxiety had so worn his frame that he 
 did impress people as aged beyond his years. 
 Certainly many years after those who knew him best 
 would not have thought of him as on "the verge of 
 eternity." Save for one long and serious illness, he 
 enjoyed good health and spirits for twenty years from 
 the time these letters were written.
 
 186 
 
 A short notice of his " fall," which appeared in The 
 Tablet, the leading Eoman Catholic journal, seemed 
 to many to insinuate that there had been some moral 
 delinquency on his part antecedent to his change of 
 faith, and so had given to many of his old friends, 
 who were in mourning for his loss, just cause of 
 offence. In consequence, his English Superior, who 
 from his official position would be of all others most 
 intimately acquainted with his life, and the first to 
 hear of any breath of scandal against one of his 
 subjects, wrote to the Editor of The Tablet : 
 
 " My attention has been called to a short notice in 
 The Tablet of the 3rd instant, in which the writer 
 says that F. Suffield ' had for some time been a cause 
 of anxiety to his Superiors.' At the end of the same 
 paragraph it is said, ' We take leave of this unhappy 
 Priest without dwelling on the sad causes which have 
 led to his apostacy, instructive though they might be.' 
 What the writer of that notice really meant to 
 insinuate it is not for me to decide ; but I am sorry 
 to say that those words have been interpreted in a 
 sense highly injurious to F. Suffield's character, and 
 as casting blame upon his late Superiors. In letters 
 sent to me within the last ten days, that notice has 
 been called ' a disgraceful, vulgar, and lying para- 
 graph.' It is said ' that none but one himself 
 infamous could impute to F. Suffield any moral blame ; 
 that the writer in The Tablet insinuates what he dares 
 not say, and doesn't perceive that he throws much 
 deeper blame on F. Suffield's Superiors than on 
 F* Suffield himself.' I may add that many and
 
 187 
 
 severe remonstrances have been made to me by 
 F. Suffield's numerous friends about the ' ambiguous 
 meaning of the notice in The Tablet.' I feel, there- 
 fore, that F. Suffield's own request to me that I 
 should say something on the subject is only just and 
 fair. However, as I have been Provincial only about 
 three months, my testimony in this matter may 
 probably be considered of little weight ; I have there- 
 fore written to Father Aylward, my predecessor, on 
 the subject, and, I think I cannot do better than 
 reproduce his words. Father Aylward, writing to me 
 in reference to F. Suffield, says : ' Whilst I was his 
 Provincial, I felt no uneasiness in reference either to 
 his moral character or to the orthodoxy of his doc- 
 trine. His sad defection from the faith came upon us 
 all, as you know, with the suddenness of a thunder- 
 clap. None of his confreres in the Order knew 
 anything, nor suspected anything, of those distressing 
 doubts which he now says harassed his mind for 
 years (even before he joined our Order). Almost up 
 to the last his sentiments were most loyal to the 
 Holy Father; and if ever I had to withhold my 
 sympathies from his views, it was chiefly on matters 
 purely political, and on which he never professed to 
 speak the mind of his brethren. Deplorable as his 
 fall from the faith is, truth and justice demand that 
 the charges alluded to which would convey any 
 impeachment of his moral character, or of the 
 sincerity of his faith (however much he may have 
 been tempted to doubt), should be met by his Superiors 
 (and I am one) with a frank and peremptory contra-
 
 188 
 
 diction. The affliction which his sad case causes us 
 would not be alleviated by hearing things said of him 
 which would simply be against the truth.' I need 
 hardly add how fully I concur in those sentiments 
 thus expressed by my predecessor, Father Aylward. 
 Asking you to insert this letter in your next issue, 
 believe me, yours sincerely, 
 
 " F. GEO. VINCENT KING, 
 " Dominican Priory, Haverstock-hill, 
 
 " September 14th." 
 
 To this the Editor subjoined this note : 
 
 " Our short notice, referred to in somewhat extreme 
 language by our correspondent, was as follows: 
 
 ' Mr. Suffield had been for some time a cause of 
 anxiety to his Superiors. He has written a letter to 
 say that he repudiates the Scriptures, the Pope, and 
 even Christianity, as understood, whether by Catholics 
 or Protestants, and that he joins the Unitarians, or 
 free Christians, or Christian Theists. We take leave 
 of this unhappy Priest without dwelling on the sad 
 causes which have gradually led up to his apostacy, 
 instructive though they might be. We simply com- 
 mend him to the pity and prayers of all.' We did 
 not feel justified in mentioning in this notice the 
 causes which, we had been assured, had led to this 
 miserable apostacy. They seemed to touch more 
 closely than a journalist is warranted in doing in the 
 details of personal and private life. We have now,
 
 189 
 
 however, no alternative but to mention, under reserve, 
 what was actually told us, viz., ' that F. Suffield had 
 been so engrossed in external and active works for 
 many years, that he had become lamentably neglect- 
 ful of his own spiritual life of prayer, and that this 
 and his want of observance and docility to the 
 directions of his Superiors, had for some time been 
 naturally a cause of anxiety.' A letter from a Priest 
 whose position gave him a means of knowing, con- 
 firms this statement from another source, though it 
 does not coincide with the impression conveyed by the 
 F. Provincial, who, of course, speaks with authority. 
 But, granting the correctness of our information, 
 what more instructive or practical lesson could there 
 be for those among us who are tempted to act as 
 though a life of activity in external good works could 
 secure final perseverance without a life of prayer ! 
 No apostacy from the Catholic Faith and we 
 presume our Very Eev. correspondent would not 
 maintain the contrary can possibly take place 
 without grave moral fault, except, indeed, in case of 
 insanity, and then we should not call it apostacy. 
 For Catholics it can only be a question of in what 
 did the fault consist? Again, there is no axiom 
 more undoubtedly certain, or more salutary to remem- 
 ber than ' Nemo repente,' d'C. If we have unwittingly 
 injured one whom we would rather pray for than 
 uselessly annoy, we regret having done so. And we 
 particularly regret that any words of ours should 
 have given pain to our correspondent, or to any of 
 his confreres, in a matter itself so full of sadness."
 
 190 
 
 The next week appeared this rejoinder : 
 
 " SIB, In your last number I see a letter from the 
 present Provincial of the Dominican Order in Eng- 
 land, stating that the late Father Suffield and some 
 of his numerous friends are complaining of the 
 manner in which this fallen man has been spoken of 
 in your columns. Allow me to assure you that very 
 many Catholics are justly shocked at the maudlin 
 sensitiveness about his character ! displayed by one 
 who is an apostate from his Order and his Faith. 
 
 "It is a public secret that many Fathers of the 
 Order had been long anxious concerning the fate of 
 a Eeligious, who, to other delusions, had added the 
 not uncommon one, that the spiritual life can last to 
 the end, if a Priest allow himself to be absorbed in 
 external work. As to the doubts which the late 
 F. Suffield now entertains or more properly speaking, 
 has thrown off concerning the Catholic Faith, he 
 himself has published to the world that they have 
 been of very long standing. The thoroughness of the 
 Catholic tone which has been conspicuous in The 
 Tablet, will, I trust, not evaporate like the Eev. Mr. 
 Suffield's spirituality. 
 
 "I enclose my name because, though I have good 
 reason not to appear prominently in this sad business, 
 ' I want you to see that I have a right to speak 
 about it. 
 
 " I am, Sir, yours faithfully, 
 " September 20th, 1870." " VERITAS.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 WHAT OLD FKIENDS SAID OP HIM. 
 
 He was quite right, the editor of The Tablet, in his 
 statement that according to the generally received 
 belief of Roman Catholics, "no apostacy from the 
 Faith can possibly take place without grave moral 
 fault, except, indeed, in case of insanity." But the 
 hearts of Roman Catholics are as tender and true as 
 are those of Protestants, and the transition from love 
 and reverence to censure and abhorrence is no easy 
 one. It is interesting to note this struggle in the 
 many private letters written to him at this time 
 some boldly defying the accepted maxim and 
 acquitting him of fault, and others preferring the 
 alternative of believing him insane. 
 
 Here are a few extracts from the private corres- 
 pondence of a family, all the members of which were 
 on very intimate terms with him, and deeply attached 
 to him. They are from letters of August and Sep- 
 tember, 1870. 
 
 "Tell Father Suffield, with our united kind love, 
 that we read with much interest the article on the 
 " Infallibility," in the Saturday Review, which he was 
 good enough to send us. Tell him how frightful have 
 been the consequences of its proclamation to numbers 
 who were anxious to believe in our Faith and enter 
 our Church."
 
 192 
 
 " I have received several very triste letters from 
 Father Suffield, and I am quite sure you have, like 
 me, been most distressed. Would that all men could 
 be satisfied with the pure and simple Catholic Faith, 
 without diving into works written by heretics and 
 infidels. Father Suffield has been in weak health for 
 years, so deep study and great reading have been too 
 much for him." 
 
 "As to Father Suffield, I don't like to think about, 
 much less to talk about it. I don't know anything 
 that has shocked me so much. . . . Good-bye, 
 say your prayers as hard as you can, or the Devil is 
 sure to have you. By Jove ! I don't know who is 
 safe. Count no man happy till he 's dead. ' The 
 grey-haired saint may fail at last.' Father Suffield 
 has taken my breath away." 
 
 " I was so glad to get your letter and find you had 
 taken poor Father Suffield's part. I thought, two 
 years ago, that the bad state of his health with the 
 strict duties of his Order would tell upon his brain. 
 I was right it seems. The poor man has a terrible 
 bee in his bonnet, which, however, I am glad has 
 taken the ultra form it has, in leaving the true Church 
 for such utter trash as that which he has embraced. 
 He was so well known and so much respected that 
 he might have done serious harm to our dear Faith. 
 But now people will understand that the mind is 
 weak as well as the body. But you have too many 
 reasons to be grateful to the dear Father to think of 
 anything but his goodness, and pray hard for his 
 return to faith and salvation."
 
 193 
 
 "Never go to stay with Father Suffield, the poor 
 man is gone all wrong. He read and fasted till he 
 hurt his health. Pray God he may be made right 
 again. E. had a nice letter from him." 
 
 "26th October, 1870. 
 
 " Do not be induced to stay with poor Fr. Suffield, 
 nor be with him on the same intimate footing as of 
 yore, not because he has seceded from the true faith 
 so much, as because he must have a screw loose, 
 which may become looser and looser. I have read a 
 letter of his which I think anything but reassuring, 
 and I fear the future for him more than the harm 
 he can do now, which is the reason why I wish you 
 to be prudent." 
 
 " September 12th, 1870. 
 
 "I was so delighted with your dear little paragraph 
 written in defence of so valued a friend as Fr. Suffield, 
 who must be going through a martyrdom of suffering, 
 for no Catholic can feel affection for him now that he 
 has deserted the faith, and no other sect can feel 
 gratified, as he positively declined to belong to any, 
 so he will stay, as he justly says, much alone." 
 
 Another, a priest, who, with all his family, had 
 been till now among his most attached friends, 
 writes : 
 " MY DEAEEST FRIEND, 
 
 " We have been talking of writing to you, but two 
 things prevented me (1) The difficulty of knowing 
 how to begin to you. (2) The fear of getting a pain- 
 ful letter back touching on subjects we loved to talk
 
 194 
 
 of in happier days, but which now, to hear anything 
 of from you is like a knife to the heart. 
 
 "You may fancy the agony we all suffered when 
 you left Bosworth. It has been as yet the trial and 
 pain of my life. I think of you constantly, but it is 
 the priestly form of years ago which used to be my 
 support, my comfort, my instruction. How I re- 
 member the joys of my meeting with you ! Now I 
 would do anything that was right to help you in any 
 way, for soul or body ; but what can I do but pray 
 that before your departure into Eternity you may 
 again hear the voice of our Lord and return to him ? 
 
 " Poor Martineau never knew the truth, and I trust 
 even he may see it. 
 
 " To argue with you is a thing I will never do. It 
 would do no good and perhaps engender bitter feelings, 
 or at least give rise to bitter words. But it is an 
 awful thing, and a terrible trial and suffering. For 
 myself I shall never, never forget you and all the love 
 and kindness you have ever shewn me. I would offer 
 myself to pains and death if I could bring you back, 
 and I shall never give up hope. How often I think 
 of words you have uttered and that have borne fruit in 
 me ; never to be forgotten words, though now bring- 
 ing pain. I appeal against your present self, to your 
 old self, to the priest who ever led me on, till your fall 
 came. For myself, by the help of the Infinite God, I 
 will be faithful, and never pry into his mysteries, lest I 
 should be dazzled by their splendour. I submit my 
 poor little intellect to His, and am glad to believe 
 mysteries I cannot understand. Pride may lead me
 
 195 
 
 to believe myself rather than the voice of Christ, 
 unless I fear and pray and watch, and may God 
 grant that I may die, if by living I should be un- 
 faithful to Him. This is my determination to live 
 and die in the Communion of God's Holy Church. 
 Your loving friend of days gone by." 
 
 This letter is from the same hand which had 
 written to him a while before : " I think you speak 
 rather strongly about persecution, as I suppose we 
 cannot deny that punishment in this world for wilful 
 and obstinate heresy is right and most just. When, or 
 how much it is expedient, is another thing." But 
 love is stronger than all dogmas and conviction, and 
 "many waters cannot quench love, neither can the 
 floods drown it"; and so the same sad wail of won- 
 der and pity and obstinate affection and abiding gra- 
 titude is repeated in letter after letter, from priests 
 and laymen, ladies and nuns. Holding fast to the 
 assumption that it was " God's Holy Church" they 
 were members of, that not to be for a moment 
 questioned under pain of grievous sin, all the rest 
 followed ; of course what his Church teaches is 
 true, and to question it on the ground of difficulties 
 of understanding is absurd. What those who so 
 argue always fail to see is, that what they assume is 
 the very point in dispute. The pride must border on 
 insanity which leads a man to doubt God's Word or 
 God's Church, and prefer to their testimony his own 
 feeble reason ; but his own reason, however feeble, 
 is the light by which he must determine, if indeed 
 the book or the Church be divine ; no amount of
 
 196 
 
 confident assertion avails in place of proof. So all 
 these remonstrances, numerous and affectionate as 
 they were, were of necessity unavailing. 
 
 His successor at Bosworth wrote, telling him all 
 about the parish, and then went on: "And now, dear 
 Father, permit me to refer to a subject at once pain- 
 ful 'and distressing, since it brings before the mind 
 one whom I have loved and revered and admired for 
 goodness and holiness and unbounded zeal, who gave 
 joy and consolation to all who crossed his path, but is 
 himself now sunk in a sea of desolation and bitter- 
 ness. You understand that I mean yourself. And 
 may it not all be a temptation, may not those doubts 
 you spoke to me about in your letter be a trial of your 
 faith ? You say in your letter to-day that you have 
 used means for many years, yet the difficulties remain. 
 Does that imply that because you have resisted temp- 
 tation for years, you must now yield ? I am sure you 
 know the Christian's rule of faith, the Christian's 
 guide submission to the Church too well to oppose 
 it ; now without making shipwreck of your soul's 
 salvation. 
 
 "You know, and I am sure have often taught, that 
 temptations against faith are not to be met by argu- 
 ment and subtle reasoning, but by a speedy flight and 
 turning away of the mind, and they who argue upon 
 matters supernatural, will, in all probability, reject 
 what they cannot comprehend. I am speaking to 
 one immeasurably my superior in every way, and 
 amongst other things, in intellectual power, and 
 therefore I will not argue, and if I did I could not
 
 197 
 
 succeed in proving to you what my own reason can 
 never comprehend. But, I believe because the Church 
 teaches and, dearest Father and brother, excuse the 
 freedom I take, when in the name of God I implore 
 you to use the same words, notwithstanding all your 
 doubtings and fears and difficulties, and I am: sure 
 your reward will be immeasurably greater than that 
 of many who have not had the same trials to contend 
 with. It would seem I were speaking as a child 
 when I give advice so simple to one who is much 
 more capable of advising me than I him; but my 
 heart is full, and I express my feelings in the simplest 
 way. I have said several masses for you, and have 
 to-day offered up the Holy sacrifice, beseeching the 
 Blessed Virgin, for whose honour you have done so 
 much, to help, comfort, and save you. That, pur 
 prayers may be heard is the earnest wish of your 
 ever affectionate brother." 
 
 There were but few exceptions to this manner of 
 loving entreaty, and those from correspondents whose 
 previous acquaintance with him had been less 
 intimate. Two instances may be given as illustrating 
 the feeling commonly entertained by Eoman Catholics 
 towards those whom they call " apostate priests," 
 and making the more striking the exceptional regard 
 shown for this one. These extracts are from letters 
 written some months after this, when he had settled 
 down in the Unitarian ministry, but the same remark 
 applies to some of the extracts given above. 
 
 It is a Priest, an Oxford convert, who came by 
 chance into his neighbourhood, who writes :
 
 198 
 
 " I cannot but be overpowered with grief and 
 anxiety on your account. It is as yet impossible for 
 me to believe that you can have lost the faith which 
 you once had, and which carried you through so many 
 glorious works as a Catholic Missioner. I should not 
 write to you now except that, like many others, I 
 sincerely loved you. Of course, love to one who denies 
 our Blessed Lord cannot be ; and by one who does so 
 heinous a sin against God, cannot be desired. As I know 
 nothing and wish to know* nothing of the grounds 
 upon which you have renounced the Catholic faith, 
 I don't desire to enter into the matter with you. I 
 only wish you to know that I shall pray for you ; my 
 affection for you will oblige me to do this. Many are 
 doing the same. They and I consider you are labour- 
 ing under a mental delusion, which you have been for 
 mysterious purposes permitted to fall into. With 
 much sorrow and regard I remain," &c. 
 
 But indeed this letter is but a weak attempt at 
 being righteously bigoted. Our other extract is from 
 one who represents more correctly what others ought 
 to have felt and some tried to feel : 
 
 " Edified as we were at . . . by your zeal and 
 devotion, we were pained and shocked at your leaving 
 the Church, and are quite aware how intensely 
 miserable you must be and how difficult it must be 
 to retrace your steps. But time is short, &c. How 
 then can you hesitate to throw off the mask you 
 have assumed? only those who have been brought 
 
 * All these words are underlined in the original.
 
 199 
 
 up as Catholics can feel how impossible, utterly im- 
 possible, it is to believe in any other than their own 
 Church ; and were you to declare the contrary, you 
 know we would not and could not believe it. When 
 I remember your discourses and devotion in the past, 
 and contrast with it your present life, it is so fearful 
 and appalling that I cannot help sending these few 
 lines to implore of you to stop even now. Think of 
 the numberless souls you will be contributing to lose, 
 think how they will torment you for eternity for 
 causing them to be lost. What are you now but a 
 subject of pity to those you have left, and an object 
 of pity to those you have joined. Forgive me for 
 writing thus plainly. I know my words will reach 
 your heart sincere and true as they leave mine." He 
 could forgive most things, but what always angered 
 him was any doubt thrown upon his sincerity. To 
 give up everything in mid-life, to leave friends, posi- 
 tion, provision, and come out into the world friendless, 
 penniless, unknown, had been a bitter trial ; to accuse 
 him of having done it all in pretence and hypocrisy 
 was absurd ; but it was nevertheless atrocious. But 
 such letters were rare. The following is more typical 
 of the feeling generally entertained towards him, and 
 especially by those whom he had himself won to the 
 Koman Church. How pitiful the struggle it reveals 
 between the assumed duty of abhorring heresy as 
 mortal sin on the one hand, and gratitude and respect 
 and affection towards a spiritual benefactor on the 
 other. It is from a lady who has since won distinc* 
 tion as an authoress.
 
 200 
 
 " 20th August, 1870. 
 " DEAE BEVEREND FATHER, 
 
 " Your letter gave me great pain and has made me 
 very sad, but still what could I have you do more 
 than you have done. If your conscience cannot 
 submit to believe what the Church teaches, why I 
 know you cannot force it. Dear Father, how can I 
 say you have done right in leaving the Church and 
 not believing what it teaches, and yet I could never 
 bring myself to say that the Father and friend I have 
 loved and respected so long could have done what you 
 have done. I never knew that you had been so 
 tormented and agonised about the very questions I 
 so often used to write to you about : I never dreamed 
 I was causing you pain in so doing : not to save my 
 life would I give you pain if I could help it. But 
 now I am coming to the purpose for which I write, 
 namely, that as you said in your letter you had 
 dropped all priestly functions and ceased to be a 
 Catholic, I cannot, much as it costs me, aid myself 
 by writing to you for advice when I want it, and must 
 of necessity choose another director. Do not think 
 I have done this without a stern and resolute struggle, 
 but my sense of duty has gained over the love which 
 I have for you and will ever have. Yet never, never 
 shall anyone be permitted in my hearing to say one 
 word of disrespect against you, and I hope you will 
 continue to look upon me as a friend who never 
 forgets one who was her father, and who continues to 
 pray for happier times. I am often troubled with 
 doubts, and I am continually being told different
 
 201 
 
 things by different persons, and it sends me almost 
 wild." 
 
 The following, dated August 16th, 1870, is inter- 
 esting, as a revelation of the sore straits to which at 
 this time many learned Catholics were reduced : 
 
 " The last month I have had to endure the greatest 
 trial of my life, now happily ended. From the un- 
 expected opposition in the Council, I felt sure that 
 there would be no definition, and the vote of a 
 month ago struck me with such a sense of impossi- 
 bility that I did not know what to do, and for some 
 time I did not feel able to approach the Sacraments. 
 It was not only the Infallibility ; in the Bull I saw 
 the formal enactment of that system which I always 
 dreaded. Five years ago I said to a Jesuit Father, 
 if there were a General Council, the majority being 
 all Papal nominees, would, of course, vote for the 
 extrernest Roman views ; would it then be a free 
 Council ? He got angry, though a most amiable man, 
 and told me I should end by being a Protestant. I 
 never could see how the Pope can appoint and de- 
 pose all Bishops at will, though I have always held 
 the indefectibility of the Eoman diocese. But there 
 is a wide difference between the belief that the Pope 
 can never, acting freely, deny the Faith, and holding 
 that he is correct in every moot point of faith and 
 morals. And the apparent cases in which the Pope 
 has ruled wrong, seemed to me insuperable difficul- 
 ties. Then the number of Latin bishops, as against 
 Teutonic, and of bishops without sees; the tacit 
 compact that none shall be Pope but an Italian,
 
 202 
 
 no matter whom God has chosen ; the trammels im- 
 posed on the Fathers; most of all the epilepsy of the 
 Pope which never leaves the blood, and almost always 
 destroys the mind at last ; those considerations quite 
 shook my respect for the authority which proposes 
 the new constitution to my faith. Then I saw your 
 first letter in the Westminster Gazette (the others I 
 have not seen). I admired its bold, certain tone, 
 though I was unable to think the word ',vain ' rightly 
 suggested of Pius IX. I have found all the harm in 
 the world done by want of intellect, far more than by 
 vanity or pride. I do not believe that the Pope or 
 Archbishop care a straw for worldly motives ; they 
 think they are doing God service. 
 
 " I never suffered so much mental distress, aggra- 
 vated by the brainless crowing of the Faithful, who 
 know nothing of the difficulties, which are so terrible 
 to those who have read history without bias. When 
 I read that we're already bound to believe, I was 
 unable to feel myself still a Catholic. I had a long 
 talk with one of the best Oratorians, which hardly 
 gave me any light. My usual Confessor, a hot 
 Infallibilist (and not very wise), knowing my mind 
 and hearing all my great difficulties, said he would 
 still give me absolution, which I did not expect ; but 
 I seemed to be unable to attempt confession. 
 
 "I had, while expecting to be refused absolution, 
 considered what would become of me. I could not 
 dream for a moment of wilfully leaving the Com- 
 munion of Eome, no matter what the Centre of Unity 
 does. But, I said, suppose I can't believe and can't
 
 be shriven, am I to live as a heathen, without sacra- 
 ments ? And I had thoughts about the Greek schism, 
 for I never could think for a moment of being an 
 Anglican, or of any other sect. 
 
 "After I left my confessor's room, though I had 
 been offered absolution, I began to feel that I was 
 wrong in spite of all difficulties. True, the system I 
 don't like has been authorised as the correct one. 
 True, it has been done by means not pleasant to see. 
 But it may be right in spite of my sense and my fear ; 
 and as to the means, there are ways of God as to 
 our own private lives which are as unintelligible as 
 anything of this kind. And, in spite of all that may 
 be said against the freedom of the Council, God can- 
 not have so deserted the Church as to let a clear 
 majority of all the bishops in the world betray their 
 trust and vote a lie. It is impossible, this dogma ; be 
 it so : but so is the Kesurrection, for which I see not 
 one shred of evidence in Scripture, or anything else. 
 Without the authority of the Church, I should cer- 
 tainly not believe that St. Paul teaches the same 
 belief that we have about it. I should, treating the 
 matter as a Deist, conclude that he had invented a 
 theory to reconcile an old superstition with common 
 sense, without quite breaking with the former. Nay, 
 my whole nature protests (or would protest) against, 
 not Christianity absolutely, but against its being 
 imposed upon me as an essential thing. So if I 
 refuse what the Church now proposes, can I logically 
 stop there? 
 
 " All this occurred to me for the hundredth time at
 
 204 
 
 least; but in a moment I was freed from further 
 difficulties. I saw, and still see, all the contradictory 
 things which trouble so many. I knew that I was 
 not threatened, as yet, with deprivation of the Sacra- 
 ments, and also that some of our bishops say no one 
 is bound to believe till the end of the Council ; yet I 
 felt that God gave me a word, exactly as when I 
 became certain, in a moment of time fifteen years ago, 
 that I must join the Roman Communion to be within 
 the pale of salvation. And since this I have been not 
 only at peace, but in fulness of joy, as if I had 
 received the faith for the first time. I have, I believe, 
 been in great danger. I am not sure of having 
 grievously sinned ; but I neither thought of wilfully 
 jumping out of Peter's barque, nor of staying on 
 board (as some are doing) while in secret mutiny. I 
 asked for more faith, and have got it. It may be 
 possible indeed that they are excused by their good 
 faith, or their implicit belief in anything proposed by 
 the Church ; but, while I feel I have no right to judge 
 others, I am clear that I have no business to set 
 myself up to judge either Council or Pope. As I said 
 to my mother when I left the Establishment, ' If I 
 am deceived, God has deceived me.' You will smile, 
 I fear, when I say that I have more trust in Rome 
 now than I have had for years. It is rather like 
 ' amantium irse.' But Talleyrand was right in saying 
 ' Les affaires de Rome ont porte malheur a tous ceux 
 qui y ont touche.' 
 
 "I have just received a letter from F. B. which 
 may interest you. I cannot agree with him. He is
 
 205 
 
 quite mistaken in attributing any errors of mine to 
 any desire to think for myself. I have never wished 
 anything so much as the dominion of just authority. 
 I feel with the crushed opposition, but, I am certain, 
 I believe with the majority. 
 
 " P.S. August 17th. I have now read your letter 
 in the W. G. of August 6th. At that time I could 
 have expressed, and certainly felt, all that you say. 
 I am deeply pained to see how far your difficulties 
 have gone. I have heard you a good deal abused 
 lately, and have snubbed diverse who talked sneer- 
 ingly about 'the verge of apostacy, &c.,' and having 
 been tempted so much myself, I am very anxious to 
 see what you will do. 
 
 " One thing I should like to say, because it may be, 
 perchance, of some little use. I have heard you 
 preach and speak, and read your writing, and I have 
 always admired the clearness, calm, and purity of 
 your style, ' qu' on y voit.' Well, in your letter of 
 August 6th I see faults which can hardly be all 
 misprints, and a general excitement which makes me 
 feel sure your mind has been exercised past its power 
 of thinking calmly. In that case I can only pray 
 that you may not feel bound to take any further step 
 towards widening the gulf already existing between 
 yourself and orthodox thought." 
 
 This last remark will have been made by other 
 readers of the letters of Mr. Suffield's here reprinted, 
 and it has been a constant temptation to the editor to 
 amend the solecisms and make the meaning clear. 
 It has been thought best, however, to leave them
 
 206 
 
 untouched ; their defects bear witness, which cannot 
 be gainsaid, to the sincerity of the writer. He did 
 not, as a sophist, sit down to justify by the best 
 arguments he could discover conclusions to which he 
 had been led by self-interest, or worldliness, or pride. 
 He wrote as out of the fulness of a soul in which 
 reason and affection were contending for the mastery, 
 so that he w r as being forced to a course he inwardly 
 revolted from. He knew that every word he wrote 
 went as a knife into the hearts of those whom, alone 
 in all the world, he called friends, loved, and was 
 loved by ; and he could not stay to correct the gram- 
 mar of his utterances and mould the sentences. 
 
 After all, there is no fault in these letters which 
 the grammarian will not find equalled and exceeded 
 in some which are, nevertheless, accounted to be 
 inspired. 
 
 For the rest, this correspondent reveals in his letter 
 the secret which so much puzzles Protestants ; how 
 can Eoman Catholics believe such impossible things ? 
 they ask ; and often they assert that educated men 
 only pretend to believe in them, forgetting, indeed, 
 that they themselves believe in much which seems 
 to the outsider quite as impossible. 
 
 Habit, indeed, is for the most part the reason of 
 faith to one and the other, they believe because they 
 always have done so. But the Eoman Catholic who 
 is instructed and thoughtful, believes because he 
 ought, because it is his duty and salvation, because he 
 firmly makes up his mind to it, and resists any sug- 
 gestion against the faith as a temptation of the Devil.
 
 207 
 
 Hence the difficulty for any good man to free himself 
 from the system ; he must begin by what he believes 
 to be the grave sin of doubting; and probably Mr. 
 Suffield would all his life have remained in the 
 Church, forcing down his doubts, but for the quasi 
 authorisation to doubt and to inquire which was 
 afforded by the vexed question of Papal Infallibility. 
 
 Two other letters he received at this time from 
 men both eminent in the Eoman Communion. The 
 one, an ecclesiastic, whose orthodoxy has never been 
 called in question, " wrote to the effect that, as he 
 believed it possible for a person to leave the Church 
 without incurring guilt in the sight of Almighty God, 
 so he gave him credit for sincerity, and for following 
 his conscientious convictions in the step he had 
 taken."" The other, a layman, well known in the 
 Church and outside, wrote on the 8th of August : 
 
 " The slight knowledge that I have of you, per- 
 sonally, hardly justifies my thus intruding upon you. 
 Nevertheless, having read your letter in the West 
 minster Gazette, I cannot refrain from offering you 
 the respectful assurance of my sincere and deep 
 sympathy. These are times of trial indeed to the 
 best and noblest among us, as well as to some 
 whose imperfect faith is supplemented by still more 
 imperfect; works; and the trial is increased by the 
 utter inability of many good men to enter into, or 
 understand the difficulties of some who are but sin- 
 cere seekers after truth." 
 
 On the 30th of August he wrote again : 
 * The writer's own words.
 
 208 
 
 "Your kind letter has been forwarded tome. I 
 earnestly hope and pray that time may assuage the 
 bitter pain you are now enduring. How often what 
 seems to us the greatest of misfortunes turns out to 
 have been our very salvation. Confiding in the good 
 providence of God, I feel sure that the recent defini- 
 tion will be ultimately a blessing to the world in one 
 way or another, and not only to the world but to the 
 Christian Church also. My occupations, however, 
 and my line of thought are so remote from theology, 
 that it is comparatively easy for me to be silent and 
 wait. This does not, however, prevent me from 
 having the keenest sympathy with anxious loving 
 souls, whose position and feelings do not allow them 
 to assume a similarly passive attitude. With every 
 best wish for your happiness, and with sincerest sym- 
 pathy and esteem, believe me, yours very truly." 
 
 It was a few months later, when he had settled down 
 at Croydon as a Unitarian minister, that he received 
 a gratifying proof of the kindly remembrance in which 
 he was held by his late parishioners, in the shape of 
 a handsome silver-plated inkstand, with the inscrip- 
 tion, "To the Eev. Father Suffield, from his friends at 
 Bosworth." He sent the following letter in acknow- 
 ledgment :- 
 
 "93, TAMWORTH ROAD, WEST CROYDON, 
 
 "February 2nd, 1871. 
 
 "MY VERY DEAR FRIENDS, 
 
 " I thank you sincerely for the beautiful token of 
 your affectionate remembrance. I quite understand 
 that you do not thereby signify agreement with me in
 
 209 
 
 my religious position, but simply wish to testify that 
 you love me as a friend who loved and will always 
 love you. 
 
 " Unable to believe certain opinions fundamental to 
 all Catholics, I shall never cease to love tenderly all 
 of those who, like yourself, like the Fathers and 
 and Brothers of my late Order, like my many dear 
 devoted friends, were my chief argument inducing 
 me to consider myself enabled conscientiously to 
 banish the intellectual difficulties I felt. 
 
 " What you used to hear from me last year, is 
 what I now address to my little flock here what 
 previously I addressed to you, was the full teaching 
 of the Catholic Church ; in late times I spoke to you 
 chiefly of God, His providence, virtue, charity. Then 
 I had begun to think it possible that the counsels I 
 was taking with three holy and learned ecclesiastics of 
 the Catholic Church might result in my being compel- 
 led to resolve to sever so many precious and beautiful 
 ties of sympathy, communication, and affection. 
 
 "Always shall I recommend to God those at Bos- 
 worth and elsewhere, who so numerously have been 
 my kind and sympathising friends. 
 
 "May every blessing attend you and your children 
 whom I have loved so well, and w 7 hen this short life 
 is closed may a unity be obtained hereafter which 
 here seems to be attainable. 
 
 "I beg a perpetual share in your prayers, and to 
 remain always 
 
 " Your loving, grateful, and devoted friend, 
 
 " ROBERT EODOLPH SUFFIELD," 
 
 N
 
 210 
 
 And so he took leave of his Catholic friends ; how- 
 ever kindly the feelings they cherished towards 
 him, it was impossible that any degree of intimacy 
 could be maintained between them. A close friend- 
 ship may, and often does, exist between persons of 
 different religions, but it must be on the terms that 
 neither party regards the other's faith or unfaith as a 
 sin and outrage on his own. Old love may survive, 
 and pity keep back blame, but it must be at a 
 distance. So he had little or nothing to say to 
 Catholics till the approach of death renewed their 
 vain but loving importunities. He had arrived now 
 into a new world, and soon found himself surrounded 
 by new friends less demonstrative and less rever- 
 ential, but as many and as genuine.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 MINISTRY AMONG UNITABIANS. 
 
 It was indeed a new world into which he had 
 entered, and he set to work at once to make himself 
 at home in it. On August 14th, his first free Sunday 
 for 20 years past, he attended morning and evening 
 at George Dawson's Chapel, the next Sunday found 
 him a worshipper at the " Church of the Messiah," 
 and the next at the " Old Meeting House." He made 
 friends rapidly among Birmingham Unitarians, and 
 at the beginning of the next month accepted invita* 
 tions to Manchester and Liverpool. His stay, how- 
 ever, was very short, for on the 7th instant he returned 
 to Birmingham, where, on the morning of the llth, 
 he conducted service and preached at the Church of 
 the Messiah. It was but six weeks before that he 
 had celebrated Mass in the morning, and given "The 
 Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament " in the even- 
 ing to his little flock at Bosworth : but great as the 
 outward change was, he had been so long preparing 
 for it, and was, moreover, so naturally inclined to 
 simplicity of ritual, that he took readily to the Puri- 
 tan bareness which then, even more than now, was 
 characteristic of Unitarian services. Indeed, so far 
 as can be ascertained from his diary and correspon- 
 dence of the time, he does not seem to have given 
 attention to the contrast, but to have been absorbed
 
 212 
 
 rather in the thought of the great truths common to 
 all systems of religion, and anxious, above all, to say 
 nothing which would wound his old friends, or 
 gratify what he knew to be unreasonable prejudice. 
 So his first two sermons were a candid examination 
 of what had long been his great argument for Catho- 
 licism its success. And he asked, the first time he 
 spoke in a Unitarian pulpit, the success of Jesus 
 Christ, to what was it due ? He showed that it was 
 not due to belief in his Divinity, for that was slowly 
 apprehended nor to his miracles, for he was at pains 
 to conceal them nor to a Church system organised 
 by him nor to prestige or success while living " it 
 arose out of failure, spread like fragrance of the broken 
 vase, and silently possessed the world." 
 
 On the Sunday following, he preached at Upper 
 Brook Street Free Church, in Manchester, where 
 then the pulpit was vacant, and they were anxious 
 to obtain his services as their minister. He repeated 
 in the morning his sermon of the previous Sunday, 
 and in the evening returned to the same subject, but 
 regarding it from a more positive aspect. His brief 
 notes of this discourse are as follows : 
 
 " Cause of his success his personal character, 
 human, and therefore mutable, and our encourage- 
 ment chiefly his simplicity (he aimed at no effect), 
 neither all hero nor all gentleness tender and 
 strong severe and considerate unostentatious 
 attractiveness of simplicity, repulsiveness of preten- 
 tiousness his devotedness self-sacrifice . ' ' 
 
 He left Birmingham on . the 22nd, and went to
 
 213 
 
 Croydon as the guest of Mr. Mallison, who at that 
 time was actively interested in the proposal to com- 
 mence free religious services in the town. On the 
 Sunday following he preached at the Stamford 
 Street Chapel, in Blackfriars. It was the time 
 when day by day news was coming of siege and 
 battle and slaughter in France, and he took his 
 text from the Book of Lamentations, i, 20. "I am in 
 distress ; my heart is turned within me : abroad the 
 sword bereaveth, at home there is death." He spoke 
 of the compassion which the English people should 
 feel for the dead and wounded on either side, and 
 how death was the lot, not of soldiers only, but of 
 mankind. " May our compassion go beyond death, 
 and follow the pilgrims as they travel forward?" 
 Yes, he answered, all religions recognise the kinship 
 of living and dead, and the yearning of the bereaved 
 is the sanction of the doctrine of the Churches. The 
 sermon was probably disappointing to those who had 
 gone to hear a distinguished convert from Eomanism, 
 and was not wise from a worldly point of view; 
 militant Protestants, and good and useful men some 
 of them are, are suspicious and intolerant of anything 
 which smacks of Roman doctrine, and ask of a 
 convert, not that he should palliate, but protest, and 
 from his own experience, furnish matter to make 
 their protest the more effective. His own comment 
 in his reminiscences, dictated to a shorthand writer 
 shortly before his death, is, " my first Unitarian 
 sermon was on quite a neutral subject. I adopted a 
 similar course for a long time when asked to preach
 
 214 
 
 on special occasions, causing disappointment to Unita- 
 rians, who naturally looked for some expression of 
 my motives and reasons for renouncing Romanism 
 and embracing the Unitarian position. This was 
 owing to a morbid dread I had of wounding the feel- 
 ings of my old friends, who had always been very 
 kind and good to me. But it was a mistake ; espe- 
 cially when on an early occasion I preached in favour 
 of a Roman Catholic religious belief, which I hold 
 on broad grounds, but which is identified with the 
 Roman system. To this, perhaps, was due the absurd 
 impression which arose in some quarters that I was 
 still a Roman Catholic under a Unitarian garb." 
 
 But, indeed, he never had the art to hold back the 
 expression of convictions which were likely to be 
 unwelcome to his hearers or injurious to his own 
 prospects. While yet a Roman Catholic, and under 
 the obligation to entertain no thoughts on matters of 
 religion but such as his Church approved, he was 
 far too outspoken on political subjects to suit his 
 Superiors. Now, that at a great price he had ob- 
 tained freedom, he was not minded to adopt any 
 kind of compromise, but spoke publicly his beliefs 
 and disbeliefs without regard to what might be said 
 of him. There were some who accused him of insin- 
 cerity had they known him better, imprudence and 
 want of reticence would have been their changes. 
 He had never to reproach himself with having said 
 what he did not believe ; there were times when 
 perhaps he might have repented of having spoken too 
 frankly and to no good purpose.
 
 215 
 
 He seems by this to have made up his mind to 
 settle for a time at least at Croydon, where it seemed 
 as if a Church had been gathering for his ministry, 
 while he was being prepared at Bosworth for their 
 service. So our lives fit into one another, and men 
 and women far apart, in place, and thought, and way 
 of life, are adjusted, themselves all unconscious of it, 
 each for the other, for, 
 
 There 's a Divinity that shapes our ends, 
 Rough-hew them how we will. 
 
 It was on the 2nd of October that he conducted 
 the first free religious service held at Croydon. The 
 temporary place of meeting was a Nonconformist 
 Chapel in London Eoad, which had been hired for a 
 couple of months. They began together, congrega- 
 tion and minister ; it was an experiment on either 
 side, and the success must have appeared doubtful 
 to both. Could he accommodate himself to the ways 
 and faith of such a congregation ? Could they, few as 
 they were, succeed in establishing a Church ? 
 
 It was the day observed among Eoman Catholics, 
 and more especially by the Dominicans, as " Kosary 
 Sunday " ; and the new Unitarian minister had been 
 long distinguished among English Eoman Catholics 
 by his ardent propagation of the devotion of the 
 Eosary. Year after year he had preached on it and 
 explained it this first Sunday of October, and had 
 always attracted crowds to hear him. Now, to a 
 mere handful of liberal religious thinkers, he ex- 
 pounded his own views of "Free Christian Worship." 
 What they were will best be told in his own state-
 
 216 
 
 ment, written to the Norwood News, in reply to an 
 assertion made in that paper, " that the members 
 of the Free Christian Church repudiate nearly all the 
 doctrines most dear to Christians." 
 
 " We believe profoundly in the Great and Good 
 God our Father, the universal and all present Spirit ; 
 that His providence, His power, and His mercy 
 never fail; that He should be adored both in public 
 and private worship ; that we should earnestly pray 
 and strive to keep those laws of piety and virtue 
 planted in the human heart, recognised by the ex- 
 perience of mankind, and presented with singular 
 majesty in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures 
 these Scriptures we continually use and reverently 
 read. We believe that our immortal soul is for good 
 or for evil, day by day building up here the monu- 
 ment of its own eternity. We believe that God has 
 the will and the power to pardon our sins. We be- 
 lieve that no single soul has been created for eternal 
 wretchedness. We believe the words in which Jesus 
 and St. James describe the end and essence of religion. 
 Eegarding all men as the sons of God, we believe 
 Jesus to be the Son of God, and amongst his brethren 
 the greatest in the wonderful influence of his life, his 
 teaching, and his death. We pray in the mode and 
 with the very words he taught. We believe that 
 every man must truthfully act according to his con- 
 science, and, therefore, if unfortunately he hold a 
 superstition, he must practice it. W T e would rather 
 for his sake that he could be freed from such spiritual 
 bondage, and, with holy and virtuous joy, advance
 
 217 
 
 into the liberty of the children of God : depending 
 not on priests, sacraments, ministers, churches, sects, 
 bibles, atonements, expiations, rites, but on the living 
 God. Him we find sufficient. I have been accus- 
 tomed for years to have intercourse with characters 
 beautiful, and pure, and kind, who conscientiously 
 held a superstition. I now enjoy intimate inter- 
 course with those whose faith, and hope, and virtue 
 rest on what is universal to all religion God and the 
 conscience. They do not deem my ministrations or 
 those of any other man necessary for salvation. They 
 place their confidence and their hope in Him, to 
 whom alone Jesus directed the aspirations of his dis- 
 ciples ; I find them as devoted, as holy, as spiritual, 
 as earnest, as noble, as truthful, as Christian in their 
 tone of thought and life, as the best of those I have 
 left. They differ from many Christians on points of 
 Jewish history and Biblical criticism, and they do 
 not feel enabled to believe in the everlasting torture 
 of millions of souls ; but surely they hold the greatest 
 of the truths, which are dear to all Christians." 
 
 So far as to what he retained of the doctrines 
 usually associated with the Christian name, but 
 among his own few fellow-believers who desired his 
 ministry, his anxiety was that there should be no 
 misunderstanding, and no subsequent trouble because 
 he believed perhaps less, perhaps more than some of 
 them. He was the free minister of a free congrega- 
 tion, and on neither side was any obligation imposed or 
 accepted, yet he felt it desirable to have a quite clear 
 understanding. He had to decide at this time between
 
 218 
 
 remaining at Croydon, which he had only bound 
 himself to till Christmas, and accepting the tempting 
 invitation which came to him from the ancient and 
 influential congregation at Upper Brook Street, 
 Manchester. 
 
 On November 6th he laid the matter plainly before 
 the congregation, and read to them the communi- 
 cation he had received from Manchester, where, at a 
 meeting of the congregation, held on October 9th, 
 it was resolved unanimously, "That the Eev. E. 
 Eodolph Suffield be earnestly invited to become the 
 minister of this congregation from Christmas next, 
 and that Dr. Marcus and Mr. Aspden do wait upon 
 Mr. Suffield, in London, to induce him to accept the 
 office." 
 
 His own notes of what he said from the pulpit ran, 
 " ask for prayer express my opinion on the two 
 places interest, edification, gratitude in connection 
 with present work remarkable agreement of opinion 
 and sympathy." Then written, apparently as spoken, 
 " When your kindly confidence induced you to ask 
 me to become the minister of this congregation, I was 
 advised by many men of experience in the Unitarian 
 body not to mention my opinions on religious mat- 
 ters. This advice did not commend itself to my 
 judgment, and therefore I took means of making 
 known my line of thought without committing my- 
 self to any pledge. If your numbers were as large 
 as at the Chapel at Manchester I should consider 
 that I had sufficiently manifested my opinions, be- 
 cause in a large town those who disagree can easily
 
 219 
 
 separate and go elsewhere, and their absence leaves 
 no gap. Our numbers here are so small that it is 
 specially desirable that the minister should be in- 
 harmony with the pervading tone of thought in the 
 congregation as to the object, and character, and 
 method of his ministry. On all these matters my 
 opinions are quite formed. Compelled entirely to 
 disbelieve in the supernatural powers claimed by the 
 Catholic Church, the truths not exclusively Catholic 
 that remain to me I believe as distinctly as hereto- 
 fore, but upon a wider and stronger evidence, evi- 
 dence which my Catholic training weakened but did 
 not destroy. It will be satisfactory to my own sense 
 of justice and respect for yourselves, to let you under- 
 stand such part of the history of my own mind as will 
 explain to you the spirit in which I should embrace 
 any ministerial duty, and the objects which I should 
 propose to myself. Heretofore I have in no way 
 alluded to my antecedents ; I wished to speak to those 
 who had a right to hear what I believed, but I did 
 not wish to indulge a vulgar curiosity, or even to 
 appear to pander to vulgar prejudices and hostilities 
 with which I have no sympathy. 
 
 " I should regret declining a position of influence 
 and importance at Manchester if it should appear 
 that my idea as to our objects differs from that of 
 any considerable section of yourselves. Therefore, 
 next Sunday and the following, I shall endeavour to 
 unfold to you briefly the prolonged process of investi- 
 gation which, from a Catholic priest, has made me a 
 Unitarian minister."
 
 220 
 
 This was probably the only occasion that he spoke 
 from the pulpit, except by way of allusion, of his past 
 life. It is the kind of subject which attracts but does 
 not edify, or even if it may do so, only at the cost of 
 the modesty which a true gentleman will not sacrifice 
 without certain call of duty. 
 
 Controversy too he avoided from the first. Thus, 
 on November 20th, we find in his handwriting, 
 " Notice. Three or four persons, strangers to me, 
 have written to request that I would treat publicly 
 and controversially certain questions at issue be- 
 tween Catholics, Anglicans, and Dissenters. They 
 must pardon my not obliging them. I do not 
 contemplate introducing allusions to the different 
 Churches, except just so far as is necessary to ex- 
 plain certain conclusions bearing on and elucidating 
 what I believe to be fundamental, moral, and reli- 
 gious truths. I shall be very glad indeed to arrange 
 with any persons to go into such questions privately, 
 and any one of any class in society, or any religious 
 position or any age, will be equally welcome." 
 
 On December 4th he held his last service under a 
 hired roof, the congregation having purchased for 
 their use an iron Chapel in Wellesley Eoad, which 
 has since been superseded by a handsome stone 
 building, but is still retained by the congregation, 
 and used as a hall for social meetings and lectures. 
 When giving notice at evening service that they were 
 meeting on that spot for the last time, and passing as 
 it were out of their brief nursery period as a congre- 
 gation, he said, " the Sundays we have met here
 
 221 
 
 together have proved the most marked epoch of my 
 life. Mr. Martineau, who will preach next Sunday, 
 is the friend who came to see me at Bosworth, when 
 I wanted to learn whether in the ranks of free 
 thought and of intellectual faith I should find the 
 same earnestness, zeal, and virtue which I had 
 witnessed elsewhere. The united interest I have 
 witnessed among yourselves in inaugurating this reli- 
 gious work forms a striking reply to my inquiry." 
 
 On the 29th of December the congregation unani- 
 mously agreed to a resolution inviting him to become 
 their permanent minister, an invitation which he 
 had already resolved to accept in preference to that 
 from Manchester. Mr. Maurice Grant, the Honorary 
 Secretary of the congregation, in conveying to him 
 the message, wrote, " I may indeed congratulate you 
 on the warm interest you have been able to create on 
 your behalf in so short a time, and hail it as a happy 
 augury for the future of our little community. I 
 heartily hope you may be with us for many years, 
 and direct our efforts to establishing a really ' free ' 
 Christian brotherhood, devoted to the one true God, 
 and earnest and zealous for him." It is significant 
 of the tone prevailing among its members, and much 
 encouraged by himself, that there was added to the 
 formal invitation, " And the congregation are pre- 
 pared to co-operate heartily with him in carrying out 
 such objects as may tend to promote the prosperity of 
 the Church and benefit the neighbourhood generally." 
 
 This active interest in the world's welfare is charac- 
 teristic of a denomination which makes no claim to
 
 222 
 
 be " The Church," as distinguished from the world, 
 and does not, therefore, set itself with a single eye to 
 seek its own good as if it were God's cause. While 
 yet a priest Mr. Suffield had been inclined to take a 
 wider survey than was considered good for ' a reli- 
 gious' devoted to the Church ; now that he was free 
 he busied himself not only as a citizen but pro- 
 fessionally, and esteeming it part of his duty as a 
 minister of religion in everything which was for the 
 good of his neighbours. 
 
 It was in response to a letter announcing to Mr. 
 Martineau his final decision in favour of the Croydon 
 congregation that he received the following reply : 
 
 " LONDON, January 6th, 1871. 
 " MY DEAR MB. SUFFIELD, 
 
 "Your letter touches me deeply. I thank God if 
 I have been in any way associated, even by an illu- 
 sion of your kindly thought, with your emergence 
 into higher light. 
 
 " I am convinced that your decision is the right 
 one; and I look with great hope to the enlarging 
 life of the Croydon Society under your spiritual care. 
 I like the idea of your ' conference ' of young people. 
 Only, I should think it important that you should 
 keep firmly the lead and direction of it, so that it 
 should be essentially an occasion of instruction ema- 
 nating from you, and not incur the risk of passing 
 into a debating class on terms of democratic equality. 
 Under the latter conditions the boldest and most 
 voluble work their way to the front, and suppress 
 the more reverent and spiritual minded. You will
 
 223 
 
 gradually discover how great a power is impudence in 
 our Protestant culture : and you must help us to gain 
 more of the Catholic reverence and tenderness." 
 
 He took an immediate active part in all the philan- 
 thropic and educational movements of the town to 
 which he was admitted as a worker. Yet amid it all, 
 he writes, " I felt like a boy beginning amongst men," 
 for the first time for so many years allowed to 
 think and act for himself, " everything around me 
 seemed strange and new " ; and again, he repeats 
 " the seven years at Croydon were full of interest, 
 and interest of a permanent kind, moreover securing 
 to me many and dear friends. But everything 
 seemed strange and new to me, and I have felt more 
 calmly in later years." 
 
 He had great need of someone who should be a 
 constant companion and partner of his new life, its 
 cares, and joys, and varied moods, and such a one he 
 found in the elder daughter of Mr. Edward Bramley, 
 the first Town Clerk of Sheffield, who was able also to 
 bring to him that which he lacked, experience of 
 Unitarians and their ways. 
 
 " Some persons suppose," he wrote, when now in 
 view of death, " that such a momentous step as 
 secession from the Eoman Catholic Church is .in- 
 fluenced by a desire of marriage. It may be with 
 some. In my case it most certainly was not. I do 
 not think I had adverted to marriage. The lady who 
 became my wife, and the joy and companion of 
 twenty happy years was not known to me until I was 
 established in a position of independence at Croydon."
 
 224 
 
 He was married on the 7th of December, 1871, by 
 the Eev. John Lettis Short, at the Upper Chapel, in 
 Sheffield, of which his wife's father was an influential 
 supporter, and for a long time honorary secretary, 
 an office since held by his son, and now by his 
 grandson. 
 
 The marriage of a priest is looked upon with horror 
 by Catholics, who deny indeed that it is a real mar- 
 riage, any more than going through the form makes 
 a couple wife and husband, one or other of whom 
 has a partner still living. And there are not a few 
 Protestants even to be found who regard the step 
 with disfavour, and would at least honour more 
 highly the priest who, breaking his other vows, still 
 remains celibate. But the feeling is unreasonable on 
 any ground, except that which Protestants reject, the 
 superiority, namely, of celibacy to the married state. 
 A vow, according to the definition accepted among 
 theologians, is a promise made to God respecting 
 something which is not only good, but more than 
 ordinary and obligatory good, " promissio Deo facta 
 de bono meliore." 
 
 Now if a person, believing that it is pleasing to God 
 that he should remain single all his life, and that by 
 so doing he will serve God better and live nearer to 
 Him, makes on this account a vow of perpetual chas- 
 tity, it would seem clear that he is bound by it only 
 so long as he sincerely believes in the hypothesis on 
 which he acted. To conclude that he was mistaken, 
 that God has no pleasure in witnessing those whom 
 He has made male and female, living apart, and as
 
 225 
 
 if wedded love took from love of Him, this may be, 
 Catholics think it is a dreadful heresy, but it cer- 
 tainly looses the bond of the vow taken upon the 
 opposite belief. So if one should, out of gratitude to 
 a benefactor, solemnly promise to do certain things 
 for him, and should subsequently discover that these 
 things were not desired by him or were indifferent, it 
 would be weak and foolish, out of mere scruple, to 
 keep the promise. So thought Mr. Suffield ; and 
 when once he had given up his faith in the Church's 
 teaching about this and greater matters than this, he 
 never doubted that it was lawful and right, and for 
 him in his position the better thing to marry, nor did 
 he ever in after years express a moment's hesitation 
 or regret about the step he had taken. 
 
 During the few years he spent at Croydon he was 
 very actively employed both there and in London in 
 all manner of work ; for his own congregation for 
 the British and Foreign Unitarian Association, of 
 the Council of which he was a member, for the 
 liberal party in general, and in every movement, 
 social, political, and religious, which he could assist. 
 
 There is no need to enumerate the many societies 
 in whose work he was so associated, but it may be 
 well to give some particulars of " The Liberal Social 
 Union " which he was the means of starting in London, 
 and which long after he ceased to be able to take an 
 active part in it, continued to bring together thinkers 
 and enquirers of many schools. His own idea, which 
 was mainly carried out, is thus expressed in a letter, 
 printed for circulation among persons likely to join :
 
 226 
 
 "CROYDON, October 9th, 1873. 
 " DEAR MR. HUTTON, 
 
 " I quite concur with you that it would be very 
 desirable for London Theists and Unitarians to be 
 brought into closer cohesion. We need a society in 
 which, moreover, could be combined some of those 
 Liberal Churchmen, Liberal Nonconformists, Jews, 
 Hindoos, Mahomedans, Buddhists, Parsees, Con- 
 fucians, Comtists, Inquirers, and Sceptics, who, 
 conscious of the difficulty of theoretic abstract theo- 
 logical speculations, yet earnestly desire the promotion 
 of the spiritual and moral life, as well as the duty of 
 thought and reverent inquiry brought to bear upon 
 such. There are many now who believe in the 
 religious life without feeling able to assert any 
 religious dogma. Others who consider they can 
 rationally affirm certain dogmas, but deem such 
 subordinate to life and subject to inquiry. We desire 
 from amongst some of such persons to form a ' Circle ' 
 of friends who could pleasantly co-operate and who 
 would like to unite at Conversaziones, Discussions, 
 Lectures, and even perhaps at Excursions. As 
 Socrates maintained the duty of a practical religious 
 moral life, refused to dogmatise, questioned every- 
 thing, and encouraged the friendly gatherings of those 
 who sympathised, we might call such a society the 
 ' London Socratic Circle.' The following suggestions 
 might arise for our consideration. 
 
 "It should meet on neutral ground. Perhaps the 
 Trustees would permit Dr. Williams' Library to be 
 used. It should have no President or Vice-Presidents,
 
 227 
 
 so that no influence should seem to predominate. It 
 must have a spirit, but no creed. The Committee 
 ought of necessity to embrace men and women, 
 foreigners and natives, students and professional men ; 
 also various schools of religious thought. The Com- 
 mittee would appoint Secretaries and Treasurer ; a 
 Monthly Chairman for public occasions ; also 
 Stewards and Stewardesses. 
 
 ' ' Those who are being invited to form the Pro- 
 visional Committee summoned to secure one Conver- 
 sazione, are persons likely to desire the formation of 
 some such society. Should we find that an adequate 
 number of ladies and gentlemen of various schools of 
 thought and various nationalities can agree thus to 
 combine, we should ourselves form a ' Circle,' and 
 then give a Conversazione to friends, for the sake of 
 making known what we had accomplished, and asking 
 the adhesion of those present as being already known 
 to us and trusted. After that evening, no new 
 member could be received without due notice to the 
 Committee and vote by ballot. 
 
 " Such a ' Circle' would in reality be an extension 
 of the Student's Union, from which it is now 
 emanating. When we had set the example, ' Socratic 
 Circles ' might get formed in all the provincial towns. 
 
 "The publication of this letter, according to your 
 request, will afford in a crude form the sort of object 
 which will, I suppose, engage the consideration of the 
 Provisional Committee." 
 
 "P.S. For three years I have had an 'Alfred 
 Circle ' for friendly intercourse at my house, alternate
 
 228 
 
 Tuesdays, 7.30 to 11. I hope those who receive this 
 invitation will, when possible, come." 
 
 In March, 1877, after more than six years of 
 incessant activity, his health broke down, and he left 
 Croydon for some months' holiday, which, by the 
 kind consideration of the congregation, was prolonged 
 to February of the next year, when he resigned the 
 pulpit, and was succeeded by the Eev. E. M. Geldart, 
 of Balliol, a convert from the Anglican Church. In 
 giving to the secretary notice of his resignation, he 
 wrote: "Whilst expressing my great regret at 
 parting with friends from whom both myself and my 
 wife have invariably experienced the greatest kindness, 
 I have the satisfaction of feeling that the period of my 
 ministry among you has been marked by the greatest 
 harmony, and that in all my efforts for the spread of 
 our religious cause, I have ever met with hearty, 
 thoughtful, and zealous co-operation . ' ' That this kindly 
 feeling was reciprocated was proved by the testimonial, 
 accompanied by the sum of 340, subscribed by the 
 members of a congregation which was neither 
 numerous nor wealthy. Writing in acknowledgment 
 of the generous gift, he used the significant words, 
 " I thank you, one and all, for the delicate, I 
 would almost say the compassionate, consideration 
 wherewith you encouraged me during those first years 
 of my emancipated life, succeeding by an almost 
 too rapid transition the specialities of my past." 
 Indeed, neither he nor they realised at the time how 
 difficult and trying his position was, and how 
 admirably he succeeded, on the whole, in the task he
 
 229 
 
 had undertaken. An old established congregation 
 with traditions and organisation would have been able 
 to guide and support a minister coming to them new 
 to the work ; but there was no such thing at Croydon, 
 there were only individuals who had to be made into 
 a Church, and all his natural talents for organisation 
 were called into full exercise. He did all that was 
 required of him and more ; what was wanting, and 
 caused him to look back upon his Croydon ministry 
 with mixed feelings, was experience of the free 
 ministry. He had been a priest all the years of his 
 active life, and more a priest than others, inasmuch 
 as he had given himself heart and soul to his office ; 
 now he knew as well as any one the difference 
 between the functions of priest and minister, was 
 scrupulous beyond others in insisting on the inde- 
 pendence of each member of his flock, but it was 
 impossible that he could rid himself at once and 
 completely of the habits of a lifetime; and if, in 
 trying circumstances, he may have once or again 
 forgotten that he was no longer a "confessor" or 
 " director of souls," it surely was what was almost 
 inevitable to one in his position in the first years of 
 his changed life. To others who had exercised 
 priestly functions for but a short time, or who had 
 never been in positions of authority and trust in their 
 Church, the transition would be- comparatively easy ; 
 to him it was the more difficult, just because he had 
 been so eminent in the esteem of his co-religionists, 
 so habituated to share all their confidences, and 
 be consulted in their most intimate affairs.
 
 230 
 
 He was long prostrated both in mind and body, but 
 kept looking forward, to use his own words, to a time 
 when he might, "in restored health and renewed 
 strength, serve again those causes, religious, political, 
 social, dear to all " with whom he had been working. 
 At length, in February, 1879, he felt capable of 
 undertaing temporary charge of the " Unitarian 
 Free Church " at Eeading, and observing the intei*est 
 taken in the cause, was prevailed upon to accept the 
 pulpit. Here he remained till his death, though in 
 June, 1888, he resigned the pulpit, wishing to be free 
 for the future from permanent engagements. 
 
 As minister of Eeading he had the great advantage 
 of the experience gained at Croydon, and looking 
 back upon it from his death-bed, he wrote, "My life 
 has not been an unhappy one anywhere, but I regard 
 the last twelve years as the happiest period." He 
 was actively interested, as at Croydon, in all the 
 unsectarian work for the welfare of the town, but 
 had not the additional distraction of London affairs to 
 contend with. "In Eeading," he writes, "it has 
 been my privilege to have been a working member on 
 committees of the Junior Liberal Club, of the Liberal 
 Association, the Temperance and General Philan- 
 thropic Society, the Charity Organisation Society, 
 the Dispensary, and the University Extension Move- 
 ment, as well having been chiefly instrumental in 
 founding the Literary and Scientific Society. " 
 
 He was anxious that it should be known that his 
 resignation in 1888 was due neither to dissatisfaction 
 nor doubts. "My ministerial office amongst you,"
 
 231 
 
 he wrote in a circular addressed to the congregation, 
 " has been one of quite special happiness ; no word, 
 no act has ever marred our unbroken harmony. To 
 the last moment of life, nay wife and I shall retain in 
 grateful memory your affection, your thoughtful zeal, 
 and your loving earnestness for the great principles of 
 which our Church stands as the local representative. 
 May our holy cause still, as ever, prosper in your 
 hands." The congregation in response to this com- 
 munication presented him with an address, in which 
 they wrote, "It would be impossible for us to 
 acknowledge in adequate terms the services which 
 you have rendered to the Church at Beading during 
 your ministry here. We have all learned to esteem 
 you as a friend, and to value the thought, earnestness, 
 culture, and thoroughness which have characterised 
 your teaching, and we owe it in a special manner to 
 you that so much success has attended the effort to 
 promote the extension of our cause in this town." 
 They accompanied this address with a substantial 
 testimonial, a witness to the unbroken friendship 
 and esteem in which they held him till death. 
 
 He continued to show the reality of his interest in 
 that cause by frequent services in all parts of the 
 country where he was invited for special occasions, or 
 could help in the absence of a minister. At North- 
 ampton he preached regularly for three months in 
 the autumn of 1888, and won the enthusiastic praise 
 of the congregation, who, in their annual report, speak 
 of his services in terms which his modesty would not 
 have consented to put in print.
 
 232 
 
 He had adopted the office of a Unitarian Minister 
 after long deliberation and at great cost. He never 
 repented of his choice. The last words he dictated to 
 the reporter who took from his lips a brief account of 
 his life, were these : 
 
 " With unceasing joy and gratitude I have always 
 adverted to my secession from the Koman Catholic 
 Church, and my having found so happy a religious 
 home in our Liberal and Unitarian Churches." 
 
 An ideal life it certainly is not, that of a Unitarian 
 Minister, nor did he pretend to find it such. It has 
 its seamy side, its discouragements, its worries, its 
 humiliations, and he had his experience of all. But 
 these things are incidents of human life in every 
 position, and the man who in spite of them finds 
 work, and help, and thanks, and appreciation, and 
 friendship, and freedom, has made himself indeed 'a 
 happy home' on earth.
 
 CHAPTEK XV. 
 His LAST DAYS AND DEATH. 
 
 Mr. Suffield was leading a very peaceful and, at the 
 same time, active life for more than eighteen months 
 after his retirement from the regular ministry. The 
 following account of the last few weeks before he was 
 laid aside with the disease which ended his life, will 
 be read with interest : 
 
 " March 29th, 1891, which was Easter Sunday, he 
 preached in the evening at Wood Green. 
 
 " April 5th he preached at Cardiff, and lectured the 
 next evening on Savonarola. 
 
 " April 21st, 22nd, 23rd, and 24th, he attended the 
 Triennial Conference in London. He was the guest 
 of Mr. Mackenzie, at Croydon, so had an opportunity 
 of seeing many old friends. He was not present at all 
 the meetings, as he was suffering very much, and 
 found difficulty in walking. At the Conversazione he 
 remained seated nearly all the time. 
 
 " April 30th he went to Oxford to meet Count 
 Gobelet d'Alviella, who was delivering the Hibbert 
 Lectures that year. They had corresponded for 
 several years, but never met. He lunched at Dr. 
 Drummond's, attended the lecture, and dined with 
 the Count and Countess at the Eandolph.
 
 234 
 
 " May 3rd he preached for the last time. It was 
 at Sale, near Manchester, and he delivered his 
 lecture on Savonarola the next day. One of the 
 sermons was his farewell sermon at Beading. He 
 was very unwell, and I have sometimes wondered 
 whether he chose it purposely, thinking it might be 
 the last time he should ever preach. He stayed at 
 Leamington two days on his way home ; he was 
 really ill there, and awoke to the fact that he could 
 not be suffering from rheumatism merely, so decided 
 to see a doctor on his return to Beading. 
 
 " He got home Friday, May 8th, was at a committee 
 of the Literary Society that evening, at Church the 
 following Sunday morning, at a committee of the 
 University Extension on the Monday evening, and at 
 a meeting of the executive of the Liberal Association on 
 Tuesday evening, May 12th. That was the last time 
 he was out to walk. It took him more than an hour 
 to get to the office, and it is not a mile. He was to 
 have taken the Chair, but he had to go into a shop and 
 send on to say they were to begin without him." 
 
 On May the 14th he called in his own doctor, Mr. 
 May, who attended him with great care and kindness 
 to the end. By his advice he went to London, 
 accompanied by his wife and her sister, to consult 
 Dr. Allingham, but by that time was so much worse 
 that he had difficulty in walking the few steps across 
 the station platform. He returned home at once, and 
 was presently informed, by Mr. May, of the character 
 of the illness from which he was suffering a 
 malignant tumour of the bowels. He doubtless must
 
 235 
 
 have feared something serious, but expressed no 
 apprehension before, and the communication came 
 upon him as a terrible surprise. Writing shortly 
 after to his oldest friend, who had been a Dominican 
 with him, and was now, like him, a Unitarian 
 minister, he said : 
 
 " My journeyings from home are at an end. My 
 local doctor and the London specialist have pro- 
 nounced my death warrant incurable cancer in the 
 bowels. This came as a great surprise to me, and a 
 terrible shock to my dear good wife. I do only hope 
 that she may not have the trial of witnessing very 
 excruciating sufferings, which I really should dread 
 more on her account than my own though I don't 
 profess indifference to pain! We have had a very 
 happy twenty years (next December), of married life, 
 and I wish that our last months together should be 
 such as to leave a tranquil and even happy memory." 
 
 It was to the same friend that he wrote, in pencil, 
 when now too weak to use pen and ink, signing him- 
 self "your ever loving friend, E. E. S. ;'' and then 
 recalling his correspondent's last letter, with its 
 conclusion "yours for ever," he added, as a post- 
 script, "as you to my mind truly say, ' Ahvays in 
 God.' " They were almost the last words he wrote. 
 
 He received from friends of all Churches numerous 
 kind letters which consoled him in his trial with 
 the assurance of wide and deep sympathy. He was 
 in the habit of keeping such letters in a small bag, 
 which he took backwards and forwards with him as 
 long as he was able to change from room to room,
 
 236 
 
 and had continually by his side from the time he was 
 confined to bed. 
 
 Pere Hyacinthe Loyson wrote, recalling how long 
 ago he had " served Mass " for him at Issy, and how, 
 later, they had met at Neuilly, the one a Unitarian, the 
 other a " reformed Catholic." He went on to express 
 regret that in giving up "the false divinity of the 
 Pope you have ceased to believe in the true divinity of 
 Christ," and concluded with the touching words : 
 
 " Nous reverrons nous sur cette terre? Je 1'ignore 
 en tout cas, j'espere vous revoir de 1'autre cote de la 
 mort, la ou Dieu saura bien reunir les ames droit es qui 
 1'ont cherche sincerement, meme par des sentiers tres 
 
 differents. 
 
 " Tuus in Christo, 
 
 "HYACINTHE LOYSON." 
 
 Anglican clergymen, Quakers, Congregational min- 
 isters, members of Parliament, as well, of course, 
 as those of his own faith, all wrote in the same tone 
 of respect and affection and sorrow, even if tempered, 
 in some cases, by expressions of regret for his opinions. 
 One letter may be quoted as a sample of what many 
 are like. The writer, a clergyman, said; 
 
 "To myself the news of your illness has caused a 
 profound and personal sorrow. I could fain that we 
 were more at one in accepting the faith of the Divine 
 Incarnation and Atonement of the Son of God ; but 
 since I have known you, I have ahvays recognised in 
 you not only o.ne of pre-eminent gifts and culture, 
 but one who had the purest and noblest aims, and 
 was indeed a seeker after God. I have learnt much
 
 237 
 
 from you, and wish I had known you longer and seen 
 you more." 
 
 From Dr. Martineau, the first friend of his new life, 
 he received the following : 
 
 "THE POLCHAB, EOTHIEMUBCHUS, 
 
 " June 28th, 1891. 
 " DEAR MR. SUFFIELD, 
 
 " Deeply as the tidings in your letter of the 25th 
 inst. grieve me, I thank you from my heart for 
 allowing me to receive them from your own report ; 
 and still more for the generous spirit in which you 
 review our relations to each other since.. the first 
 memorable interview in 1870. If we are about to be 
 parted, and that by my too obstinate survivorship, 
 I pray that it may be in mutual benediction. It is 
 consolatory to know that the great transition to which 
 you were led by the call of conscience in 1870, has, on 
 the whole, not failed to bring the promised peace of 
 mind and heart. Our ministry is far from offering an 
 ideal life ; but, measured by the present standards of 
 attainable spiritual value, it may well content a 
 humble and dutiful soul. 
 
 If indeed you have to expect the graver sufferings 
 of your fatal disease, may God uphold you in the faith 
 and patience which have sustained so many through 
 the via dolorosa ! But I do not despair of hearing 
 that, by aid of modern alleviations, the path from 
 world to world may prove less formidable than 
 shrinking nature is apt to imagine. In any case, it is 
 not a lonely path to one who remembers the words, 
 ' I am not alone, but my Father is with me.'
 
 238 
 
 " With kindest and warmest sympathy with Mrs. 
 Suffield, from my daughter and myself, 
 "Believe me, always, 
 
 " Yours with faithful affection, 
 
 " JAMES MAETINEAU." 
 
 He had for some years been honoured with the 
 friendship of Mr. Gladstone, who had sought acquaint- 
 ance with him in 1874, and continued it ever since. 
 From him, too, he received a very kind letter of 
 sympathy, written the same day as that of Dr. 
 Martineau. " All that I have seen and known of 
 you," he wrote, " has tended to cause interest, respect, 
 and regard. Most earnestly do I wish that we could 
 stand on the altar steps together." The letter was 
 in reply to Mr. Suffield's, in which, telling of his 
 approaching death, he had declared his persistence in 
 "rejection of miraculous Christianity, and satisfaction 
 in pure natural Theism." Mr. Gladstone, in reply, 
 expressed his inability to understand " how a man of 
 upright mind, and I am better convinced of your 
 uprightness than my own," he added, "could make 
 his halt in spiritual Theism a thin and pale reflection 
 of the Gospel of Christ." He went on to speak of the 
 inability of man to maintain " the great and glorious 
 dogma, the truth of one God," without the aid of 
 revelation, and concluded: "But God lays His own 
 foundations in His own way, shapes and seals His 
 children as He will. You are, I think, essentially a 
 man of peace. In writing, as I have written, I do 
 not desire to forego that character ; and my hearty
 
 239 
 
 desire is, that by whatever path into the heart of the 
 Eternal Peace you may be led. 
 
 " Believe me, with unimpaired regard, 
 " Most faithfully yours, 
 
 " W. E. GLADSTONE." 
 
 It was their parting, as at the grave side, for Mr. 
 Gladstone had not the opportunity he hoped for, of 
 calling to see him. The difference between them was 
 wide and deep, and each had felt impelled even to the 
 last to insist upon it, but immense as it was, it had 
 not impaired their friendship and regard for one 
 another. Would to God that the example of this 
 eminent Statesman and Churchman were followed by 
 some who share his sturdy orthodoxy, but have none 
 of his Christian charity! 
 
 But probably more gratifying than even these let- 
 ters, were such as the following from a young lady, a 
 chance acquaintance made at the sea-side : 
 
 " Although it is four years since we met, the memory 
 of your kindness to me is very distinct, and when I 
 look at my album I stop at your photograph and think 
 over things you said to me about the duty of being 
 kind, and making those around me happy, and I feel 
 stronger to meet the little daily trials and worries, and 
 more anxious not to put my own interests first. 
 "When I think that even in so short a time your 
 character left its mark on mine, I see what a great 
 influence you must have had over so many people, 
 always for good, and the knowledge that it is so must 
 be good for you to have, and I know that I am only 
 one of many who would thank you from their hearts.
 
 240 
 
 You will not care to be troubled with any letters, but 
 I must write to tell you how sorry I am for your 
 illness, and also express a little of the gratitude I shall 
 always feel towards you." 
 
 His old friends in the Eoman Church were also 
 much moved when they came to hear of his approach- 
 ing death. Many had continued all through the 
 years of his alienation to love and pray and hope for 
 his return, and now their efforts were intensified, and 
 pressing appeals were made to him to consider his 
 position and repent before it was too late. Nothing 
 could be more touching and tender than these appeals, 
 but they were marred, all of them, by the curious pre- 
 sumption that he must really know himself to be in 
 the wrong, and that it was only courage he needed to 
 enable him to abjure what for twenty years he had 
 professed. He couldn't be sincere, they argued, he 
 must be convinced that in the Eoman Church only 
 was salvation for his soul ; to them it was so evident, 
 how could it be less so to a man who had so long 
 believed and taught as they did still? And rather 
 than give him credit for uprightness and honesty in 
 leaving their Church, they professed to believe that he 
 was now deliberately choosing eternal damnation as a 
 preferable alternative to provoking the censures of his 
 Protestant friends censures which could not reach 
 the chamber where now he lay dying, and which 
 would have amounted to no more than expressions of 
 pity that he should have been prevailed upon in the 
 hour of bodily and mental prostration to recant the 
 convictions of long years of intellectual vigour.
 
 241 
 
 On the 18th of September he received a visit, of 
 which he dictated an account and sent it the next day 
 to a near friend, with a few words in pencil, " I am 
 in extreme pain," he wrote, "but I must gather up 
 power to send you enclosed interesting overture. It 
 is not private, but it would not be in good taste for 
 me to publish it as yet. In course of time it will be 
 another matter, and I place it in your hands there- 
 fore." The memorandum is as follows : 
 
 " OVEETUEES FEOM CAEDINAL MANNING. 
 
 " Friday, September 18th. To-day the Eev. Kenelm 
 Vaughan (head of the South American Missions), now 
 staying with Cardinal Manning, called on me, and in 
 the most gentlemanly, considerate, and graceful way 
 communicated verbally the following messages from 
 the Cardinal : 
 
 " 1st. Affectionate and sympathetic interest and 
 greeting. 
 
 " 2nd. Earnest entreaty to rejoice people all over 
 the world by my return to the Church. 
 
 "3rd. That the Holy See is prepared to concede 
 the fullest powers of absolution and dispensation to 
 the Bishop of Portsmouth, so that the conditions 
 required would be adapted to render any reconcilia- 
 tion to the Church as easy to myself and as little 
 trying as possible. 
 
 " 4th. The Bishop wishes me to know that he will 
 gladly come to me on any day I may propose. 
 
 "The whole conversation was conducted with the 
 finest courtesy. Of course I begged His Eminence to
 
 242 
 
 accept my sincere appreciation of his kindness, his 
 motives, and his communications, but at the same 
 time I expressed in the most emphatic language 
 possible that return to the Eoman Catholic Church is 
 to me an utter impossibility." 
 
 Father Vaughan wrote the day following from the 
 Archbishop's House, Westminster: 
 
 " It was a real consolation to have seen and had so 
 full and friendly a talk with you. I have been 
 thinking of you ever since, and affectionate sympathy 
 moves me irresistibly to pray much for you, and 
 positively to believe that you will, in the end, have 
 grace and courage to do what the Cardinal and your 
 Catholic friends so ardently desire and pray for. 
 With this strong hope in me, ' for nothing is im- 
 possible with God,' believe me, dear Father Suffield, 
 "Your old friend, 
 
 " KENELM VAUGHAN." 
 
 From his old Dominican friends, friars, and nuns 
 too, he received messages of sympathy and entreaty. 
 " You are nearing that eternity," wrote the Prior of 
 their London home, " about which, in the good old 
 days, you used to preach so earnestly and so elo- 
 quently. Most of us owe something of our spiritual 
 life to you, under God, and some of us owe much, 
 and I hope that we are not unmindful of it. If we 
 can be of any service to you, you have only to com- 
 mand us. We all unite in praying that you may 
 have grace and light before ' the night ' comes." 
 
 On the 21st a Father was sent from London to seek 
 an interview with him. He received him, but evi-
 
 243 
 
 dently the result was discouraging, for no further 
 effort of the kind was made, if we except a visit paid 
 to the house on the 27th of October by a Roman 
 Catholic lady of rank, who was exceedingly impor- 
 tunate to see him, but he was then far too feeble to 
 carry on even ordinary conversation, and her desire 
 could not be complied with. 
 
 Special prayers were meantime offered up for him 
 far and wide ; and from the Dominican Convent at 
 Lourdes, a letter was sent to him, expressing the 
 interest taken in his soul by the French Sisters there, 
 and telling of their efforts on his behalf, and their 
 confidence that the Blessed Virgin, who in that 
 neighbourhood was working so many miracles, would 
 assuredly exercise her power over this dead soul, and 
 bring to new life " this poor Father, who has made 
 her known and loved as a mother by thousands." 
 
 Another sent him a morsel of cloth, cut from the 
 cassock of the Venerable Cure d'Ars, and wrote : 
 " I wish I could get you to promise to invoke the 
 great Cure. The great amount of good which you 
 were instrumental in, by spreading devotion to the 
 Blessed Virgin, must plead grace for you at the last 
 hour. Oh that you would only make use of it ! The 
 reconciliation would soon be over. Perhaps you 
 naturally feel a certain fear at such a step; but 
 remember how easily this can be overcome." 
 
 On the other hand, he had letters from unknown 
 correspondents, earnest Evangelical Protestants, 
 anxious that he should save his soul their way. 
 One sent him a large type " Gospel of John," and
 
 244 
 
 emphasised for him its application to himself by 
 inserting the initials (E.E.S.), wherever it seemed as 
 if personal appeal could be made, e.g. : Chap. xiv. 7, 
 -"If ye (K.R.S.) had known me," &c. Good soul, 
 doubtless the donor, but how did she know that this 
 book, written so long ago, had special application or 
 special authority for any one now living or dying? 
 It was God's word to him or her, not necessarily so, 
 however, to Mr. Suffield or another. 
 
 Besides these marks of the esteem and interest 
 .with which he was everywhere regarded, he received 
 daily substantial proofs of regard from persons who, 
 differing from him in religion, were admirers of his 
 private character and public work. A carriage was 
 ;put at his disposal as long as he was able to go out, 
 and fruit and flowers always supplied in abundance. 
 
 One who saw him for the last time, on the 21st of 
 October, wrote : " He was very weak and suffering, 
 but bright and humorous as ever : he told of the 
 visits he had from the two priests named above 
 made little jokes after his wont, and asked pardon 
 for seeming dull, but said his mouth was so parched 
 and sore that it hurt him to smile. He specially 
 begged that no undue lamentation should be made 
 over him. "When I rose to go, fearful of having tired 
 him, he rose up and threw his arms round, and after 
 the old Dominican form of brotherly embrace, we 
 kissed and parted, till we meet again in God we 
 and so many dear and good men and women whom 
 . we still love and admire, much as they condemn 
 us."
 
 245 
 
 His constant companions during his last illness 
 were the little volumes of Epictetus, Seneca, and 
 Marcus Aurelius, published in the Camelot Series; 
 The Book of Prayers, compiled by the Eev. Crompton 
 Jones, formerly an Unitarian minister, and the Ke- 
 vised Version of the Bible. These remained by his 
 side to the last, when he had ceased to be able to 
 give continued attention to anything else. 
 
 On Sunday, Nov. 8th, he had a severe attack of 
 vomiting, afterwards he fell into a state of lethargy, 
 from which he was rarely aroused, and died at 9.50 
 a.m., on Friday, the 13th inst. 
 
 " We are often told that ours is not a religion to die 
 in. He proved that the contrary is the case. His 
 doom was to die by a disease which is incurable, 
 painful, and lingering. For five months he was face 
 to face with death, the only doubt how acute would 
 his sufferings be, and how long they would last. 
 
 " He had the most touching letters addressed to 
 him by those who believed that he could not be saved 
 unless he would exchange his opinions for theirs. 
 Kindest messages and loving warnings were sent him 
 by friends anxious to win him back, but he never gave 
 sign of regret, or doubt, or fear. He was brave, 
 patient, hopeful ; above all, grateful to the last. 
 
 "Not weary of life far from yearning after a 
 better, for which he trusted God, but professed no 
 knowledge of he would have rejoiced to be restored, 
 and live and love and work and interest himself again 
 in this dear world : he went the way of death 
 without complaint or repining."
 
 246 
 
 They are the concluding words of an address given 
 at a memorial service, held by his former congre- 
 gation, at Croydon, on the 25th of November. 
 
 "He was to me a very interesting person," writes 
 Mr. Gladstone, and all intelligent people who became 
 intimate with him found him such. It was not 
 merely the singular and varied experiences of his 
 religious life which distinguished him from others ; 
 he was, in the true sense of the word, ' an individual,' 
 a man apart ; unlike anybody else in mind, manners, 
 features, and dress ; it was not that he was odd or 
 eccentric, he was simply himself ; and yet he was 
 possessed of a remarkable capacity for understanding 
 the thoughts of others, and he won their confidence 
 even against his will. His personality acted as a 
 spell on those who came under his influence, and it 
 was this very power which made some fear and even 
 suspect him. 
 
 He was, perhaps to excess, sensitive to the opinions 
 of others, and cherished expressions of commendation 
 or gratitude with an almost childlike regard. Yet he 
 would never withhold the full statement of his own 
 opinions to gratify a friend or appease an opponent. 
 He spoke what he believed, never seeming to contem- 
 plate any other course as possible. If he gave 
 offence by his sincerity, and he did so frequently, 
 both as a Catholic and an Unitarian, he took it as 
 inevitable. A little more policy would have obtained 
 him wider regard, but he united, in a singular degree, 
 the innocence of the dove with the wisdom of the 
 serpent ; he was innocent to a fault wherever his
 
 247 
 
 own reputation or prospects were concerned; wise 
 enough, when it was a question of the cause he had at 
 heart ; a man who understood men, a skilful organiser, 
 a patient and far-seeing contriver. 
 
 Throughout all the changes of his life he retained 
 the same simple faith in God and prayer. From the 
 time that he made rubbings of monumental brasses 
 as a young man, to his last days of comparative 
 leisure at Beading, religion was always uppermost 
 in his thoughts, and he regarded everything else from 
 the standpoint it afforded. If "priest" signifies one 
 who represents to the world, in his person and by his 
 calling, the presence and energy of God in the affairs 
 of men, then he remained a priest all his life. The 
 change which came over him was, that he ceased to 
 believe in that Presence as supernaturally revealed in 
 one body of men, and saw and declared it henceforth 
 as truly natural, perpetual, and universal.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 FUNEBAL AND OBITUAKY NOTICES. 
 
 The following account is abridged from The Beading 
 Observer of Nov. 2lst, 1891 : 
 
 " The remains of the Eev. E. Kodolph Suffield 
 were, in accordance with his own desire, cremated at 
 the Woking Crematorium on Tuesday, previously to 
 which, at mid -day, a memorial service was held at 
 the Unitarian Free Church, Beading, of which he was 
 for several years the minister. There was a numerous 
 and representative congregation. Besides the rela- 
 tives, there were present Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, 
 Mr. Geo. May, Mr. G. W. Palmer (representing 
 the Eeading Liberal Association), Mr. Walter Palmer 
 (representing the University Extension Association), 
 Mr. Benjamin Batt ("representing the South Eeading 
 Liberal Club), Mr. C. Smith and Dr. Hurry (repre- 
 senting the Eeading Literary and Scientific Society), 
 Mrs. C. Smith, Mr. E. Worsley, (representing the 
 Charity Organisation Society), Mr. Owen Eidley 
 (representing the Eedlands Liberal Club), Mr. Gleave, 
 Mr. Theodore White (representing the Students' Asso- 
 ciation), Mr. Colvin, Mr. J. Egginton (representing 
 the Savings' Bank), Bishop- Ackerman (representing 
 the Esading Temperance and General Philanthropic 
 Society, in the unavoidable absence of Mr. W. I. 
 Palmer). Many gentlemen wrote expressing regret
 
 249 
 
 that they were unable to be present, including Mr. 
 George Palmer, Mr. W. I. Palmer, the Eev. C. E. 
 Honey, and many friends connected with London 
 Associations. 
 
 "At about 11.30 the cortege, comprising an open 
 hearse, and several coaches containing the mourners, 
 with the carriage of Mr. F. P. Barnard, Head Master 
 of Beading School, who was a personal friend, bring- 
 ing up the rear, left Malvern Villa, Craven-Eoad, the 
 residence of the deceased, and on reaching the church 
 the coffin was borne in and placed in front of the 
 rostrum. It was literally covered with wreaths of 
 white flowers and other beautiful floral tributes, 
 baskets and vases of flowers being also arranged on 
 and about the rostrum. Wreaths or baskets of flowers 
 were sent by the Literary and Scientific Society, 
 South Eeading Liberal Club, Women's Liberal Asso- 
 ciation, and from numerous friends at Eeading and 
 from a distance. 
 
 "The service was conducted, in accordance with 
 the deceased's own wish, by the Eev. C. Hargrove, 
 M.A., Minister of the Mill Hill Chapel, of Leeds, 
 an old friend, both as a Dominican Friar and as 
 an Unitarian Minister. The service lasted about an 
 hour, and was simple but impressive, consisting of 
 brief prayer, singing of beautiful and appropriate 
 hymns, reading of selections from the Scriptures, 
 and an address as follows : 
 
 " Friends and fellow mourners, It has fallen to me 
 to-day to speak the last words over the body of our 
 friend deceased, to bid, in your name and mine, farewell
 
 250 
 
 to the form which presently will be restored to the 
 elements of which it is compounded, and the place 
 thereof know him no more for ever. It is my duty, 
 because he asked it of me ; it is my privilege, because 
 he was a true man and noble ; and it is an honour to 
 be allowed to speak for such; and yet I could have 
 wished it otherwise, that I might take my place 
 among those who in silence mourn him, and pay to 
 his dear memory the tribute of tears and not of 
 words. 
 
 " For I have known him long, when he was another 
 man to what you have seen him, and pleading for 
 another faith, and in him I lose more than you do; 
 I lose more than a brother, one who formed the 
 single link between my own present life and my past, 
 and in whom I found the sole partner of cherished 
 memories, now my own alone. For his, too, was, as 
 you all know, a broken life, a life whose years were 
 divided against themselves. For twenty of them he 
 was a Eoman Catholic Priest, devoted, zealous, entire 
 in the absoluteness of his submission to that Church 
 and her teaching, full of zeal to win those outside to 
 acknowledge her claims, and those within to conform 
 mind and soul to them. During another and the last 
 twenty, he was an Unitarian Minister, asserting for 
 himself independence of judgment, and exercising 
 his reason in despite of all authority, while the 
 liberty he claimed for himself and used, he sedulously 
 vindicated for others, preaching to all men, ' Think 
 for yourselves ! Seek the truth and fear not ! Let 
 neither church, nor sect, nor priest, nor minister
 
 compel your faith, believe that only of which you are 
 inwardly convinced.' Yes, it was contradictory. 
 Eome cannot and will not reconcile itself with reason, 
 and who advocates one disparages the claims of the " 
 other. And yet he was not two men, but one ; the 
 Dominican Friar and ascetic was the married minister 
 of free religious thought, and we shall miss the true 
 lesson of a noble life if we leave one or another out of 
 account and think of him only as what he was long 
 ago, or as what he was known by you, his later friends. 
 Yes, it was the same man, he with whom I first 
 became acquainted some thirty years ago as a 
 renowned preacher of saintly life, and he who has 
 been my dearest friend and comrade these many 
 years in the ministry of that Church which all the 
 Churches condemn. And these, if I read him aright, 
 were the distinguishing traits of his character, 
 whether he appeared under the Friar's white robe or 
 in the plain black coat which scarcely distinguished 
 him from men of secular calling : Truthfulness and 
 Earnestness ; truthfulness, to profess openly what 
 appeared to him true ; earnestness, to bear witness 
 to the same among men, indifferent whether it was to 
 his own profit or his hurt, whether they would think 
 worse of him for it or the better. 
 
 " He was brought up in a curious indifference to the 
 divergent forms of religious belief ; not as if all were 
 equally false and useless, as some lightly say, but 
 rather as if all were good and each had its proper 
 merits. He was Catholic and Protestant at the same 
 time, attending daily prayer or Mass as occasion served,
 
 252 
 
 and apparently equally at home at either. But for 
 such a nature it was impossible that this comfortable 
 indecision should long continue. While yet a young 
 man at Cambridge, the question presented itself, ' Do I 
 believe or do I not? To what Church do I belong?' 
 And deciding for the faith of his fathers, he straight- 
 way resolved to devote himself to the priesthood. 
 It was a resolve he never went back upon. He 
 ceased indeed to be a Eoman Catholic priest ; he 
 never ceased from the service of religion as it ap- 
 peared to him the service of truth and God. While 
 he admitted and realised the supreme claims of his 
 Church, he consecrated to her use all his faculties 
 and substance. If it was indeed, as he believed and 
 as she taught, the one Church of the living God, the 
 one ark of salvation for dying men, no devotion could 
 be excessive, no zeal on her behalf misplaced. Early 
 in his career he abandoned all he was possessed of, 
 giving it up to the purposes of missionary effort in 
 his diocese, and with unwearied pains gave himself to 
 the work. He had already won distinction far and 
 wide as an effective preacher and as a skilful director 
 of souls, when what seemed a higher and more 
 perfect way opened itself before him. It was self- 
 denial more complete, sacrifice more entire and 
 irrevocable than he had hitherto practised ; he joined 
 himself to the Dominicans, who combined the aus- 
 terities of the monastic life with the active labours of 
 the missionary priesthood. He bowed himself down 
 and entered the noviciate to learn as a novice among 
 boy novices the ways of obedience and humility. He
 
 253 
 
 came back to the world in a new garb, but with the 
 same or greater fervour, only to win more upon the 
 hearts of Catholics high and low, who looked up to 
 him as one who combined in his person practical 
 wisdom and heavenly sanctity, whose word won the 
 multitude, and whose counsel was sought by all. 
 
 But doubts darkened his path. Was the Pope 
 indeed infallible? The question must needs be 
 faced, for it was being everywhere discussed among 
 Catholics, nor as yet decided. And if the Pope was 
 not, was the Church ? the Bible? These questions 
 followed one upon another, and in vain he sought to 
 silence them by prayer, by fasting, by work, by retire- 
 ment. The answer came clearer and more decisive 
 as the studies which he began in order to satisfy 
 himself and confirm his faith progressed. No ! there 
 was no infallibility ; neither in pontiff, nor council, 
 nor in book. And all that he had accepted hitherto 
 with such implicit faith, because the Church taught 
 it, all vanished from before his eyes as the fabric of a 
 vision, beautiful, solemn, unreal. It was a very 
 earthquake, and his life seemed ruined by it. To 
 men on whom religious beliefs sit lightly, it will seem 
 a small matter to change one form for another, but 
 to one to whom his faith had been his life, the 
 experience was awful. His dismay was complete as 
 had been his devotion, and what must he do ? One 
 course was easy and tempting to stay in outward 
 communion with the old Church, interpreting its 
 doctrines and its rites to suit his new beliefs, in daily 
 Mass offering to the Creator of all, sacrifice under
 
 254 
 
 the symbols of bread and wine, acknowledging that 
 all being and life were His ; absolving penitent 
 sinners by way of assuring them of God's pity and 
 pardon ; and so by a little ingenuity finding true 
 spiritual significance in every old ceremony and 
 superstition. Could he bring himself to this, he 
 might keep yet all that was dear to him, friends and 
 their love and esteem, position and reputation, and 
 what to a good man is worth all opportunities of 
 doing good. It was but a little while he dallied with 
 the temptation ; it could not be. Impossible to live 
 a lie and think by a He to serve God. He came out 
 leaving all he valued on earth, came a stranger, 
 almost a pauper among strangers, who yet would 
 have gladly welcomed the priest could he have 
 brought himself to conform to their views. The 
 Church Established had promise of place, influence, 
 honour ; but he passed by her invitation, and went to 
 ally himself with the smallest of all the Protestant 
 denominations. It was but a half welcome he could 
 expect, for he knew that many of them had no 
 sympathy with, what seemed to them, his extreme 
 views, and others no trust of a priest, even if he came 
 as a convert. There was within the narrow bounds 
 of the free Churches no scope for distinction, no room 
 for attaining popularity, no positions of power or 
 emolument to hope for ; but he found what was more 
 precious than these, that which he seemed to miss 
 in all the other Churches, liberty and religion, full 
 recognition of the right of free thought and reverent 
 acknowledgment of the natural instinct of worship.
 
 255 
 
 So with them he cast in his lot ; and among them he 
 died, to the last thanking God that he had found a 
 home where he might continue his old ministry of 
 religion, under conditions which bound him no wise, 
 but to be true to himself and to those who had chosen 
 him pastor. 
 
 " He had his troubles there too, for it is impossible 
 to be truthful and please all the world, to be earnest 
 and not displease those whose own honest convictions 
 are different. Had he been given to self-seeking, or 
 envy, or discontent, he might have been a disappointed 
 man, might have complained of want of appreciation 
 among new friends such as he had been wont to 
 receive of old ; but, intimate as I was with him, I 
 never heard him utter a word of regret or disappoint- 
 ment. Freedom has its drawbacks, and one is, that 
 in the use of it men will disagree one with another, 
 and hinder one the other and the common cause of 
 all ; but you must take the advantages and the 
 difficulties together; and he bore what might have 
 seemed to others humiliations and contradictions, 
 with the most kindly and philosophic spirit. He 
 made his choice and never repented ; consecrated 
 himself anew to the service of God and humanity and 
 freedom, and gave himself to serving on committees 
 with the same zeal he had before shown for guilds, 
 confraternities, and sodalities. 
 
 " There were those who accused and suspected him 
 of insincerity Catholics who thought it impossible 
 that he could in his heart have abandoned a faith 
 once so precious to him Protestants who doubted
 
 256 
 
 whether he was whole-hearted in his opposition to a 
 Church of which he would never allow himself to 
 speak with bitterness or contempt. There were 
 worldly men who called him a fool to give up such 
 good prospects of distinction and advancement; "He 
 might have been a bishop," they said, and so 
 saying, gave effective answer to his accusers. For 
 what was there but inmost conviction and sincerest 
 loyalty to it, which could have led him to choose the 
 Unitarian ministry for his calling. As a paper of last 
 week, which advocates a form of Unitarian Christianity 
 more conservative than his, rightly says, speaking of 
 Notable Converts : 
 
 ' No position, office, or emolument could have 
 biassed them, for such did not exist along the line of 
 an unorthodox faith. It was more likely that harsh 
 treatment and ostracism and loss faced them in their 
 conclusions. And even now, in this more liberal age, 
 we have nothing to offer but a free field for inves- 
 tigation, instruction, and spiritual worship to those 
 who are willing to join our ranks. The only and 
 best recompense any one can have is the conscious- 
 ness of having sought for the truth of God, which 
 is the pearl of great price. For, after all, a man's 
 life and happiness consist, not in what he has of 
 wealth and honour, but in what he is.' 
 
 " No ! Truth and Truth only was his mistress. 
 He sought her, he served her with equal devotion as 
 priest and minister ; for her sake he gave up what all 
 men value, and what good men count most valuable, 
 and repented not, nor even murmured. And in his
 
 257 
 
 new found faith he lived, and in it he died, fully 
 persuaded, and peaceful and satisfied to the last. 
 There were dear kind souls who prayed for him and 
 wrote to him, beseeching of heaven, pleading with 
 him, that he might give up his own convictions and 
 adopt theirs. He heard all they had to say, and 
 appreciated the loving anxiety which old friends 
 showed for his salvation ; he was never moved to 
 anger, except when some word hinted a doubt of his 
 sincerity, but was disturbed in his faiiih not an 
 instant. He was for months face to face with a 
 painful death, and never quailed. ' Don't think I am 
 unhappy,' he said to those who watched in pain his 
 agony. And he was not unhappy, for faith in God sus- 
 tained him. " Yours for ever," I wrote to him. His 
 answer was, " Yours for ever in God." Yes, in God, 
 he is ours still, for He is God of the living, and " all 
 live unto him." In God are we and they, in God 
 nothing is lost ; what has been is and shall be for ever. 
 
 " One last look back upon the life ended on earth 
 marred in its strength, and happiness, and repute by 
 its double-alliance, as of a soldier who has fought well 
 and bravely, only now on this and afterwards on iliai 
 side of the war of Churches. Alas for the phrase, yet 
 it is but fact, and we differ one from another, and are 
 equally confident of being in the right on whatever 
 side we are. Nay more, we differ from our own 
 selves, and now are as assured that this is true as 
 before we were that it was false. 
 
 " And what shall we say then ? What did he say? 
 Truth is not to be found, and it is folly to seek it, 
 Q
 
 258 
 
 and delusion to think you know it ? Not so he ; who 
 always condemned the easy attitude of indifference 
 as clearing a free course for error, and superstition, 
 and fanaticism. But, on the contrary, though the 
 mind of man cannot hold truth in its entirety, be 
 true to yourself, and you will be nearer the truth. 
 Be earnest, and you will find what will be sufficient 
 for your need ; and recognising your own insuffi- 
 ciency, be tolerant of those who differ the most 
 widely from you reverently, not scornfully tolerant. 
 Dear friends, his and mine, who condemned him so 
 hotly, who mourned for his fall so bitterly, who 
 prayed for him so earnestly, who now despair of 
 God's mercy to him, because he died believing other- 
 wise than once he did, and now you do may the 
 good God repay into your own bosoms of your zeal 
 and love, and lead us all at last through devious ways 
 to know the true Church, which he never left, which 
 he always served, the Church which is not yours nor 
 ours, but God's, the company of all who love truth 
 and righteousness, and do God service such as He 
 only asks and accepts of us, in serving as best they 
 know how their brother man. 
 
 " And now, a last time, farewell, friend and brother. 
 It is over, the sure faith, the painful doubt, the new 
 hope, dim, but not less firm than that which went 
 before. It is over the uncertain twilight in which 
 we still live and are so bold. It is past the pitiful 
 conflict, the sundering of dearest ties, the wild judg- 
 ments of men who knew not past the months of 
 pain and shadow of death.
 
 259 
 
 " We still argue, and assert, and doubt. We must 
 still look forward to death which is over for thee. 
 We still only, 'as in a mirror darkly,' can see whether 
 the present or the future. 
 
 "God knoivs ! and now passed into His Light, it is 
 well with thee. ' Let him do as seemeth him good.' 
 Fare thee well, for ever, 'in God.'" 
 
 " At the close of the service the coffin was replaced 
 in the hearse, and, followed by the mourners above- 
 named, in carriages, was taken to theS.W.E. Station, 
 and thence conveyed by train to Woking, where, 
 previously to the cremation, the Eev. D. Amos con- 
 ducted a brief service in the pretty chapel set apart 
 for the purpose." 
 
 The urn containing his ashes was brought back to 
 Beading the same day, and deposited in ground of 
 the little chapel which had been his latest charge. 
 
 " Feeling and kindly references were made to the 
 late Eev. E. E. Suffield at St. Lawrence's Church, 
 by the Eev. J. M. Guilding (Vicar), and at several 
 other places of worship of various denominations in 
 the town ; as also at the Liberal meeting in the New 
 Town Hall, on Monday evening. 
 
 "At the University Extension Lecture, held on 
 Monday last, the president, Mr. Walter Palmer, 
 before calling upon the lecturer, alluded to the loss 
 the University Extension Movement had sustained 
 in Eeading by the death of the Eev. E. E. Suffield. 
 He was one of the vice-presidents of the Eeading 
 University Extension Association, and his last public 
 act was on the occasion of the Annual Meeting in the
 
 260 
 
 Abbey Hall, in May last, when he took part in the 
 formation of the Extension Movement in Beading, on 
 a more permanent basis." 
 
 So far the Reading Observer. 
 
 A Koman Catholic gentleman, who had been his 
 pupil as a boy and remained all his life warmly 
 attached to him, wrote in the pages of Truth: "It 
 is with deep regret I record the death of the Eev. 
 Eodolph Suffield, who, previous to his secession from 
 the Catholic faith, was celebrated throughout the 
 length and breadth of the land as the most brilliant 
 preacher, and most influential ecclesiastic of his time. 
 His 'perversion' or 'conversion' in the year 1870, 
 caused a sensation in religious circles only second to 
 that which attended the late Cardinal Newman, 
 when he some years before transferred his allegiance 
 to the Church of Eome. Well do I remember serving 
 Father Suffield's last Mass in the chapel of Bosworth 
 Hall, and accompanying him on that memorable 
 August journey, when, turning his back on the little 
 Hermitage at Husband Bosworth, and laying aside 
 the robes of his Order, he re-entered the ever-restless 
 world of theological doubt and dispute. As I write 
 there lies before me a massive bundle of letters in 
 which he recounts his subsequent struggles and 
 temptations, and I cannot but indite a few sympa- 
 thetic lines to the memory of a distinguished, 
 affectionate, and much-loved friend and a most 
 experienced master, to whom I owe the deepest 
 debt of gratitude." 
 
 The following notice from The Catholic [Times of
 
 261 
 
 November 27th, is here added, for two reasons. 
 First, as evidence of the friendly spirit in which 
 numerous Eoman Catholics continued to regard him, 
 notwithstanding their reprobation of his ' apostacy.' 
 Secondly, and principally, to repel the insinuation con- 
 tained in it that he was contemplating or inclining 
 towards a return to their Church. He was particu- 
 larly sensitive on this point during his life-time, and 
 on one occasion, when rumours were in circulation 
 to the effect that his conversion might be shortly 
 expected, he wrote to the British and Foreign Unita- 
 rian Association a formal protest against what he 
 regarded as a calumny, and took pains to have it 
 publicly contradicted in the papers, omitting the 
 words, "and other former colleagues," for he was 
 seen only by the two mentioned; the paragraph is 
 verbally accurate, but the well-meant wish of the 
 writer has led him to make too much of Mr. Suffield's 
 gratitude for the kindly sentiments of his visitors, 
 and to exaggerate his regard for the honesty and 
 goodness of those with whom he had been so long 
 associated. That regard was indeed genuine, but the 
 more intimate became his acquaintance with the 
 larger life of the liberal Protestant Churches, the less 
 was he disposed to exalt the Eoman system in any of 
 its forms. Indeed he more than once called down 
 upon himself the severe animadversions of the Eoman 
 Catholic press by his strictures on Eoman ways and 
 morals. 
 
 " Mr. Eobert Eodolph Suffield died on the 13th inst., 
 at Malvern Villa, Eeading. During his last illness
 
 262 
 
 he was visited by Father Kenelm Vaughan, Father 
 Ambrose Smith, O.P., and other former colleagues, 
 and he expressed great gratification at their kindness 
 in desiring to reconcile him to the Church. Unfortu- 
 nately the end came before this was accomplished, 
 but it is gratifying to know that he who was the 
 chief human instrument in bringing about the seces- 
 sion of several priests, notably that of Mr. Addis, 
 Mr. Whitehead, and Mr. Matthews, should have been 
 consoled in his dying hours by several priests who 
 had not lost their faith. In spite of his own unbelief, 
 Mr. Sumeld always kept the Dominican picture of 
 Our Lady of the Eosary in his room, and in his 
 public utterances he usually spoke with deference of 
 the Catholic Church, and frequently alluded to the 
 pure and stainless lives of the men with whom he 
 became associated at Ushaw, when he first thought 
 of joining the ranks of the priesthood, and to the 
 happiness of his sacerdotal career previously to his 
 apostacy in 1870. He had some great qualities, but 
 he had also great weaknesses, and it would have been 
 better for the tone and spirit of Ushaw if he had 
 been kept in a humble position during his collegiate 
 career. E.I.P." 
 
 His 'great weakness,' from this point of view, was 
 undoubtedly his marked individuality. He could not, 
 spite of best intentions, bring himself to conformity 
 with the accepted type of Catholic sanctity. His 
 faith, his piety, his devotions, were too much his own, 
 and if this gave him influence and distinction, at the 
 same time it constituted a difficulty and a danger.
 
 263 
 
 Requiescat in Pace. It was the last kindly word 
 of his earlier friends, whose faith he had championed 
 and abandoned, and whose dearest convictions he 
 had learned to regard as, at the best, beautiful 
 delusions. Another, who came to know him in his 
 last years, and owed to his counsel and teaching 
 a higher faith in Him, " who is able to do exceeding 
 abundantly above all we ask or think" in our kindest 
 moods in whose Divine Day the 'little systems' 
 which divide us so painfully here are merged and 
 lost, wrote, expressing what many thought, this 
 Sonnet to his memory. 
 
 SONNET TO THE REV. E. BODOLPH SUFFIELD. 
 DIED NOVEMBER 13TH, 1891. 
 
 " God's finger touched him and he slept." Tennyson. 
 
 He's gone from us ; the gentlest, sweetest soul, 
 
 That dwelt in human clay. We knew his worth, 
 
 His mind of noblest touch. He trod the earth 
 
 Among us. Now he's gained a higher goal, 
 
 And breathes an ampler air, beyond earth's strife. 
 
 Gracious and gentle, he, tender, refined, 
 
 Rare scholarship was his, a cultured mind, 
 
 A sympathetic soul, a blameless life. 
 
 We mourn for him. Earth's noblest ones are rare 
 
 Amid the noises of this dreary earth. 
 
 Thou, true of heart, for Truth's sake all didst dare. 
 
 He suffered for his conscience ; yet no dearth 
 
 Of pity had his tender soul ; his care 
 
 Was helping others. Well we knew his worth. 
 
 READING. K. D. 
 
 Happy the man, whatever his lot, who could win 
 
 such loving disinterested tribute from his fellows left 
 
 behind ! 
 
 FINIS.
 
 APPENDIX,
 
 FENIANISM, 
 
 AND THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 I would claim your indulgence, as the subject on which I 
 have to speak is surrounded with many difficulties, difficulties 
 caused at once by prejudice and virtue ; by patriotism and by 
 animosity ; by fear and by suspicion. The statements I would 
 make this evening are not volunteered by me, but rather forced 
 from me reluctantly by circumstances, and by the urgent 
 request of others. Several Irish working men of intelligence 
 and respectability have, during the last fortnight, requested me 
 to call a public meeting in which they might express their 
 indignant repudiation of the fearful and damnable outrage at 
 Clerkenwell, and of other similar outrages supposed to be in 
 contemplation. They felt at once indignant, wronged, and 
 humbled, under so horrible an imputation ; they felt that the 
 English would begin to look upon them, not as the kindly 
 inheritors of the virtues and the sufferings of an ancient people ; 
 not as a nation admired even by its enemies for generosity, 
 courage, tenderness, poetry, purity, and chivalry ; but as abet- 
 tors of acts of insane brutality, rendered even more detestable 
 by the coward secrecy of the perpetrator. Their whole nature 
 blushed with indignant shame, that they should be supposed 
 to sympathise with secret assassination, with outrages directed 
 against the feeble, with destruction of private property, with 
 desire to injure edifices of public charity and public utility in 
 a word, to become the enemies of society, the destroyers of their 
 country, the betrayers of that honour and faith that remained 
 to it, when all else had perished ! Gentlemen, I profoundly 
 appreciated the spirit which could make them thus desire to 
 clear themselves from such unjust and cruel aspersions ; I 
 
 An Address, delivered at a Public Meeting ot English and Irish, Protestants 
 and Catholics, in the North of England, [West Hartlepool, Jan.,] 1868.
 
 268 
 
 appreciated the kindly good will testified by the chief employers 
 of labour in this town, who, disbelieving such accusations, still 
 desired to have them publicly denied. But I could not bring 
 myself to permit them to take upon themselves the humiliation 
 of even an indignant denial. They may have their faults and 
 their weaknesses, perhaps love may have made me blind to 
 them, but they are not a nation of cowards and assassins, that 
 a handful of them need assemble and throw a dishonour upon 
 their nation by a denial which would impute a certain amount 
 of guilt. Anyhow, it would have been but the expression of the 
 voice of a few men, unknown except by the families they sup- 
 port, the employers they faithfully serve, and the neighbours 
 of all creeds with whom they live at peace. But if there is to 
 be a denial, let it come from one who pledges his public name 
 and public position from one long and intimately interwoven 
 with so many hundreds of the Irish people in England, in 
 Ireland, in America, in Scotland, who for eighteen years of 
 priestly life has shared with them hopes and fears, joys and 
 sorrows, who has known all their feelings, and heard the most 
 unguarded expressions, and received the most fearless informa- 
 tion, both by word of mouth and by letter, from, all parts. Let 
 one be heard as the representative of so large a multitude whom 
 he intimately knows, and let me give to those calumnies the 
 most indignant denial. Never have I known an Irish Catholic 
 but what would execrate such acts as in attempt have been 
 imputed to them during the last few weeks. But, gentlemen, 
 you will say " that such may be true of the great mass of the 
 Irish people, but there is a foul dastardly society called the 
 Fenians, and it forms throughout the country a secret league 
 for the committal of organised acts of brutal destruction and 
 dastardly assassination. From its secret council issue decrees 
 of hidden wrongs to be inflicted, and reckless destruction to be 
 produced." That society, you will say, is in itself numerous 
 enough to need the suspension of all our liberties, and the 
 surrounding with armed bands almost every public and private 
 building of costliness and special importance.
 
 269 
 
 You will say that it is clear that the enormous preponder- 
 ance of the Irish people approve such foul designs ; for, until 
 the law interfered, they accompanied, in imposing numbers, 
 those symbolic funerals which you say were to mark their 
 approval of murder. You say that the Catholic Church herself 
 is compromised in such actions, because she absolved, at Man- 
 chester, three men whom the law condemned, and followed 
 into eternity with her benediction murderers condemned by 
 justice to the gallows. Ah! gentlemen, by justice. It is a great 
 word ; it has been abused as often as the name of liberty. Now, 
 at first aspect, there is great force in such an argument, espe- 
 cially when it addresses itself either to passion or to fear. For 
 a moment, I will not say whether I think the Irish people 
 mistaken or not as to the facts ; but they do not believe that 
 such an organisation, with such foul designs, does exist at all. 
 They believe that there is a secret society condemned by the 
 Catholic Church just as the Freemason society ; that a person 
 could not save his soul unless he withdrew from it inasmuch 
 as the sacraments are forbidden to its members. They believe 
 that this is the application of the old law of the Church, which 
 invariably condemns rash oaths, and forbids its children from 
 entering any society in which they are bound to follow -as it 
 were in the dark into doubtful actions, unknown or irrespon- 
 sible leaders. They believe that the Fenian Society would 
 organise risings, invasion, war, the seizure of Government 
 stores, but they do not believe that it would plan or encourage 
 assassination or wanton destruction of private property. As 
 the O'Donoghue said last week, " It is not proved whether the 
 three men executed at Manchester were Fenians at all. If 
 they were, they will have withdrawn from the secret society 
 before receiving the Sacraments." The Irish followed in the 
 papers the details of these trials, and they do not believe that 
 the men liberated were either justly or even legally in custody ; 
 they do not believe that those who, in a rapidly-formed com- 
 bination, resolved to free them, intended to shoot any one. 
 They believe that poor Brett was shot accidently by a man
 
 270 
 
 firing through the lock to open it, and that he had no more 
 intention of shooting Brett than the two men along with him 
 whom they came to save. They believe that the evidence given 
 was bought and perjured ; that the man who so unfortunately 
 shot Brett is now in America. They no more believe the wit- 
 nesses who declared that Allen shot Brett, than the larger 
 number of witnesses who swore to the complicity of Maguire, 
 who was not there at all. They therefore regard the three men 
 who were hung as only guilty of the forcible liberation of two 
 men who were not in legal custody, and they lament the un- 
 timely death of Brett. They consider the trials to have been 
 a parody of justice. The funeral processions were meant as 
 symbols of love for any who had suffered, even by an error, for 
 them ; and perhaps the funeral march seemed to them to befit 
 a people who had watched around the tomb of their country 
 for eight hundred years, and wearied in hope because to them 
 there was never a resurrection. The dreadful affair at Clerken- 
 well they regard as an execrable crime, created by an ignorant 
 and base informer, that he might obtain money for exposing 
 an outrage he invented and prompted. Say, if you like, that 
 the Irish are very foolish, and ill-informed, and perverse, to 
 imagine such absurdities as I have just stated. I simply de- 
 clare that I know it to be in that light that they regard these 
 events ; and, therefore, if they are perverse in their judgment, 
 they are, at least, not brutal or base in their intentions. If 
 you had arrived at the same opinion as to the events, your 
 feelings would accord with theirs. Suppose their judgment be 
 warped by national prejudice, perhaps others' judgment is 
 also warped by another national prejudice. And now let me 
 mention stern facts, not regarding the views and opinions of 
 the Irish, but regarding events. On this also I have a right to 
 speak ; for I not only know the Irish heart as only a priest and 
 a friend can know it, but I have had a singular access to the 
 knowledge of fads about Feniauism from its earliest introduc- 
 tion into these countries. It is said, and very likely with truth, 
 that two or three persons in founding the Fenian society made
 
 271 
 
 themselves acquainted with the working of the Carbonari and 
 Freemason societies abroad, and tried to carry ou the infamous 
 principles of the former. A secret society is always essentially 
 liable to be dragged into any evil. But as far as I am aware, 
 after considerable and lengthened knowledge of the Fenian 
 society and workings, I should say that Carbonarism has not 
 impregnated it, and that at present the Fenian organisation 
 has been simply political, but accompanied with circumstances 
 bringing it under the censure of the Church. In these coun- 
 tries, their number is really very small. The enormous majo- 
 rity of the Irish people, whilst sympathising in the object, do 
 not approve the means. Even Mitchell himself, though san- 
 guine of the future, " does not approve the calling on the Irish 
 people to contribute at present to secret funds, not feeling 
 assured that at present it would be properly and effectively 
 used, and not thinking it right at present to incur the responsi- 
 bility of calling on the Irish race at home and abroad to pour 
 into their hands the savings of years." The English Govern- 
 ment has reason to fear a nation discontented, and backed by 
 millions in America ; but I do not believe there is any Fenian 
 council plotting outrages against life and property. The 
 Fenians (proper), in this country, are a secret society. I do not 
 know what is the teaching of the American Bishops as to the 
 American organisation. I do not know whether or not they 
 have dropped what would bring it under the censures of the 
 Church. In these countries, certainly, no person who has 
 taken the secret oath can approach the sacraments without 
 renouncing its obligations. Some people fancy themselves to 
 be Fenians and are not. A stranger suspecting the sympathies 
 of another proposes to him the Fenian oath, which is given, 
 and something a week paid, and there is the beginning and end 
 of the affair. It was a mortal sin to take a rash oath. But the 
 man who has taken it will never hurt any one except himself. 
 
 Then again, vast numbers are called Fenians merely because 
 they desire Irish Independence. Whenever I use that expres- 
 sion, I mean to be understood to characterise what is within
 
 272 
 
 the law a National Government like Hungary, or even like 
 our own colonies all are governed according to their own ideas 
 and not ours. The national sympathy is intense, and under 
 certain circumstances would be at once united and powerful, 
 but Fenianism hangs together very loosely, not to be compared 
 to the Freemason society, except that nationalism is the root 
 of the former, revolution and infidelity of the latter. To return. 
 What other outrages have been traced to Fenianism, or 
 to any person representing in any degree Irish sympathies ? 
 Literally none. There have been rumours circulated from 
 almost every town in England. We have been at the command 
 of every joker, or of every one influenced by malignant inten- 
 tions against the Irish, or in any way interested in inventing an 
 accusation and creating a panic. Such an attempt was made 
 last week in this town. Fortunately, one of the Liberal papers 
 treated it as a hoax ; but newspapers published at a distance 
 described it with an imposing heading as an "Attempted 
 Fenian outrage at W T est Hartlepool." An English Protestant 
 gentleman who would have spoken this evening, unless business 
 had taken him away, could have told us how, a few months ago, 
 a comical collection of incidents were worked up into Seaton 
 being in the possession of the Fenians, and how there were all 
 the accompaniments giving a colour to the absurdity, every- 
 thing except the substratum of truth. Every anonymous scrib- 
 bler who wished to bring odium on the Irish, has had merely to 
 drop in the street or into a letter-box, some outrageous letter 
 threatening vengeance and violence ; and the military are 
 called out, and the police armed, and the special constables 
 are sworn in. Some people ask : " Why do not the Irish offer 
 themselves more numerously as special constables?" Because 
 they would think it as rational to be sworn in against the 
 fairies. Whenever outrage is really threatened, depend upon 
 it, they will as ever be loyal to their employer, and brotherly to 
 their English fellow workmen. But what cause has been 
 gained by all these rumours of imaginary outrages ? Under a 
 timid and suspicious Government we have been pushed back a
 
 273 
 
 thousand degrees towards despotism. lu Ireland liberty has 
 entirely ceased; and in England the liberal measures are 
 almost check-mated by panic. The Irish are a clever and 
 intelligent people. You cannot travel through Ireland and 
 visit the humblest cabins without discovering a discernment 
 far superior to anything existing amongst a similar class in 
 our own country. Do they not easily see that every outrage 
 committed in their name, or threatened in their name is not 
 only a crime but a treason against their country '? It is not 
 only wicked but insane. There is not a single act proved which 
 justifies us in ever suspecting that they would thus act with 
 the wanton recklessness of escaped lunatics. When Stephens 
 was liberated ; when the Manchester prisoners were liberated, 
 there was cleverness, secrecy, fidelity, reticence, and success. 
 There was an object, though criminally rash. There was the 
 exercise of a clemency which has been betrayed. We gain 
 nothing by ignoring these facts. The calm declaration of what 
 is wrong will influence an intelligent, and Catholic, and high- 
 minded people. But if we treat them as at once ruffians and 
 insane, we are powerless to serve them ; we cannot persuade 
 them, we can only manacle them ; and for every one we 
 manacle on a false pretence, we create ten thousand sympathis- 
 ers, who will begin to think such fetters more honourable than 
 a liberty that degrades itself to calumny. No, gentlemen, the 
 real danger is not Fenianism. The danger is a nation at once 
 oppressed and insulted a nation at the mercy of the most 
 degraded informers until at length, their character ruined, they 
 are driven to desperation by the insidious calumnies of enemies 
 whom they can never meet. My own suspicion is that the 
 Clerkenwell outrage is the work of some informer who has 
 bribed or prompted some stupid wretch to do the deed, that he 
 might get a greater bribe by his information. The Star, to its 
 honour, has had the courage to point this out. An informer 
 told the plan, the hour, the mode ; why did he not name more ? 
 His information is believed, the prisoners are removed ; if they 
 had remained in the usual yard of exercise they would doubt-
 
 274 
 
 less have been slain. So that a Frenchman who knew some- 
 thing of our politics, naively remarked to me, that it was 
 clearly an Orange scheme for putting to death the Fenian 
 prisoners ! At the hour signified, a barrel of gunpowder is 
 wheeled up against the walls, which they were told were to be 
 blown up with gunpowder, police are looking on, detectives are 
 looking on, by order of the authorities persons are actually 
 stationed within the prison walls with firearms, on account of 
 what is going to take place. Of course we are bound to suppose 
 no complicity on the part of either the government or the 
 police : but if an equal apparent amount of complicity could 
 have been adduced against some Irish secret Fenian tribunal, 
 we might have been justified perhaps in speaking of the horri- 
 ble Fenian outrage at Clerkenwell. As it is, we perceive the 
 authorities all prepared, but the Fenians, literally unprepared, 
 no arrangement made for receiving the prisoners if they had 
 escaped death amidst the explosion. Though the witnesses 
 seem to have wonderful powers of observation, and to have 
 seen everything, and be able to swear to everything ; yet there 
 is nothing which compromises any discoverable organisation. 
 One way to produce crime is continually to suggest it, unceas- 
 ingly to impute it, and to make those accused unjustly, suffer 
 as if they had perpetrated it. If an event could have occurred 
 calculated to injure the Irish cause, it was this Clerkenwell 
 affair it was instantly telegraphed over Europe. It was in- 
 stantly laid at the door of the Irish and of Fenians. Since the 
 Manchester executions a current of European and American 
 sympathy was surging up on every side. On all sides the 
 impression was arising that the Government had made a mis- 
 take. But now fix the calumny on any party, however re- 
 motely interwoven with Irish Nationality, and everything was 
 changed. And then every idle rumour was again fixed on the 
 same, and telegraphed over Europe. The disastrous explosion 
 at Newcastle was described by telegrams to America as a 
 horrible Irish Fenian outrage. Truly, two or three base charac- 
 ters can effect an infinity of mischief. We have had experience
 
 275 
 
 of this ourselves as English Catholics. Let any one read in 
 Macaulay the narrative of Titus Gates, a degraded loathsome 
 wretch, telling lies at once for lucre and for pleasure ; and yet 
 the English people, generous, intelligent, and kind, were dragged 
 on, infatuated, and the noblest and purest characters perished 
 as criminals on the scaffold, almost without a pitying tear. 
 When we find an informer declared on oath as unworthy of all 
 credit, and yet instantly ready to swear to the man prosecuted 
 as a Fenian ; when we find the terrific ease with which the 
 witness keeps " remembering " and multiplying we see the 
 force of the example recently adduced of the witnesses multi- 
 plying, the instant that one link of the chain of evidence was 
 needed in the trial of Madeline Smith, till the very multitude 
 and assurance of the witnesses invalidated their testimony. 
 They had seen too much, and thus had remembered too well. 
 We call to mind how, many years since in Dublin, a wretched 
 informer named Delahunt, murdered a boy, that he might lay 
 the charge on an innocent man, and receive the bribe for the 
 information. By the mercy of God the wretch was discovered, 
 and ho was hung in the place of his innocent victim. These 
 bribes for information are terrible engines of fraud and oppres- 
 sion. In 1820, the Times, then at the head of the Liberal 
 Press (how changed now, when it desires to make of Ireland a 
 Jamaica) attributed the Thistlewood conspiracy to a gentleman 
 informer named Edwards, and as got up by him to letard 
 Reform, and such has been since the Whig tradition. I have 
 myself had a sad example of this system of spies forming con- 
 spiracies, suggesting and instigating crime, and then, like the 
 hyena, pouncing upon the prey. Not for one single moment 
 can any sane man attribute the knowledge or encouragement 
 of such villainy to any official of the Government to insinu- 
 ate this would be a calumny as detestable as the calumny 
 we repudiate. Again, no man who knows the Irish con- 
 stabulary and those functionaries who preside over it, those 
 men of high integrity, unblemished reputation, and self- 
 sacrificing charity, can ever for a moment insinuate against
 
 276 
 
 them the knowledge of such turpitude. But what can they 
 do? If an information is given, and insisted on, they can 
 only hand it on. Perhaps they might almost say it is more 
 the nation that must investigate it than the courts. For 
 we presume that when the nation is calm, the courts are 
 just. When the nation is panic struck, the hall of justice 
 descends to the popular passions. The nation should be 
 guarded against the true danger and some at least must have 
 the courage to speak, though the malignant may impute sym- 
 pathy with the had. On a certain occasion, a man who had 
 been proved always to have spoken the truth on these matters, 
 who was a Fenian, and had refused renouncing the society 
 according to my advice, came to me afterwards, and said he 
 should withdraw, and then stated that a person had invited 
 him to join in a kind of assassination club, whose members 
 should draw lots to assassinate the Lord-Lieutenant and the 
 judges on the day of passing sentence in Dublin on the State 
 prisoners. Horrified at such a terrific proposal, this man 
 declined, and implored me instantly to communicate the design 
 to the authorities, so that no great crime could be possible. Of 
 course I did so ; just giving the information which he enabled 
 me. Afterwards he sought me again, and told me that he was 
 convinced by circumstances which had come to his knowledge, 
 that the man who suggested the horrid crime was himself an 
 informer. He authorised me to mention this, but feared to 
 give any details lest he himself and some others should be 
 compromised. I laid it before the proper authority under the 
 Government, but though every kind and honourable considera- 
 tion was given, and the statement was believed, it was not 
 sufficiently tangible to act upon. 
 
 For the sake of mercy, of justice, of peace, do not let us blind 
 ourselves to this source of danger and of crime. The more we 
 offer rewards, the more we encourage rumours, the more we 
 excite national animosities on either side, and play up to the 
 vulgar cowardice of a panic, the more are we placing our 
 lives and our properties in the power not of Fenians who
 
 277 
 
 want war and separation but of wretches who want to excite 
 to dastard crimes, to arson and to murder, that amidst the 
 desolation they may inform, may plunder and may destroy. 
 The Irish clear themselves and apologise ? In the name of the 
 Great God of Justice what have they done ? The apology 
 should come from those who without evidence, beyond the 
 purchased evidence of spies, have cast on them the foulest 
 imputations. It is the English who having, through fear, 
 encouraged a panic created on purpose, should arise, and with 
 generous indignation defend the honour of an outraged nation. 
 Have we come to such a pass as this ; that whereas the Eng- 
 lish law heretofore accounted every man innocent till proved 
 before his countrymen to be guilty ; that now every Irishman 
 is to be accounted guilty till proved by overwhelming testi- 
 mony to be innocent ? If generosity does not prompt us to 
 this, let prudence at least compel us. The measures we invoke 
 on the Irish will speedily fall upon ourselves, and destroy our 
 liberty and independence. We are rushing from imaginary' 
 conflagrations and imaginary assassinations into the real appli- 
 ances of what we shall end by finding to be a galling despotism. 
 We are getting an armed police, a fettered press, a system of 
 universal suspicion, spies and informers of the basest charac- 
 ter, prompting the government first to folly and then to 
 injustice. Surely even revolution itself is better than despot- 
 ism ; amidst the crimes and horrors of a revolution, grand 
 characters arise and overtop the rest by the force of genius or 
 of virtue, like the mountain summit soaring above the clouds 
 and the storm. In the raging of a revolution, the Church may 
 press to her wounded breast, her children returned to her as 
 mart3Ts : but at least she is not tempted to become the spiritual 
 police salaried by a power that at once patronises, despises, and 
 crushes her. Beneath despotism nothing flourishes except the 
 theatre, the army, the police, and the favourites of the Court. 
 Do not let us permit the Government to expiate the party 
 crime of giving us a Reform, by frightening us back into the 
 era of the Tudors and the Stuarts. Besides, will the experi-
 
 278 
 
 ment succeed ; suppose we establish amongst us permanently 
 the state of things existing now destroy the liberty of the 
 press imprison every one an enemy may choose to suspect 
 telegraph over Europe and America that the Irish are assassins 
 and insane pursue by social persecution the very Irish servant 
 girl, and drive her as wicked from the home in which we have 
 ridiculed her go on packing juries purchasing witnesses 
 trying in chains men supposed by the law to be innocent 
 making Irish homes the residence of detectives, who, (it has been 
 more than said) have informed against the families, the virtue 
 of whose daughters they failed to seduce. If we pay people to 
 write letters to Catholic Bishops and Priests, threatening them 
 with vengeance; so that amidst the general panic, even they 
 begin half to suspect a people who for 1300 years have sur- 
 rounded them like a wall of fire If by the appliances of so 
 many artifices we succeed in poisoning the educated mind of 
 the country, till it comes to be a question whether a prison cell 
 is not too good a place for an untried Irishman; where is 
 it all to end ? Will such means as these conciliate ? You may 
 flatter and coax the priesthood, when, because in obedience to 
 the laws of the Church, they condemn what the Church con- 
 demns, and you may seem partly to succeed in making it look 
 as if because some are deceived by repeated assertions, that 
 therefore most would palliate the injustice and calumnies 
 directed against their people. But where, I say, is it all to end? 
 What is to be done with a nation united in a sullen hopeless- 
 ness of your rule ? Can you imprison a nation ? Send them 
 afar into penal servitude ? They will remember ; and they will 
 return : but how ? You have seen and know. Let us at length 
 try and enter into the feelings of others. Let us remember 
 that the love of country has been planted in the breast by God, 
 just as much as the love of the family. Domestic fidelity and 
 patriotism go side by side, and kneel before God's altar for His 
 blessing. Do not, because it is not our case, let us adopt the 
 aggravating tone of an affected spirituality, and pretend that it 
 would be more holy for them to be indifferent to their country :
 
 279 
 
 we do not say to a son, Never mind the cottage of your child- 
 hood and your family ; there is a stranger who will come and 
 keep it neater than you, and has got the latest plan, and will 
 manage your home better for you, for you have odd, random, 
 dreamy ways; but the stranger can do things properly. Be- 
 sides, there are too many of you ; and the stranger will, all for 
 your good, tear away half your family, and people with cattle 
 the plot you so foolishly love. For the stranger can fleece your 
 cattle ; but you, your sentimental feelings, are not worth con- 
 sidering ; you shall have more to eat, but you who are at once 
 poor and perverse, what have you to do with sentiments ? 
 Leave the sentiments of patriotism and of honour to us who 
 will manage your affairs for you, and you shall be allowed to 
 live as a helot more comfortably on a land which, if you were a 
 better Christian, and had more sense, you would not retain as 
 your own. 
 
 It is asked, Are the Irish loyal ? Gentlemen, at least they 
 have not insulted her, as the Orange Lodges agreed to insult 
 the Prince of Wales, when he went to Canada, as the represen- 
 tative of his Royal Mother. I think they are even more loyal 
 than the English would be, were the Queen to become a 
 Catholic, to marry the O'Conor Don, to live in Ireland, and 
 recreate in Killarney and Connemara, to hold her Parliament 
 in Dublin, to establish the Catholic Church in England and in 
 Scotland, to deprive the Protestant Bishops of their seats in 
 the Peers, of their palaces and cathedrals, and to make their 
 titles penal; to abolish the English customs, to govern Eng- 
 land after Irish ideas, and to make a flying visit to England 
 about once in a dozen years. Remember James II. and 
 William III. But visits and graceful courtesies will not suffice 
 now. The wound has widened like the gulf at once dividing 
 and uniting Ireland and the West. You cannot heal the gaping 
 wound by playing with it, or denying its existence. Unless 
 something be done, the result can only be the existence of a 
 nation maddened with the first possession of independence ; or 
 a massacre such as the world has never seen. That something
 
 280 
 
 to be done, may the great mercy of God create the genius 
 to inspire, the courage to accomplish. May the statesman 
 speedily arise who shall dare to say of Irish independence, what 
 the Iron Duke said of Catholic Emancipation. Let some 
 statesman full of loyalty to the Crown, and loyalty to the 
 people, demand Ireland for the Irish ; and frankly act upon 
 the admission that they would be rather badly governed by 
 themselves than well by us. Let such a statesman, in a spirit 
 of courageous generosity, grant everything which it is not high 
 treason to ask. If we are to lose Ireland let us rather lose it by 
 generosity than by oppression. But if such a grand legislation 
 should succeed, and many reasons concur to make it probable 
 then Ireland, prosperous, loyal, and united, might become 
 the truest guardian of the British monarchy against the up- 
 heaving of the English democracy. The feeling that pervades 
 now every grade of Irish society, is one of intense yearning 
 after national government. But it is not a feeling of personal 
 hatred to the English, or of rancour towards the English Queen : 
 though doubtless they would love her better if she seemed to 
 love them more. They would honour her more if she seemed 
 to honour Ireland more. I will not venture to say what their 
 political sentiments may be ; but I am sure of this, that the 
 first Lady of the Land, personally, need not guard herself 
 against the Irish. They will do her no wrong, nor her chil- 
 dren ; she may walk through the length and breadth of Ireland 
 alone, and no hand will be lifted against her, no voice will be 
 raised to insult her. They are a people full of tenderness and 
 of ancient chivalry and the woman, the widow, the mother, 
 will not be insulted because she is the daughter of Kings. They 
 compassionate her in her sorrows. They are moved by simple 
 details of her domestic joys. They remember sorrowfully her 
 royal grandfather, who, though opposed to us Catholics, was 
 kind, and honest, and pious, according to his ideas ; and they 
 remember the sorrows of that royal race of tLat old man who, 
 when deprived of reason and deprived of sight, with his grey 
 beard and wan look, and the star of his ancient order on his
 
 281 
 
 breast, would be found wandering through the long stately 
 galleries of Windsor, speaking to imaginary Parliaments and 
 holding imaginary councils, and then singing one of Handel's 
 hymns, accompanying it on his violin, and then, bursting 
 into tears, would pray aloud for his wife, his children, his 
 country, and then for himself, that if it were God's will he 
 might be restored to reason. Depend upon it, the Irish feel 
 kindly towards that royal line, though it has not done much 
 for them. But they are a people to whom love is easier 
 than hate ; and who, when wronged, speedily relent in the 
 presence of kindness or of suffering. And whatever may be 
 their political and national aspirations as regarding the English 
 Government, depend upon it that to the people in the different 
 localities, the English employer has never men more grateful, 
 honest, industrious and true, than the Irish ; and the English 
 working-man never will find a neighbour more kindly, more 
 genial, more trusting, and more generous. Then be generous 
 towards a generous race. You have done noble deeds, you 
 have freed the very African slave, defended him, and made 
 him your equal. Shield your Irish brethren from cruel calumny, 
 and from the merciless designs of the informer, and then be 
 noble, and make the Irish your equals, restore to them their 
 country, for with the loss of their country they lost everything 
 but their faith and their honour. 
 
 As an Appendix to this Address may be added the 
 following letter written to the Secretary of the Amnesty 
 Committee for the release of Political Prisoners, and 
 published in the "THE IRISHMAN" of January 30th, 
 1869: 
 
 I admit that the prisoners have violated the laws of the 
 English Government in the same manner as the Sicilians were 
 even advised to violate the laws of the Imperial Government by 
 Pope Innocent IV., in the Brief which, in the name of the 
 Holy Apostles, he addressed to the Sicilians, wherein he says,
 
 282 
 
 " People are astonished that weighed down, as you are, by the 
 opprobrium of servitude, and oppressed in your persons and 
 goods, you should yet have failed to seek, as have other nations, 
 a means of making sure to yourselves the sweets of liberty. 
 Seek then, on your part, with hearts that are watchful, how 
 to make your community flourish in the enjoyment of liberty 
 and peace. May it be soon spread abroad amongst the nations 
 that, as your kingdom is distinguished for its nobleness and 
 for its great fertility, so, by the aid of Divine Providence, it 
 may join again to its other prerogatives the glory of a well- 
 grounded liberty." 
 
 I admit that the Irish prisoners, beholding their country 
 disarmed and prostrate, and her children wandering to the 
 West, pilgrims at once of despair and of hope, did imitate 
 actions encouraged by the English Government in the Ponti- 
 fical States, in Tuscany, in Venice, in Sicily, in Naples, in 
 Spain, in Belgium, in America that, emulating the ancient 
 example of the Swiss, or the recent example of the Belgians, 
 they deserve whatever censure and whatever punishment at- 
 taches to those who, in a time of peace, against a powerful 
 ruler, enter upon an enterprise at once perilous and hopeless 
 that some of them united with this, circumstances which, 
 unfortunately, brought them under the ban of our ecclesiastical 
 law. 
 
 I admit that they, perhaps, hardly foresaw that, whilst 
 failiig in their real object, they would become instrumental 
 in obtaining for their countrymen at least promises of a 
 national and conciliatory policy, and that their audacity and 
 their sufferings would reunite the Liberal party under, at least, 
 the profession of justice to Ireland. 
 
 I admit that their actions in America and elsewhere have 
 proved to the English Government the impossibility of govern- 
 ing in a tune of war a hostile population, and thereby stimu- 
 lated great minds to try and solve the problem how those who 
 have wronged can conciliate those whom they have oppressed. 
 
 I admit the humiliating fact that the greatest of English
 
 283 
 
 statesmen, representatives of the intelligence and of the indus- 
 try of Britain, owe their present high position to men who in 
 a felon's dress are working along with thieves and garrotters 
 within the gloomy walls of our prisons ; amongst whom are some 
 of the gentlest character, of the tenderest susceptibility, of 
 the purest domestic affection. One of these (now it is feared 
 beginning to show the first symptoms of loss of intellect,) 
 I remember seeing standing at the dock in Green Street, 
 amongst men whose very countenances belied that base, cruel, 
 and utterly unfounded calumny which imputed to them pro- 
 jects of assassination, robbery, and brutality. I do not envy 
 the spectator, of whatever party, nation, or creed, who could 
 have so divested himself of whatever is generous in human 
 nature, as to have been able without tears of respectful 
 sympathy to have looked on those men and heard them make 
 replies testifying that all, more or less, resemble that one in 
 whom three strong thoughts seemed supreme the love of his 
 religion, the love of his country, and the love of his aged 
 mother. Their efforts, impetuous and foiled, have by Glad- 
 stone's public declaration created at once necessity and the 
 desire to relieve a country for which they rashly dared. 
 
 I can never picture to myself their present forlorn and cruel 
 fate, without a shudder of shame and a thrill of horror. 
 
 I was formerly asked to sign a petition that two of them 
 might be saved from execution if they had been bad men I 
 would have signed it, that they might have had time both to 
 repent and expiate. But even in life, there is a punishment 
 more terrible than death and to save my country from a more 
 public and notorious dishonour, I could not petition that the 
 blood which they freely proffered should be spared, and thus on 
 the tedious years of an unnoticed life there might be heaped all 
 the degradations and privations of the felon. But I would gladly 
 sign with my heart's blood, if it would avail them, a petition 
 containing everything in their behalf except an insult, a lie, 
 a repudiation, a dishonour, or a treason if it could only free 
 them from the company of the base and of the wicked, and if.
 
 284 
 
 even without generously restoring them to the sweets of liberty 
 and the homes they love, they were hut to be put in possession 
 of those immunities which every civilised nation should accord 
 to political prisoners unstained with crime and suffering for a 
 cause which even their enemies agree demands amelioration. 
 
 I beg you to appropriate this additional little offering of 1 
 toward the expenses being incurred for them, and to believe 
 me, sir, your faithful servant in Christ, 
 
 FB. ROBERT RODOLPH SUFFIELD, O.S.D.
 
 AN ECLECTIC VIEW 
 
 OF 
 
 ROMAN CATHOLICISM.* 
 
 I shall not, I think, be mistaken if I surmise that amongst 
 the members and guests of the Liberal Social Union a very 
 large number are Rationalists, who regard all the prevailing 
 Religious systems as mythological, and who earnestly desire the 
 promotion of a Religious worship and Religious life, in har- 
 mony with the experiences of man, in harmony with advancing 
 knowledge, in harmony with the facts of Nature's mysterious 
 growth and unity. Such a Religion as this must of necessity 
 recognise the immanence of God in Nature ; the religious 
 nature in man ; the universality of law ; the essential elements 
 of worship, adoration, trust, aspiration, not entreaty, urgency, 
 supplication ; and a moral code based on the experiences of 
 human nature as representing the Will of God. This I venture 
 to call Cosmic Religion or Cosmic Theism. 
 
 There are many who, utterly disbelieving mythological faiths 
 and worship, earnestly desire to show to those similarly circum- 
 stanced the beauty, completeness and spirituality of a Natural 
 and Progressive Religion. This might be done widely and 
 effectually by the dissemination of tracts boldly and distinctly 
 stating what is denied and why denied, and what are the guid- 
 ing principles proposed, and the results as yet attainable. I 
 would submit that there is in this Society talent to compose 
 such cosmic tractates, and that persons interested in the matter 
 could, at these monthly gatherings of Liberal Thinkers, discover 
 coadjutors, and arrange preliminaries to be worked out at other 
 times and places. Such a movement of religious thought, 
 whilst advancing with the universal growth, would be also 
 
 * A paper read before the Liberal Social Union, on the evening of Thurs- 
 day, May 29, 1884, and published in The Inquirer of May 31.
 
 286 
 
 eclectic. Each great teacher becomes incorporated in the ages 
 which follow him. His truths and his errors alike grow ; it is 
 the office of eclectic thought to eliminate the errors, to em- 
 phasise the truths. How marvellously are the theories of 
 Plato living amongst us now in the creeds of Orthodoxy in the 
 higher illuminations of Eationalism. Each one in this room 
 could thus point to bye-gone but most real influences, influences 
 of a very mixed character. I can trace throughout my own life 
 the distinct influence of three authors read in boyhood, Thomas 
 A'Kempis, Shelley, Rousseau. As also influences derived from 
 the Gospels, from Emerson and St. Theresa. The names will 
 vary, but each one would be able to point to ancestors of his 
 mental and moral being ; saying, I owe to such what I chiefly 
 prize, and what I chiefly regret. And if this be so true as to 
 single books, how important must be the influence of systems ; 
 and of all systems of spiritual thought, there present themselves to 
 my mind as supreme in suggestive power, the Buddhist and the 
 Eoman Catholic. As my object is practical, and connected with 
 convictions and results in which I am intensely interested, will 
 you kindly permit me to forget the great divergence of belief 
 existing in this room, and to speak from my own standpoint, 
 viz., that of utter disbelief of all supernatural claims, whether 
 sacred books, sacred human personages, sacred traditions or 
 authoritative churches ; of profound belief in. a Supreme Divine 
 Thought immanent in the Universe, one with the Universe, 
 eternal with the Universe. A Supreme Thought with whom 
 each human soul can commune, and in that communion find 
 sympathy, rest, peace, joy, support, and spiritual illumination. 
 I am not proving, I am confessing to you my intellectual con- 
 viction a conviction which philosophers like Plato treasured 
 among the Greeks, and which formed the central thought of the 
 Vedic, Buddhist, Hebrew, and Christian Religions in the vary- 
 ing and opposing forms thereof. 
 
 Then, speaking from the standpoint of Religious Rationalism, 
 of Cosmic Theism, I ask why should not we, like the Roman 
 Catholic (1), encourage one another to the regular practice of
 
 287 
 
 meditation and contemplation. Rejecting as we do the notion 
 that asking can change God, we should drop entirely what 
 amongst Roman Catholics is deemed the most important part 
 of devotion, viz., supplication. But there remain Adoration, 
 Contrition, Thanksgiving, Aspiration. 
 
 Roman Catholics teach Meditation often too formal and 
 artificial in mode often directing all to Christ, nay, to the 
 very body of Christ, instead of to God; giving prominence to 
 the getting temporal and spiritual benefits out of God by 
 petition, by supplication, unwearied entreaty. All such we 
 should drop as disbelieved by us ; but I have often heard Dr. 
 Newsham, the late venerable President of Ushaw College, urge 
 on the students that petition is selfish, that the highest union 
 with God is obtained by adoration and love. At Roman 
 Catholic Colleges the older boys meditate daily for half an hour 
 in the morning; and in the evening, like the disciples of 
 Pythagoras, examine their conscience. This examination is 
 often injurious, because it dwells so unceasingly on sins, which 
 though perhaps avoided, become too familiar to the imagina- 
 tion, losing all look of shame and disgust; but surely the 
 principle is good and imitable. The Brahminical and Buddhist 
 hermits practise religious contemplation, though often in a 
 prejudicial way. It flourishes among the Brahmo Somaj it 
 is the essential feature of all Roman Catholic institutions, 
 whether Monastic, Conventual or Collegiate it is kept up by 
 very many men and women in the midst of active life in the 
 world, and I am convinced that it tends in many ways bene- 
 ficially. The Rosary, when said by those who use it spiritually, 
 is a mode of contemplation full of consolation to the unlettered, 
 the aged, the blind, the sick; it is unfortunately entirely a 
 contemplation of the bodily presence and actions of Jesus and 
 of Mary, but the idea is capable of ttansfer to the most philo- 
 sophic Theism. 
 
 (2) Roman Catholics, like the old philosophers of classical 
 tunes, like the Branmans and the Buddhists, have buildings 
 and institutions adapted for longer or shorter periods of retreat.
 
 In such, confession to a Priest and submission to a Superior are 
 the prominent features and necessary conditions. But along 
 with these there is much of spiritual beauty, repose, and help- 
 fulness, in these homes of holy thought and gardens of serene 
 contemplation. In the midst of the worry and flurry of life it 
 is soothing and elevating sometimes to escape from its noise 
 and .turmoil to the peaceful cloister and the tranquil walk 
 beneath the garden trees where those who are seen, speak not. 
 At St. Laurent Sur Sevres in La Vendee, I have seen farmers, 
 lawyers, tradesmen, students, and nobles driving up in their 
 various rustic vehicles to spend a fortnight in silence. Silence 
 at meals, silence in the large formal avenues of trees, silence 
 everywhere. And then they dispersed to their homes. Not 
 unfrequently women or men seek a lengthened or even per- 
 manent home as in the guest department of conventual institu- 
 tions. Why should not houses arise, not in servile imitation 
 of these, but embodying just what we need? 
 
 Roman Catholics draw an infinite distinction between reli- 
 gious and secular pursuits, plans, and objects. We do not. 
 We consider the pursuits of a young lady teaching in a High 
 school quite as religious as those of a Benedictine Nun. We 
 consider that to seek retirement to pursue a special study is 
 quite as holy as to seek retirement to prepare for a general 
 confession or to kneel for hours before the Blessed Sacrament. 
 Now supposing a young lady does not wish to be singular, to be 
 talked about as eccentric, or exposed perhaps to inconvenient 
 circumstances and annoying observation. She is needing rest 
 of spirit, or she is needing a short time for special quiet study. 
 Her father's home is either not attainable or not adapted. She 
 has not unlimited means. What would suit her is not attain- 
 able in an hotel, a boarding-house, or a lodging-house. There 
 might be a suitable place, or a companion whose presence 
 might make an otherwise unsuitable place desirable ; but she 
 does not at the moment know of such, and has not time to seek 
 it. Or again a decision has to be made it is the turning 
 point of life : Roman Catholics can at once find a peaceful
 
 289 
 
 home, where without any oddness, without cares of house- 
 keeping, without exciting speculations that something extra- 
 ordinary is looming, such considerations can be pursued 
 quietly and without observation. Or, one has got morally 
 unhinged : he wishes to break off from bad ways and bad 
 companions, to remould his life. Shall I add, he wishes to 
 place himself out of the way of temptation. We have no aid 
 to give to such a person ; the Roman Catholic Church has. 
 Thus I might point to numerous cases wherein brief periods of 
 quiet retirement would be invaluable for study, for mental rest, 
 for reflection, for contrition, for forming plans for the future, 
 for breaking through disastrous surroundings, for spiritual con- 
 templation and holy communion with God. 
 
 But occasionally there will be cases where some one desires 
 such peaceful home of retirement for long periods, even for life, 
 in which cases the social element would have to be provided 
 for, and a tone of cheerfulness introduced, which would not be 
 needed or even desired during brief periods for special objects. 
 
 All this may be ridiculed, criticised, declared not to be needed. 
 Such persons and by that I mean most persons would not go to 
 such houses if they existed ; but there are some to whom homes of 
 studious, quiet, uneccentric retirement would be an unspeakable 
 boon. These retreats for study and thought would vary in their 
 characteristics. Some might perhaps assume one or other of 
 two forms, which I will call "College Solitudes" or "College 
 Homes;" the word "college," signifying the collective and studi- 
 ous characteristic ; the word "solitude," the college adapted for 
 a brief period of retirement for a special object ; the word "home," 
 the college adapted for lengthened periods. I should propose 
 the institution of a few rules to protect the objects of the 
 inmates. There should be a warden, or lady warden, and power 
 to request, nay to enforce, the withdrawal of any unsuitable 
 inmate. Some of these college homes might be adapted for 
 married people. As I have remarked, these colleges would vary 
 in characteristics, though I am assuming the total avoidance of 
 anything opposed to the healthy tone of the Protestant and the
 
 290 
 
 Rationalist ; but speaking as a Liberal Protestant and a pro- 
 nounced Eationalist, it would delight and aid me if at such a 
 college solitude or college home I found a solemn and beautiful 
 church always open for the silent devotion of those sharing my 
 retirement. That church might contain paintings of the great 
 benefactors of mankind, the heroes of goodness and of thought. 
 It might be radiant with flowers, and at certain periods inspired 
 with the solemn strains of the organ ; or even chanted Psalms 
 of praise and trust and hope might cheer the silent worshipper. 
 Do not deride and dismiss this as the dream of enthusiasm. 
 Religion in the human heart is as much a fact of science as is 
 the sun in the heavens. As the eternal children of Nature and 
 of God, we hold eternal verities, and of them we are component 
 parts. There is nothing in philosophy opposed to the divinest 
 instincts of the soul. When amongst Roman Catholics any 
 good work is proposed, which is in harmony with the Church, 
 they do not shiver it up with criticism ; those who are attracted 
 try it, the rest are silent. There are men and women, there are 
 young people who are Rationalists truth forbids them to be 
 aught else but they are as full of reverence as any Roman 
 Catholic saint, and walk in awe through the mystery of human 
 life. It is surely an error ever to damp their higher hopes, to 
 embarrass with that cynical censure 
 
 " Which drowns in sneers 
 
 Youth's starlight smile, and makes its tears 
 
 First like hot gall, then dry for ever." 
 
 (3) Amongst Roman Catholics there is nothing vague as to 
 their teaching ; they teach what they believe, they teach what 
 they deny. When the Church alters anything, such change is 
 distinctly named in books, tracts, and sermons. The Cosmic 
 Theist, the Religious Rationalist holds a Religion which pro- 
 gresses, which grows with the Universe, which, whilst retaining 
 all the treasures of the past, keeps adding the knowledge and 
 experience of the present. We cannot, therefore, have a petri- 
 fied creed, but each thoughtful man knows what he believes 
 now, what he rejects now. As in each country there is much
 
 291 
 
 of simultaneous in progress ; so we find a singular agreement 
 amongst independent religious thinkers in each epoch ; an 
 agreement which enables co-operation in the publication of 
 tracts, and books for young and old, adapted to unfold and 
 support our present convictions, and to show why other state- 
 ments are rejected. If we care for our discovered truth, let us 
 distinctly proclaim it, and each exposed error is a discovered 
 truth. 
 
 (4) Amongst Roman Catholics there is a consistency of 
 action, the worship they deem false they refuse to join in ; 
 they explain distinctly to their young people under what cir- 
 cumstances they can be permitted by courtesy, duty, or neces- 
 sity to be occasionally present at religious services opposed 
 to their belief. Amongst Rationalists, professing to prize truth 
 as an essential part of righteousness, surely there ought to be 
 clear explanations on this subject to young people, supported 
 by unwavering example. Is it so ? Ex. gr. if a person believes 
 that Jesus Christ is God, believes that Heresy is a crime to be 
 placed along with murder and adultery, and that God can by 
 entreaty be induced to confer His favours ; let him say the 
 Litany of the Church of England ; but if these statements are 
 opposed to his convictions, how can an honest man take part 
 in them ? A Roman Catholic would not invoke the interces- 
 sion of Luther ; why are the children of Rationalists to be so 
 frequently the only ones reared in insincere conformity, to 
 get conscience clauses for others, seldom to use such for 
 themselves. 
 
 (5) Roman Catholics continually and successfully encourage 
 the feeling of satisfaction in belonging to a world-wide corpora- 
 tion. Non-Catholics probably cannot realise the fact that such 
 a thought is the source of great joy even to the humblest and 
 most ignorant. The joy consists not in any result obtained, 
 but in the sentiment. 
 
 Evangelicals experience the same as to all those who by faith 
 are united to Christ as their head. These sentiments have a 
 great and abiding power, and whatever lifts us along with our
 
 292 
 
 surroundings on to the platform of a wider sympathy, must 
 be delightful as well as elevating. But surely the Religious 
 Eationalist has a supreme right to this comprehensive and 
 elevating sentiment. Those who speak of " our common 
 Master, Christ," or of "the world- wide society of the Catholic 
 Church " are sectional, and appeal to sectional leaders and sec- 
 tional results. There is only One Being in whom all live and 
 move, and exist, in whom all Humanity centres, hy whom all 
 Humanity is inspired, to whom all Humanity and all Nature is 
 united. The Universe palpitating with the diversified unity 
 of the Universal Life. All forms of existence in communion 
 with Nature's Eternal Mind. All men everywhere, and always 
 sons of God. The Unity of all Humanity in God. Cosmic 
 Theism, whilst requiring each man to be truthful in acting out 
 the convictions he has arrived at, whilst encouraging men to 
 unite in little groups and societies to testify to their convictions 
 and to promote them ; yet, declares that Humanity is the true 
 Catholic Church, and the only Master of Humanity is God. 
 In that truth there is surely sentiment full of consolation to 
 the world's most solitary exile, full of beauty to the poet, full 
 of joy to the young. Why do not Rationalists teach this with 
 distinctness and enthusiasm, instead of pining after flimsy 
 imitations of services in which they do not believe ? 
 " Leave your dry discarded dogmas, 
 
 Faith unreasoning, credence blind, 
 
 All the little narrow circles 
 
 Where you wander self confined ; 
 
 Plashing in the mire and puddle 
 
 Of your small sectarian pond, 
 
 Heedless of the mighty ocean 
 
 And the boundless Heaven beyond. 
 
 Nobler themes than these invite you 
 
 If you'd throb as throbs the time, 
 
 And would speak to hearts responsive 
 
 Words more human, more sublime ! 
 
 ' God is love and love Eternal ;
 
 293 
 
 All things change but nothing dies,' 
 Find this gospel and expound it, 
 In the Bible of the Skies." 
 
 (6) But the Roman Catholic system possesses an attraction 
 greater even than its vision of universality, in the supposed 
 presence of Christ as the incarnate God in the Tabernacle over 
 the altar of the humblest chapel ; that doctrine is the real 
 centre of the entire existing system. May I be permitted to 
 express it by quoting a stanza from a hymn which I wrote in 
 Roman Catholic days ? 
 
 " I rise from dreams of time 
 And an angel guides my feet, 
 To the sacred altar throne 
 Where Jesu's heart doth beat. 
 The lone lamp softly burns 
 And a wondrous silence reigns, 
 Only with a low still voice 
 The Holy One complains. 
 Ever pleading, day and night, 
 Thou canst not from us part ; 
 veiled and wondrous Son, 
 love of the Sacred Heart." 
 
 It is obvious that such a doctrine must when truly believed 
 inspire emotions fuU of tenderness and of consolation. Still 
 more obvious is it, that a belief so profoundly false, so utterly 
 superstitious, could not be simulated without crime. Has, then, 
 Eclecticism any thing to observe regarding it? Assuredly: 
 the Cosmic Theist adores the Real Presence, presence not of a 
 man's body, but of Nature's soul. The expression of such 
 adoration can be found in Wordsworth and in all our best 
 poets, as can be seen by those who use Crompton Jones's 
 selected poems of the inner life, Martineau's selected hymns of 
 praise, Francis Newman's epilogue " We Praise Thee in thy 
 Power, O God," as found in his " Hebrew Theism," and 
 embodied in Charles Voysey's " Service of Praise and Thanks- 
 giving."
 
 294 
 
 (7) My last eclectic suggestion regards the Eoman Catholic 
 treatment of the dead. Protestantism has failed in this matter, 
 has separated us from the traditions of mankind. The Greek 
 and the Boman poured out lihations in honor of the departed, 
 and in many ways made memory of them. The 300 millions in 
 China, from the Emperor to the humblest, on the great anni- 
 versary of the dead, visit, each one the tomb of his father and 
 his mother. " Alone there," says Carlyle, " in silence, with 
 what of worship or of other thought there may be, pauses 
 solemnly each man ; the divine skies all silent over him ; the 
 divine graves, and this divinest grave all silent under him ; 
 pulsings of his own heart alone audible. Truly, it is a kind of 
 worship! Truly, if a man cannot get some glimpse into the 
 eternities looking through this portal through what other need 
 he try it?" Eoman Catholicism in this as in other matters 
 adopted, with modifications, some of the pagan modes of com- 
 memorating the dead. Hence prayers for the dead, monthly 
 and annual commemorations of the dead, a keeping up of the 
 memory of the dead mingled with religious solemnities. Unfor- 
 tunately, more conspicuous than these were the superstitions 
 regarding getting souls out of Purgatory by Masses and Indul- 
 gences. In revolt from these injurious superstitions, Protes- 
 tantism severed the dead from all the lines of religious expression. 
 Hence the solemnities of grief find no utterance which seems to 
 unite us with the departed. Yet surely those aspirations which 
 we deem not unreasonable when offered up for one loved and 
 living, must be as admissable when offered for the soul of the 
 loved one departed. If we believe in the communion of all 
 souls in God, in the Eternity of all forms of Mind and Life, it 
 must surely be well to keep up human love consecrated by 
 reposeful trust in a Divine and Eternal hope and, as it seems 
 to me, this truthful and beneficent thought is beautifully pre- 
 served and sanctified by uniting with piety 
 
 " Gracious service to the living, 
 Tranquil memory to the dead."
 
 FAEEWELL SERMONS 
 
 AT THE 
 
 UNITAEIAN FEEE CHUECH, EEADING, 
 SUNDAY, JUNE 17, 1888. 
 
 MOBNING. 
 
 Reserving until the evening a few remarks of a personal 
 character, let me attempt to summarise to-day what I believe 
 to be the truest, noblest, and most beneficent form of religion. 
 
 True religion I take to be at once Cosmic and Spiritual. 
 The "Cosmic" regards the universal, the "Spiritual" regards 
 the individual soul in its relationship to God. Cosmic religion 
 is revealed to us through nature, Spiritual religion is revealed 
 to us through the soul. 
 
 The entire object of my ministry has been to secure practical 
 religion to those in whose minds the popular faiths have ceased 
 to be credible. I have not endeavoured to shake the belief of 
 others in the legendary or mythological. If a person has 
 caught the spirit of the age and thus questioned the reliability 
 of an inherited faith, I have been anxious to show to such an 
 one that religion remains after the mythology has disappeared. 
 That, as to morals, natural religion presents warnings and sanc- 
 tions more clear, uniform and emphatic than what can be 
 derived from opposing texts in imperfect translations of docu- 
 ments of uncertain origin and questionable authority. When 
 this unveracity has been recognised, we offer to the seeker 
 after truth a religious home. If he considers that he has 
 courage to persevere in a course needing thoughtfulness and 
 independence, he will derive moral benefit by joining us. Most 
 frequently, however, persons who derive aid by occasional 
 attendance at our services, continue in a mental position some- 
 what between "Orthodoxy" and Rationalism. A large and 
 increasing number of persons in the Trinitarian Churches have
 
 296 
 
 arrived at the rejection of some of the dogmas most injurious 
 to individual spiritual happiness and to public well-being. 
 These form the liberalising element daily, happily, on the 
 increase within all the Protestant Churches. Then the grave 
 question arises if the authority of the popular mythology is 
 either weakened or destroyed if the sacred books of the great 
 religions of the world have been proved to be human, though 
 beautiful, liable to error, though often radiant with truth if 
 it has been discovered that the Prophet of Nazareth, with his 
 luminous soul, spoke divinely because he spoke so humanly, 
 appealing, not to sacred books or traditions inherited, but to 
 the conscience and the heart of man the question, I say, 
 arises, what is the foundation of the religion of those who have 
 ceased to acknowledge miraculous books and miraculous men ? 
 To solve and illustrate this question has been the object of 
 my ministry ever since my secession from the Roman Catholic 
 Church, in July, 1870. The Roman Catholic Church is an 
 imposing organisation, the inheritor of great traditions. I 
 left the Roman Church in order to join, not what is less 
 universal, but what is more really universal. I left a sect 
 in order to join what embraces that sect and all the sects 
 the Cosmic whole. The word " Cosmos " means order, 
 arrangement, regularity, discipline, method ; but it also means 
 the world, the whole frame of the universe the totality. 
 Thus "Cosmos" denotes the orderly and providential develop- 
 ment and growth of the moral, mental, and physical existences 
 constituting the world we know, and what can be seen around 
 the world. 
 
 We find ourselves the inheritors of many lines of thought, of 
 many venerable traditions, of various teachings, aspirations, 
 strivings, of great religions, of great philosophies all these 
 have combined in forming us, in moulding our tone of thought, 
 and our principles of action. We find ourselves with certain 
 mental and moral faculties, blaming in human conduct some 
 things, approving other things. 
 
 Practically no one is moulding his conduct entirely and
 
 297 
 
 exclusively on the Levitical precepts or on the Sermon on the 
 Mount on the Old Testament or the New. Those who sup- 
 pose themselves to rest on such authority will find as a matter 
 of fact, that they are in reality only illustrating out of scrip- 
 ture what they have learned from the developed conscience of 
 mankind. We express boldly and openly what so many gentle 
 souls think timidly. They, under the influence of good sense 
 and right feeling, interpret scriptural statements and ecclesias- 
 tical formularies, so as to meet the requirements of a conscience 
 better instructed and more enlightened. It is not that each 
 man begins afresh, it is that each man begins as the heir of all 
 the past. And not only from one past ; the converging lines 
 come from Palestine, from Chaldaea, from ancient India, 
 ancient Egypt, from Athens and from Home. These all 
 converge in each English soul sometimes knowingly to the 
 individual most frequently not known by him. But however 
 unknown to him, each Christian Englishman is, in his moral 
 and religious life, the possessor of what can be traced to the 
 Schools of Stoics and Platonists, to the saints of Palestine, 
 and to the contemplatives of a remoter East. The most 
 ardent Protestant has within him influences derived from the 
 "Imitation of Christ." The most submissive Roman Catholic 
 is the unconscious possessor of a tone of religious and moral 
 thought derived from the German prophet so gentle by his 
 fireside, so terrible to his foes who drank the wine of indepen- 
 dence in his Saxon cup and, bending his head, not in humility, 
 but in opposition, dashed on into the battle of ideas. Rome had 
 been resting on her golden couch for 600 years ; the clarion 
 voice that roused her is now an unacknowledged inspiration to 
 Rome as well as to Geneva. Luther beheld with unquailing 
 spirit the two authorities wherewith the past was clothed with 
 majesty the Pope and the Empire. To them he opposed his 
 heart in itself an indestructible power. To Luther even the 
 Bible was subordinated to the individual conscience the Bible 
 might perish : the eternal gospel is in the soul and in 
 humanity.
 
 298 
 
 Such is the Cosmic Faith, the universal foundation, the 
 universal religion. We find it in Abraham, in the Patriarchs, 
 in the Psalms, in Job, in Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, Micah, 
 in the discourses and parables of Christ, in the Epistles of 
 St. Paul, and of St. James the brother of Jesus. Even when 
 the ecclesiastical deluge covered the Paradise of God, the 
 Cosmic spirit passed over the waters and the billows sparkled 
 here and there with unexpected light. That sentence of 
 Abelard Priest and Monk was a ray of light. " Reason is 
 an interior and permanent revelation, the light enlightening 
 every man who cometh into this world. Reason has guided to 
 God all the sages of antiquity. Of their salvation we need not 
 doubt." 
 
 To us now, in our stage of moral growth, with our antece- 
 dents and surroundings, could a thousand miracles make us 
 more certain than we are, that we must win excellence by 
 noble efforts, must subordinate instinct and passion to reason, 
 to conscience, to the purest sentiments of the heart and soul ? 
 That we must bend selfish personal ends before the majesty of 
 justice, goodness, mercy ? That what we gain now we gain for 
 ever, that what we lose we lose for ever ? 
 
 " I slept and dreamed that life was beauty ? 
 " I woke and found that life was duty, 
 " Was the dream, then, a shadowy lie ? 
 " Toil on, sad heart, courageously, 
 " And thou shalt find thy dream to be 
 " A noonday light and truth to Thee." 
 
 Ecclesiastical practices rest on ecclesiastical authority, but 
 the truths which profoundedly move the soul and the life are 
 the truths of natural religion, natural morals, the experi- 
 ences of man, and the facts of nature. We have from science 
 learnt the vastness of the universe, the antiquity of the world, 
 and the gradual growth of its inhabitants; that instead of a 
 fall of man there has been a raising up of man ; that Paradise 
 has not been lost but has to be won ; that God's mode has 
 been by gradual evolution, not by sudden creation. By the
 
 299 
 
 recent science of comparative religion we have learnt that 
 sublime truths are scattered here and there amidst the religions 
 and philosophies of the world. That if the Jews had sacred - 
 books, so had the Hindoos, and the Parsees, and the Chinese. 
 That if medieval Christianity presented to us a dramatic judg- 
 ment day, so did Egypt and Chaldea. That Incarnations, 
 and the Trinity, and the Cross are not of Christian origin. 
 That legends and truths are scattered here and there amongst 
 various religions. That some of the sublimest of the moral 
 precepts of Christianity are to be found in the writings of 
 philosophers and in the sacred books of the Buddhists, of the 
 Brahmins, and of Confucius, ages before the Christian Era. 
 That Baptism and the Lord's Supper owe their origin to the 
 Essenes; and that most ecclesiastical rites can be traced to 
 Paganism. These discoveries distress some, who have been 
 resting their spiritual All on one line of authority. Happy for 
 those dear, gentle souls, when they can perceive that what they 
 really prize rests upon a Cosmic and not a narrow basis. I 
 wish not to unsettle another's faith, for some have not strength 
 to brave the mental conflict ; but if the faith is unsettled, and 
 at the present time such unsettlement is widely spread, 
 then it is our joyful privilege to invite the ^timid soul out 
 of the narrow groove into the wide temple of the universe 
 there to learn the best things, known not merely to the 
 clergy of one Church, but to the competent within and 
 without all the Churches. In all the most earnest matters 
 we appeal to human nature to the consensus of the competent 
 to the moral sentiment of the thoughtful, the disinterested, 
 and the good. Thus, if we are in doubt about a course of 
 action, an appeal to scriptural texts would be of doubtful 
 benefit. But let a man ask himself, (1) What should I advise 
 to a loved friend who trusted me ? (2) What should I wish to 
 have done when life is ebbing away and I look back ? (3) If 
 my action regards another, what should I wish, if, sorrowing, 
 I were to go and stand by his tomb ? (4) What have I thought 
 as to this in my best and highest moments ? When,
 
 300 
 
 " At twilight's holy, heartfelt hour, 
 
 " Man in his better soul has power." 
 
 One of our novelists describes a young man who has led 
 another unto sin, and the next morning he awakes and sees 
 the sun rising, and hears the birds chirping on the honey-suckle 
 clustering over his window, and he sees the picture of his 
 mother on the wall, and the memento of a dear friend who had 
 loved him in the days of his innocence. He is overwhelmed 
 with shame and remorse, and would give worlds to undo what 
 he has done, lamenting those happy mornings when he could 
 look back on his actions and say " In the integrity of my heart 
 and the innocency of my hand, I have done this." " My righte- 
 ousness I hold fast and will not let it go ; My heart shall not 
 reproach me so long as I live." That is Cosmic religion, for it 
 belongs to the whole of the human race. All the best utter- 
 ances of the Old and New Testament belong to Cosmic religion, 
 " He hath showed thee, man, what is good ; and what doth 
 the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and 
 to walk humbly with thy God." Such sentiments inspire Psalm 
 after Psalm: if we omit some expressions of barbaric vengeance, 
 the Psalter is the Prayer Book of the Cosmic faith ; the Book 
 of Job is its Poem; Christ is its Prophet; St. Paul and St. 
 James its Apostles. Often have I invited young people joyfully 
 to raise their hearts to God by an almost daily use of the 
 Psalms, and then they would become inspired with the Cosmic 
 faith, God in All. Wordsworth has carried on the same idea in 
 the melody of his song. How Cosmic was the Ideal of Christ ! 
 He did not even exclude the corrupt the dews of heaven 
 falling on the gardens of the just and the unjust. He presented 
 to his disciples no creed but love the love of the sinner, the 
 love of the fallen, the love of the outcast, the love of nature, the 
 love of God. Love was to be the only mark of his discipleship. 
 The disinterested, unselfish, self-sacrificing love, which is the 
 gift and heritage of the pure in heart, who, through the 
 medium of human love, gaze trustfully into the love of the 
 AH Holy lover of souls. St. Paul, writing to the Koreans,
 
 301 
 
 proclaims distinctly the sufficiency of natural religion for the 
 religious and moral guidance of man. Persons reared in any 
 narrow sectarian training try to judge others by the limitations 
 of their creed ; hut how few are so bigoted as to be able to do 
 so. The Athanasian creed may have been recited in church, 
 but its anathemas are displaced by the Spirit of Christ as soon 
 as the utterer comes across his ' neighbour ' ; and we know how 
 wide an interpretation Christ gave to that word. It may be 
 that the neighbour says he believes in One God, but knows 
 nothing about His Trinity ; reveres the teaching of Christ, but 
 without declaring him to be the Deity, applying to him the 
 saying of his mother, when she said " Your father (Joseph) and 
 I have sought you sorrowing." All your kindly social inter- 
 course is based on the Cosmic idea the brotherhood of all 
 men, the universal fatherhood of God. Often have I invited 
 our young people to practice acts of Adoration, Contrition, 
 Thanksgiving, Supplication A.C.T.S. to God as the all pre- 
 sent, all pervading Soul of the universe, with Whom we unite 
 our soul in spiritual communion. That is the great Cosmic 
 sacrament, limited to no sect, needing no priest. 
 
 Cosmic religion is in harmony with science, with progress, 
 with liberty, with human sympathy ; it includes all men, nay, 
 all worlds and all forms of future life. I am not to day 
 attempting to prove to you the sublime realities of the Cosmic 
 Theism. Again and again during the years of our gracious 
 intercommunion, have I attempted to illustrate the wonders 
 of the Divine mind, and the grounds we have for loving trust 
 in His Paternal Providence. On what trembling balances of 
 powers, on what delicate and almost imperceptible chemistries 
 does man's tenure of earth and life rest, but behind these 
 gauze-like veils we see the sympathetic compassion of our 
 Heavenly Father, with His adaptations and compensations. 
 
 Cosmic Theism can never, if honestly and consistently held, 
 be a persecuting, an arrogant, or a contemptuous faith, for it, 
 by its very nature, embraces all. It rejoices in the beauties 
 and excellencies of all religions all belong to humanity, and
 
 302 
 
 all are under God. Buf the Cosmic Theist gladly beholds a 
 progress in religious ideas. The gods of the Pagan Mythology 
 entered the Elysian fields amidst the Jubilee of Warriors. The 
 god of the Catholic Mythology entered Jerusalem (which means 
 the City of Peace) amidst the waving of the green branches of 
 the early palm and amidst the joyous chaunt of children. The 
 Cosmic Theist has profound trust in knowledge, for knowledge 
 is the revelation of God. Man has to be emancipated from the 
 bondage of error, to be enlightened so as to stand outside its 
 obscurities. Man has to learn to know himself, to know the 
 world surrounding him, to cast the anchor of Knowledge into 
 the rock of Truth, to emerge from fantasies into realities. 
 The Spirit of Truth does not make its temple into a sepulchre 
 of thoughts which once breathed, and lived, and moved, but 
 now are dead. Her temple is the dwelling place of thoughts 
 that live. The Spirit of Truth admits of no finality. The 
 Spirit of Dogma formularises a proposition, and says it must 
 endure for ever. The Spirit of Truth reverently and gratefully 
 looks backward ; She sees the Eternal One in the past, but also 
 in the present and in the future. The lover of truth never 
 stops ; he is like the Arab, who, when the morning comes, folds 
 up his tent and advances. To us the Universe is a vast cathe- 
 dral, and the choral chaunts from souls diverse and countless 
 swell upwards in confused but harmonious symphony, tumbling 
 and blending and rolling overhead among the vast arches and 
 around the clustered pillars whilst the ground of existence 
 trembles joyfully beneath the footsteps of the invisible God. 
 If in a few earnest hearts we can infuse such thoughts, 
 " We feed the high traditions of the world," 
 " And leave our spirits in our brethren's breasts." 
 
 Let us strive to follow the Christ of Nazareth, whose im- 
 mortal utterance will inspire us " For this end was I born, 
 and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear 
 witness unto the Truth." 
 
 Cosmic religion is a religion not only of duty and of love and 
 of progress, but it is a religion of beauty. The All-Beautiful
 
 303 
 
 God is its centre, its inspiration, its joy. Let no man impove- 
 rish the world of one particle of grace or beauty. True religion 
 will cultivate the beauty and grandeur of the Arts ; Painting 
 will blend with Poetry, and Music chaunt immortal harmonies. 
 
 Let our Cosmic faith be an over-mastering reality. There 
 is only one great vice, namely Selfishness. There is only one 
 great virtue, namely Thoughtful Sympathy Thoughtful Love. 
 Knowledge is precious, but its preciousness consists in this, 
 that true Knowledge is Mercy. We believe in Immortality; 
 we believe in the Eternity of all life and all actions. But our 
 object now is this present life. Whatever may be the future 
 life, when it arrives we must do our best then. But now our 
 duty is to make to others this present life more excellent, 
 more holy, more happy, more wise, more beautiful. If men 
 are at enmity with God, it is because they are at enmity 
 one with the other. Let us strive to unite men class to 
 class nation to nation family to family in the holy en- 
 thusiasm of Humanity. You, much loved and loving friends, 
 acted on that idea when, eleven years ago, you laid the founda- 
 tion of this Church. You thought You " would put your creed 
 into your deed, nor speak with double tongue." Believing in 
 God, in nature, in human life and in the 'human soul, you 
 desired to remind yourselves and to remind your friends in 
 Reading, that whatever is best and noblest in the creeds of the 
 Churches is what human life has inspired, and human hearts 
 loved, and human sympathy blessed. You perceive that all 
 nature is, through God's presence, supernatural; that Christ 
 was the offspring of humanity, not its Lord ; and that his is the 
 greatness of humanity, not the abasement of God ; that prayer 
 is not a petition for interference, but an aspiration of Adoration, 
 Contrition, Thanksgiving and Supplicating aspiration ; that 
 immortality is of the nature of things, not by some portent ; 
 that the infinite grandeur of God cannot be measured by man's 
 littleness ; that Christianity is a grand human fact, not a pre- 
 ternatural exception. 
 
 You. have been attending these services wherein so imperfectly
 
 304 
 
 I have striven to share your thoughts. You have taught the 
 children on Sunday. You have borne witness to the truth as 
 to your souls it seemed. This little Church is a monument of 
 self-sacrificing zeal. You have realised that God and duty 
 belong to the present at present God to us is only here ; to us 
 the New Jerusalem is not in the clouds, it covers the world, and 
 its limit is our furthest horizon. You embarked in an arduous 
 enterprise. Universal Truths are, at first, only held by a few. 
 You resolved to bear witness to the truth ; to remind all our 
 dear and honoured friends around us, that universal religion 
 embraces all of them. At first they resented the erection of 
 this Church. I am not surprised ; they supposed we were going 
 to cast scorn on the traditions they loved. They found it was 
 not so, and to day I gratefully return my ministry to your 
 hands with the happy conviction that a bond of holy sympathy 
 combines us together, and combines us together with them. 
 
 EVENING. 
 
 My very dear friends and fellow workers, to day I resign the 
 ministerial charge which you intrusted to me nine years and a 
 half ago. It has always been my opinion that amongst us a 
 pulpit should not be occupied more than ten years. After 
 allowing for absences and occasional repetitions of a sermon, 
 a ministry of that duration implies 864 discourses, which is 
 equivalent to the composition of 36 printed volumes. A man 
 might, by keeping himself up to the level of the times, publish 
 three volumes and a half each year, on topics of mere general 
 interest, but you do not, by considerable sacrifice, erect a 
 church for the worship of God, and the promotion of Spiritual 
 Religion and holiness of life, in order to obtain on the Sunday, 
 a repetition of the ideas which have occupied our minds in 
 political meetings, or in gatherings for literary, artistic, musical
 
 305 
 
 or social objects. If, for the sake of exciting wider interest and 
 receiving larger attendances, this pulpit should be used on 
 Sunday for political or other secular purposes, I should cease to 
 be an attendant, and that would be the case with a considerable 
 proportion of those who have hitherto attended our services 
 with regularity. 
 
 But, after composing 35 vols. on religious, spiritual and 
 moral truths, or on topics directly leading up to such, one 
 becomes diffident as to one's power of being able to impart 
 continued interest to the treatment of subjects limited in their 
 range, unless recourse be had to mere sensationalism. 
 
 This thought was in my mind when, in my circular of last 
 October, I signified my intention of withdrawing from any per- 
 manent ministerial functions, so as to devote myself more fully 
 to private literary pursuits. I said, " short ministries are 
 injurious to congregations, and therefore I had declined attrac- 
 tive offers which might have taken me away at earlier dates. 
 But a change of ministry, kindly and thoughtfully made, after 
 nearly ten years is not without advantage," therefore with less 
 reluctance, yielding to personal considerations and objects, I 
 resolved to terminate the ministerial responsibilities which 
 commenced amongst you on February 9th, 1879. After an 
 absence of three months I propose to return to Reading as a 
 continued resident, always, as heretofore, glad to co-operate in 
 local interests in a town endeared to me by many ties; and 
 as a worshipper in our Church, though without any official 
 connection therewith, supplementing my modest pecuniary 
 resources by literary work and occasional pulpit duties, else- 
 where, or in Reading, when for a brief period such might be 
 desired, in consequence of gaps arising between more perma- 
 nent arrangements. But I should like my name to be removed 
 from the Church Board, so that in the event of future tempo- 
 rary engagements arising between us, it should be clear that I 
 act as supplying your pulpit, and not as the responsible minis- 
 ter. It is my earnest hope that you may speedily obtain a 
 resident minister. A succession of ministers, if regarded as
 
 306 
 
 candidates for the pulpit, is apt to produce a critical spirit, and 
 preferences arise of a party character. Whilst always glad to 
 render friendly information, I shall not embarrass my successor 
 or yourselves hy advice and criticism. But, in the absence of 
 any regular minister, you will know that whenever I am in 
 Reading I shall be glad, when requested, to render those minis- 
 terial services needed sometimes in the course of the week, and 
 which cause expense and inconvenience if sought from London. 
 I allude to baptisms, marriages, and funerals. I have nothing 
 else of a personal kind to say, beyond what I expressed to you 
 in my circular ; my grateful sense of your affection, your har- 
 mony, your zeal and loving earnestness for the great principles 
 of which our Church stands as the local representative. My 
 thanks too are due, not only to yourselves, for much sympathy 
 and much forbearance, but also to many kind friends, here and 
 elsewhere, outside our regular congregation. 
 
 On these matters of personal feeling I will say no more, for 
 I do not wish to impart to the joyful occasion of your anniver- 
 sary any of those painful emotions which belong to parting. 
 Nine years and a half cannot pass without weaving many 
 bonds of pleasant kindly goodwill. It is not always the 
 case that, as now between ourselves, such a period of time 
 elapses without, as far as I know, a single word or feeling 
 having tarnished our perfect harmony. To the Officers of this 
 Church and to our Honorary Organist I offer my sincere 
 thanks. 
 
 Turning now from these more private considerations, let me 
 continue a summary of the Truths I have endeavoured to 
 enforce and illustrate from this tribune. 
 
 I have taught Revelation as revealed through Nature and 
 through Man. Therefore I have taught Cosmic religion, 
 namely, that religion is not the possession of any one Church 
 or Sect, but is co-extensive with mind; all minds existing in 
 the Supreme Mind. That an Eternal Universe is inspired by 
 an Eternal Mind. That the universe is an eternal growth, an 
 eternal evolution, and might be an eternal progress. That all
 
 307 
 
 intelligences have the power of helping on or retarding that 
 growth. Hence, through the ignorance of some, the faultiness 
 of others, the universal growth is but too frequently retarded. 
 That the moral law is the ever enduring manifestation of the 
 Mind of God, to be discovered by the exercise of thought and 
 experience. That each man has within him a faculty, itself 
 the product of ages, whereby he approves goodness and con- 
 demns vice. That what is good and what is vicious, he learns 
 chiefly by its effects on human happiness and human character. 
 Rejecting the Hell and the Heaven of the Pagan, Chaldean 
 and Christian mythologies, I have continually dwelt on the 
 indubitable verity, that each act produces its effect and that 
 effect endures. Hence the absolute certainty of retribution. 
 Each good action, each good word, each good thought, each 
 bad action, each bad word, each bad thought, endures alike 
 and always. I have constantly illustrated that great truth from 
 the sacred books of the Buddhists, from the writings of the 
 Philosophers, from the results of modern investigations, aided 
 by the great thinkers of ancient and modern times ; we have 
 together desired goodness, heroism, love, devotedness, purity, 
 self-sacrifice. We have read from the sacred books of the 
 various Faiths of mankind, from the pages of ancient philoso- 
 phy, from the mystical writings of Christian fathers and 
 medieval saints, as also the luminous thoughts of the moderns. 
 We have recognised all as component parts of the universal 
 temple of religion and of virtue. We have forgotten our little 
 sanctuary, with its eighty or ninety worshippers, in remem- 
 brance of the universal family of humanity wherein we take 
 our humble place. Under the Unitarian name we gratefully 
 acknowledge our historic origin and the enlightening influences 
 of the Unitarian Theology. But we also prize the name be- 
 cause it has broadened its significance, and now implies the 
 unity of divine operations, and the spiritual unity of mankind. 
 If, as Unitarians or Religious Rationalists, we thus call our- 
 selves " Liberal " Religionists, it is not because we deem 
 illiberal those friends in the Trinitarian Churches to whom
 
 308 
 
 our heart goes forth in the fulness of brotherly love; but 
 because we desire to emphasise what the dictionaries tell us 
 the word " Liberal " signifies : " free by birth " "gentle in 
 manners" "befitting a man free and refined" "generous" 
 "open-hearted" "not narrow or contracted" "enlarged 
 inspirit" "Catholic." If, amidst the many imperfections of 
 my ministry, any word has escaped my lips opposed to such 
 sentiments of reverent love to all, I lament it and wish such 
 word blotted out by the tear of the Eecording Angel. These 
 sublime, universal truths I have not rested on any Bible, 
 Church, miraculous man, or miraculous statement I do not 
 deny miracles, but I say they are unproved. I dare not found 
 religious and moral life on what may turn out to be merely a 
 beautiful legend. I have never scoffed at those legends. They 
 are held as realistic by some unspeakably dear to us. But I 
 must speak the truth, even though I step reverently over the 
 grave of my mother These universal truths I have found in 
 the universal heart of mankind. Eeligion is Cosmic and 
 Spiritual ; Universal and Individual. The Cosmic Faith arises 
 out of the Cosmic whole. In its spiritual aspects, as affecting 
 the relationship between God and each individual heart, it 
 comes to us specially from the chosen souls of humanity. 
 Amongst these, one name stands supreme. Like music over 
 the waters the name of Christ comes to us, bearing the spiritual 
 memories of the eighteen hundred years. In spiritual religion 
 the name of Christ is pre-eminent. He was not God. I know 
 not that He possessed any miraculous office, or any miraculous 
 gifts, but as St. Bernard says, " He drank of the torrent and 
 was inebriated with the waters of Divine Life." He did not 
 reveal anything actually new ; but he emphasised great truths, 
 and he caused veiled truths to step forth visibly. The Truths 
 of Spiritual Eeligion What are some of these Truths ? 
 
 1. Fatherhood of God. That the Divine Soul of the Universe 
 is a paternal Spirit, a loving Spirit, fostering, cherishing all 
 with the breathings of a divine sympathy. Philosophy revealed 
 the Cosmic soul. Sanctity revealed the consoling Spirit of 
 Divine Love.
 
 2. Hence the sense of filial relationship arose ; and St. Paul, 
 the pupil of Hebrew psalmists and Stoic philosophers, was able, 
 with a realisation deeper than he obtained from them, to say 
 with Jesus of Nazareth, " Our Father who art in Heaven." 
 Man in his often sorrowful pilgrimage needs sympathy. He 
 has thus created to himself human Gods. But Christ presented 
 to them the Supreme Beneficence, circling all with the Ever- 
 lasting Arms. 
 
 3. Hence the conscious communion between our soul and 
 God in Adoration, Contrition, Thanksgiving, Supplication. 
 Often have I invited you and our young people to practice those 
 spiritual acts, recalling them by the word " A.C.T.S." Such 
 would be our Eucharist, our spiritual communion. 
 
 4. Hence a consciousness of sin, more spiritual, more deep, 
 more contrite than when regarded solely as a violation of the 
 Cosmic laws which connect goodness with happiness, vice with 
 misery. 
 
 Spiritual Religion causes us to realise that sin separates us 
 from union with God, clouds that sanctity of soul whereby 
 once we beheld the Divine Vision. It has been my effort to 
 prove that the Religious Rationalist, holding a Cosmic Theism 
 in harmony with progress, with liberty, with science, history, 
 and thought, has not thereby separated himself from the 
 traditions of sanctity, and the lineage of the holy ones who 
 have walked with God. That to us, as to them, Spiritual 
 Religion is a reality, and contrition something deeper than the 
 fears of prudence and the remorse of kindness. It injures us, 
 injures others, injures the Cosmic order but also, it distances 
 the soul from God. We reject the Hell of eternal torment, we 
 admit only as a dramatic type, the legend of the general 
 judgment. We find a judgment nearer and more certain. 
 
 Cosmic Religion would not be a complete religion, would 
 not be a spiritual religion, would not be a happy religion, 
 unless it could pour the balm of consolation over the heart 
 bruised by sin. Christ is the ideal hero of the sinner ; deprive 
 him of that glory, and you shear him of his locks of beauty,
 
 310 
 
 and tear from his shoulders the blood-stained garment of his 
 pacific royalty. Christ, like all holy men, realised the idea of 
 sin, and therefore to raise from sin, to bring back to God, was 
 one of the sacred passions of his soul. He enlists in the science 
 of such ideas, all the pathos of Oriental imagery. The philo- 
 sophers of India, China, Egypt, Greece, and Rome had not 
 exhausted human possibilities. A voice was heard in the East 
 in that land of poetic dreams, where the very glory of the 
 night is an unceasing miracle, and where the wrapt soul more 
 easily loses itself in God, and exalts itself in sense of conscious 
 union with Him. The voice said " Ego sum Pastor Bonus," 
 and the walls of the Christian Catacombs have made us familiar 
 with the gracious form of the Good Shepherd, a pilgrim on the 
 desolate moor to gather unto his bosom the lamb wandering 
 and wounded. 
 
 And again the voice said " Come unto me, all ye that labour 
 and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." And how 
 would he give them rest ? By leading them on to God, to the 
 paternal God, to his Father and their Father. And so the 
 Prodigal Son is made by Christ to utter his cry of Spiritual 
 Religion. Crushed, destroyed, desolated by sin, he does not 
 remain in the isolation of remorse, but he says, " I will arise 
 and go unto my Father and I will say to him Father, I am 
 not worthy to be called Thy son." Christ makes it clear who 
 is his Father, to whom the parable points. 
 
 The exaggerations and errors of the popular mythology must 
 not cause us to forget our indebtedness to Christ. We cannot 
 spare the heroes of sanctity from the Cosmic Temple of hu- 
 manity. It is not folly, but gratitude, which has printed the 
 name of the Nazarene on so many sorrowful hearts. Other 
 teachers either compromised with the sinner or rejected him. 
 Christ took him up and bore him on his shoulders as a trophy 
 of spiritual victory, borne into his gracious pathetic school of 
 thought. Plato bore the olive branch into the groves of the 
 Academy. Christ led into his school little children, suffering 
 men, -fallen women ; and in Oriental imagery he would be their
 
 311 
 
 Shepherd. In the East, the shepherd goes before the sheep, 
 and they follow him, because they love him. Christ was a poet, 
 and he appealed to the poetic element seldom quite absent from 
 the human heart. Dry precepts would never have moved to 
 penitence ; but who has ever been insensible to the story of the 
 Prodigal, or of Lazarus and his sisters, or the dramatic pathos 
 of Mary Magdalene's history. 
 
 Let us not destroy the poetic beauty of ancient legend by 
 lowering it into a dogma. Let us remember the language and 
 the manners of the East, and we shall understand the symbolic 
 legend of Lazarus how Christ spoke to the youth not physi- 
 cally dead, but dead in sin, and how, when Christ spoke, the 
 dead arose and answered him. We shall understand how and 
 why the sorrowful and the forsaken cast themselves at his feet, 
 a homage which in our colder habits is replaced by the saluta- 
 tion of respect, the kiss of affection, or the hand of friendship. 
 
 Cosmic Religion has to come to us in its spiritual form, if it 
 is to heal the sorrows of the soul. The Prodigal Son and Mary 
 Magdalene belong to us as well as to the days gone by. It is 
 our duty and our privilege to show to the sinner crushed and 
 forsaken, that there is an alternative without having recourse 
 to legends which the reason can no longer maintain. The story 
 of Mary Magdalene embodies Eternal Truths the sadness of 
 sin the heroism of the return the trust wherewith the good 
 love the wanderer restored to noble endeavours. The dramatic 
 characteristics of the narrative have proved an infinite benefit, 
 as serving to show how trust in a good man can redeem the 
 forlorn. Mary Magdalene was described as the woman who 
 was a sinner notorious throughout the city. We can picture 
 her career, we know it all ; we see her in her early youth, her 
 air of liberty, her vanity, and her worldliness. We see her 
 face, her hair, her dress, her attitude. We see her flaunting in 
 the pride of her majestic beauty. Then we behold her, the grace 
 of virtue perished. The heart hardened, first corrupted, then 
 corrupting. Then she, somehow, comes across the Nazarean 
 Teacher. The voice of Jesus moved her that voice which had
 
 312 
 
 so often spoken to God, spoke benignly to Man. The grace of 
 virtue gave it eloquence sadness gave it pathos simplicity 
 gave it power. He was to her such a contrast. She, all for 
 effect, he aiming at nothing. She all propriety before others, 
 all license with the criminal, he careless before others, all 
 tenderness to the criminal. She thinks, I have been loved 
 by the wicked, I should desire to be loved by the good, if 
 anything could save me, his love might save me. He has said 
 " The bruised reed I would not break," and often when he saw 
 the peasants in the field blowing up their fire, he said, as a 
 child might speak in his dreams, " The spark in the smoulder- 
 ing fire I would not quench." Perchance the breath of his 
 pure lips might fan the spark in my heart into a flame of holy 
 purpose shall I go to him ? and she goes ; and as she goes 
 her feet print on the sands of time one of the grandest pages of 
 the Gospel. And she goes more valiant than Judith and 
 Deborah her heart beats, not with fear, but with love and 
 victory. Her cheek is flushed, not with shame, but with 
 spiritual power. According to the Eastern customs, she pros- 
 trates herself before the Teacher, she kisses his feet and bathes 
 them with her golden tresses. She takes from her breast the 
 only ornament she has retained, the vase of costly ointment 
 she pours out upon him the fragrant oil, and then breaks the, 
 vase she breaks it, that it may never be used for another. She 
 becomes the disciple nay more than disciple the friend of 
 Christ. He becomes the frequent guest at her house. She is 
 found at his feet when he is speaking at his cross when he is 
 dying at his grave when he is buried. She even fancies she 
 sees him appear, tries to touch him, but cannot. She seems to 
 hear his voice that voice of pathetic tenderness ; she at least 
 could never forget that voice that had restored her to hope, 
 had brought her back to God. Such is Spiritual Religion. 
 Not to stay with Christ, but to go on to God. Not to rest on 
 Christ, or on any Saint, or Church, or Sacrament, or Holy 
 Book, but to go to God, and on Him rest, and in Him hope, 
 and in Hun eternally rejoice as may you ever, sweet friends, 
 now and evermore.
 
 THE DUTY OF THOUGHT/ 
 
 " In the multitude of my thoughts within me, 
 Thy consolations delight my soul." Psalm 94. 
 
 WE are accustomed to speak of liberty of thought and of 
 free thought, but we advocate more than liberty of thought, we 
 inculcate the religious duty of thought. 
 
 The duty of thought ! Thought exercised as the highest 
 gift of God, directed towards the highest objects. 
 
 Ecclesiastical rulers would rather we did not think : such a 
 one thought 1800 years ago, or 300 years ago, you need not 
 think, he did it for you. Just as well say such a one was good 
 1800 years ago, you need not be good, he did it for you. 
 
 The duty of thought the duty of free thought is falsely 
 supposed by some to mean the right of thinking whatever we 
 like, true or false, right or wrong, according to our passions 
 or caprice the goal is truth, not license. It is our duty to 
 strive loyally after all truth within the range of our intelligence. 
 If we desire the end, we use the means, therefore we think. 
 
 If Clergymen say to us, "you will find all truth in such a 
 book," we reply, "it is only by thought, by examination, by 
 consequent proof, that we can be satisfied whether such a book 
 is all true." Thought can alone decide whether it be the 
 word of God or the word of man. If any one should say, 
 "such is decided by interior inspiration," we reply, " it is only 
 by the exercise of thought that we can decide whether or not 
 the supposed inspiration is only a self-confident illusion." 
 Such satisfying illusions console the holders of opposing 
 beliefs. 
 
 * This Sermon was not intended lor publication, and written to be spoken, 
 not to be read, but it was a favourite with the preacher, one of those he 
 preached in his first year of ministry (Croydon, March 23rd, 1873), and the 
 last he delivered (Sale, May 3rd, 1891). Between these dates he preached 
 it 21 times up and down the country, from Edinburgh to Exeter, from 
 Whitby to Swansea.
 
 314 
 
 By judgment, by thought, by inquiry, we can only discover 
 whether what claims to be revelation is so or not. We have 
 inherited intuitions, moral and mental instincts, these have to 
 be tested by thoughtful examination. 
 
 The Priest says, "submit to my Infallible Church, accept 
 the Pope as your Infallible Guide." By thought we must 
 investigate and test the Infallible claim. If the exercise of 
 thought causes a man to arrive at the opinion that such a 
 Church is Infallible, the infallible claim only rests upon his 
 private judgment, and can not reasonably be regarded as more 
 certain than the conclusion of his individual thought. 
 
 A balance of probability has made him decide that such a 
 book, or church, or man, is infallible, therefore all the state- 
 ments made by such book, church, or man, have to him a 
 balance of probability in their favour nothing more a proba- 
 bility rather less conclusive than the authority of his own 
 previous conclusion, because it is a step further off. A weak, 
 or an imaginative mind, may, after that opinion has been 
 arrived at, feel convinced that it is infallibly true. But be 
 convinced that your next door neighbour may, after his investi- 
 gations, feel quite as certain that you are infallibly wrong. 
 
 The Roman Catholic Church, and those opposing sects which 
 imitate it, say, "when once your researches have persuaded 
 you that our sect is the only true one, you must never again 
 doubt, or question your conclusion." Such a course for the 
 most part secures permanence, but at the cost of the higher 
 morality, seeing it is not lawful to abrogate the Divine gift of 
 thought. 
 
 If, however, it is truly urged that English people ought not 
 to examine the grounds of their belief, but only to read what- 
 ever can be said in its defence, the same principle must be 
 true for Hindoos, Buddhists, Mahomedans, and Pagans. In 
 that case Christian Missionaries are guilty of a great sin in 
 trying to make such people renounce the doctrines of their 
 respective systems. Nay, Christianity commenced its career 
 by the perpetrations of such a sin on a colossal scale. If free
 
 315 
 
 thought be wrong, the Apostles were the greatest malefactors, 
 for they encouraged free thought to shake the faith alike of 
 Jew and Gentile. 
 
 The Christian Missionary reproaches the Brahmin for not 
 inquiring enough, and reproaches the Christian for inquiring at 
 all. He uses the two-fold weapon of inquiry and authority: 
 inquiry is represented as the duty of the Brahmin if he would 
 escape damnation ; inquiry is forbidden to the Christian lest 
 he should incur damnation. The Christian foreigner, with his 
 newer Ecclesiastical Religion, urges authority upon the Brah- 
 min whose religion was flourishing in India before Moses fled 
 from Egypt. 
 
 Either all men should inquire into their respective creeds 
 and sacred books, or all submit without inquiry to the sacred 
 books and dogmas of the sect in which they have been reared. 
 Whatever is the right mode must be alike right for Hindoo, 
 Jew, Parsee, Roman Catholic, Anglican, Evangelical. 
 
 The moral and religious duty of thought does not signify 
 that sceptical indifference is to take the place of orthodoxy, 
 but that thought is to take the place of unreasoning credulity. 
 
 It is most important to establish this principle. We must 
 remember that each moral, social, scientific, and religious pro- 
 gress has been a heresy ; in other words it has been thought 
 struggling against authority. Moses was a heretic to the 
 Egyptians ; Jesus Christ was a heretic to those who sat in the 
 chair of Moses ; Luther was a heretic to the Christianity he 
 scandalised ; the science of this age is heretical to those who 
 sit in the chair of Luther. All the abuses condemned by 
 thought have appealed to authority. The Divine right of kings 
 the abject submission of the oppressed intolerance the 
 judicial murder of witches, of heretics, and of all independent 
 thinkers slavery the subjection of women persecution 
 ecclesiastical despotism all such inhuman errors have rested 
 on the authority of a Bible, or a Church, falsely deemed 
 infallible. 
 What we want is reverent thought, not license at once
 
 316 
 
 captious and dishonest. License without thought destroys, but 
 does not build up. License may succeed in uprooting religious 
 beliefs, in insulting religious sentiments, in desecrating the 
 venerable rites of superstition, but without reverent and con- 
 scientious thought nothing arises out of the desolated ruins. 
 A foolish worship, half comforting, half terrifying the souls of 
 the credulous, ought not to be replaced by a license loosening 
 moral bonds, encouraging ignoble instincts, and destroying 
 human hope ; such hideous alternative need not be, and 
 heretofore has not been. 
 
 What untold blessings do we owe to thought ! Thought has 
 displayed to our reverent vision, or nobler ideal of religion, a 
 sublimer conception of God, a truer and more beneficent view 
 of nature and of man. How much has thought added to the 
 grace and beauty of life. 
 
 History so useful when combined with thought : experience, 
 which is thought guided by the accumulation of events: 
 science, which is the result of thought, investigating, along 
 such road how wonderfully has the human race advanced. 
 
 Unless thought had conquered ecclesiasticism, and triumphed 
 over ecclesiastical dogmas, the decree forbidding interest for 
 money, would be rendering commercial life either impossible 
 or criminal, or as in former times solely in the hands of Jews 
 and non-Christians. The drama would still be accursed a free 
 literature anathematised (as it would be again if ecclesiastics became 
 absolute) . Investigations would be stifled ; men treated as 
 children or mental slaves ; persecution renewed, and ecclesias- 
 ticism instead of striving for a pacific victory in controversy, 
 would be struggling in unholy warfare to possess the faggots of 
 Smithfield ; to enkindle them in the name of Christ for the 
 torture of their adversaries. 
 
 Dogmatic Churches like the men who obey, but dread the 
 men who think. Thought must ever be in advance of dogmatic 
 Churches, therefore thought must ever be a heresy. Each 
 thought which has emancipated and blessed has first been 
 accursed or prayed against the thinker prayed for as a heretic
 
 317 
 
 " from everlasting damnation, good Lord deliver him ; from 
 murder, adultery, heresy, and schism, good Lord deliver him," 
 
 and there has been expressed against him that 
 
 union of contempt and condemnation which ought next to 
 drag him to the prison or the stake ; but thought comes in, 
 and combining with human sentiments the terrible dogma 
 retreats into the regions of the unreal. The gentle Curate 
 mildly entones the anathema over pews filled with benevolent 
 people, wherein he is gladly conscious that thought has 
 destroyed at once the venom and the meaning of each denun- 
 ciation he utters. Whilst in an adjacent Nonconformist 
 Chapel the fervent Minister describes to a sympathising, but 
 (technically speaking) unconverted congregation, the exclusive 
 blessings of the converted, and the intelligent deacon listens with 
 approving complacency, not because he delights in the message 
 of damnation, but because thought has instructed him bow to 
 explain it away, so that it shall include no one at all for whom 
 
 Thought has already attained so much in religion, morality, 
 social life, and human progress, that we must be hopeful for 
 the future, so long as it is encouraged, not stifled. But it is of 
 supreme importance that the errors detected by thought should 
 be removed from the creeds of the Churches by the agency of 
 those Liberal Churchmen who have detected the gravity of 
 such errors without their utter removal, no secure progress in 
 a dogmatic Church is possible. Great spiritual leaders like 
 Dean Stanley, Bishop Colenso, Frederic Robertson, Dr. Jowett, 
 and others, may influence and elevate numerous souls, may 
 remove superstitious fears, and the immoral spirit of persecu- 
 tion and dogmatic ill-will ; but unless the false dogma is 
 removed from the Creed and the Liturgy, it will remain as a 
 loathsome seed, capable of being reared into a pestiferous 
 growth by the consistent zeal of any ignorant popular Curate. 
 
 How noble, how beneficent, would at this moment, be the 
 great historic Church of England, if it had cherished the spirit 
 of internal reform with which it commenced its Protestant-
 
 318 
 
 career if in each age, guided by its most thoughtful, indepen- 
 dent, and human men, it had kept remoulding Liturgy, Creeds, 
 and Articles or, better still, dropping all Creeds and com- 
 pulsory Articles remoulded its Liturgy into a less dogmatic 
 form, so that all reverent liberal members could have found 
 therein a religious home, without any dishonest compromise. 
 We are driven into reluctant dissent, because we do not deem 
 it conscientious to prevaricate in religious utterances, to re- 
 spond or to act as if we believed statements which we have 
 proved to be untrue. But those statements are now under 
 the influence of thought, refuted by so many of the laity of the 
 Church of England, nay, even by an appreciable number of its 
 Clergy, that we marvel why they do not urge on reform as in 
 the early years of our National Protestant Church. Surely this 
 would be better than to keep on attending High Church Clergy- 
 men, who are acting out the formularies imposed upon them. 
 
 Thought distinguishes God from the material universe. 
 Thought distinguishes man from matter and from the brute. 
 If the entire universe without God were by an innate blind 
 force to crush one individual man, " that man," says Pascal, 
 " would be superior to the universe, and more noble than the 
 universe, for he would,. by thought, know what crushed him." 
 
 There is the grandeur of extent, and the grandeur of nobility 
 as to extent, man is nothing compared to the universe as to 
 nobility, a universe without thought would be as nothing com- 
 pared with man. 
 
 Place Socrates, or Plato, or Christ in presence of a senseless 
 giant. Do you believe that the spiritual philosopher would 
 incline before the giant, and render him homage? Magnify 
 the giant until he reaches the skies and contains space, nay, 
 until he becomes the universe, will these accumulations of 
 matter bridge over the abyss which separates bulk from 
 thought ? 
 
 The grandeur of thought is seen by the sacrifices it inspires. 
 For the results of thought, the spiritual of heroes mankind have 
 renounced ease, wealth, comfort, applause, renown.
 
 319 
 
 The truly thoughtful man does not suppose himself to have 
 attained to all truth, or to have escaped all error. We revere 
 the men who think honestly, whatever may be the results of 
 their thought ; thus, we revere honest thinkers who arrive at 
 conclusions which seem to us incomplete, nay, partly erroneous. 
 Privileged souls princes in the aristocracy of mind we incline 
 our heads as they pass before historic memory we see them 
 braving power and persecution, walking with joy to the stake, 
 or exulting mounting the steps of the scaffold. There is a 
 man, whose name, like music over the waters, still vibrates 
 round the world martyr of spiritual thought, his outstretched 
 wounded hands still bless whatever is purest and noblest in the 
 world. 
 
 We esteem not much the man who prizes wealth, position, 
 power, glory ; but we revere the man, who, for the results of 
 thought, has sacrificed wealth, position, power, and repose. 
 If a man survives the criminations through which the integrity 
 of thought passes on to independence ; and, if in later years, 
 success and honour crown the toils of his mind, and in the 
 repose of life's decline, he seeks within his memories whatever 
 he deems the most glorious ; he will unhesitatingly crown with 
 the homage of his heart, and the approval of his conscience, 
 those hours when in solitude and in sadness, his mind painfully 
 worked out the great problems .of thought when he began to 
 live in the world of great souls and great intelligences, and to 
 wander like a king's son in the Elysian fields of great ideas, 
 amidst the solemn shades of mysteries unsolved. 
 
 When men have seen much, have lived much, have done 
 much, they feel incomplete unless they refresh themselves with 
 the sweet toils of thought, and elevate themselves with the 
 labours of the mind. This is the charm of books having 
 treated with men in social intercourse, they treat with men in 
 the tranquil intercourse of books. The mind finds there a 
 society calm, dignified, elevating. The study of the man of 
 thought is a temple peopled with ideas, like the Pantheon filled 
 with the Gods of the nations. There his mind is free, surrounded
 
 320 
 
 by the reminders and the weapons of his liberation, there for- 
 getting the ills of life, he obtains courage to surmount them. 
 
 Some only esteem thought by its results, forgetting that it 
 is a divine act to exercise a divine gift. Thought elevates 
 humanity ; it also elevates the individual thinker. Thought 
 has a beauty peculiar to itself ; there is a beauty in the out- 
 ward world of colour, motion, life ; there is another beauty in 
 the silent world of thought, and in its relationship with the 
 Eternal. 
 
 To the thoughtless materialist this world is dead, mechanical, 
 and cold ; beneath the inspirations of thought, it lives, it is beau- 
 tiful, it is ideal, it is luminous with ever unfolding splendour. 
 Our interest in others is our interest in their thoughts. He 
 who concerns himself with men, as he would with minerals 
 and forest trees, knows nothing of man. In order to lay deep 
 foundations, and to build up nobler edifices of conviction, 
 thought stoops down, digs up the rotten basement, and clears 
 away the mouldering fabric. 
 
 The honest thinker is a reverent but strong reformer ; there- 
 fore like Christ, he has to bear his cross. One of the greatest 
 trials of life is experienced when discussing inherited credulities, 
 and investigating the truths which have to replace them The 
 heritage of thought is at once a glory and a martyrdom. When 
 men submit to authority without thought the expression of the 
 result is a Creed, and Sunday by Sunday they dangle their 
 manacles. When men are guided by thought, the opinions 
 formed are worthy of honour ; animated with enthusiasm 
 opinions become convictions, and incorporate themselves into 
 the life. Our ambition should be, by virtue of our convictions, 
 to rival the credulities of the men of faith ; it is a noble but 
 a difficult enterprise. Often opinions remain in the head, 
 without penetrating the soul and possessing the heart. A man 
 without convictions is the sport of every levity ; he is frivolous 
 and unhappy unless he has realised that great word of Plato, 
 " the only thing which gives value to life, is the love of wisdom, 
 the eternal beauty."
 
 321 
 
 Noble souls judge by the principles of right ; the skilful by 
 the lesson of experience. Each needs thought ; the union of 
 both solves the problem of life. Then the true Ark of God, which 
 has taken so much thought to build, is launched on the 
 troubled ocean of progress and of hope. 
 
 " The waters are flashing, 
 
 The white hail is dashing, 
 
 The lightnings are glancing, 
 
 The hoar spray is dancing. 
 " The whirlwind is rolling, 
 
 The thunder is tolling, 
 
 The forest is swinging, 
 
 The minster bells ringing. 
 " The earth is like ocean, 
 
 Wreck strewn and in motion ; 
 
 Bird, beast, man, and worm 
 
 Have crept out of the storm. 
 " And fear'st thou? and fear'st thou? 
 
 And see'st thou ? and hear'st thou ? 
 
 And drive we not free 
 
 O'er the terrible sea, 
 
 I and thou."
 
 LAST PRAYERS.* 
 
 MORNING. 
 
 God, Sovereign and mysterious Spirit, Soul of all things 
 that have life, we -would raise our thoughts and aspirations 
 by the contemplation of Thy perfection and Thy goodness. 
 Blessed be Thy name, O God; blessed upon the lips of all 
 mankind ; for Thou carest for all, and lovest all. Thou art a 
 Father ever unto those who stray from the home of Thy laws. 
 In Thee the prodigal son finds love that fails not, a love bound- 
 less as the universe. Thou keepest watch over men in their 
 darkest moments, when they think themselves abandoned to 
 despair. Thou carest for us from the moment of our birth to 
 that which witnesseth our dying breath. Thou art ever encirc- 
 ling us with the arms of Thy benign laws, Thy wonderful 
 presence. Blessed it is to think of Thee, to lean on Thee ; in 
 Thee to seek repose for the wearied spirit ; to mourn before 
 Thee over the selfishness of evil desires, and to meditate holy 
 purposes in the light of Thy divine solicitude. May we never 
 pollute our conscience with the cowardice of an unprincipled 
 compromise or the turpitude of a falsehood. May we never 
 yield for applause the integrity of our soul, or for convenience 
 the integrity of our life. In health, prosperity, and strength 
 may we be modest, considerate, charitable, and earnest. When 
 health, and strength, and power alike fail us, may we be prayer- 
 ful, trustful, hopeful, gentle, and resigned. When the shadows 
 of life's last day close in around us ; when the battle is over, 
 because the energy is gone, let not our souls set in darkness, 
 may we be cheered by the memory of faults opposed, of virtues 
 exercised, of charities done, of goodness and happiness to others 
 
 * These two Prayers are here inserted as being the last used by him in 
 conducting public worship. Composed or selected as they were for use in 
 the service of God, they reveal to us better than any other utterance, the 
 sincerest and deepest thoughts and desires of his heart.
 
 323 
 
 produced. May we then have confidence in Thee, God, our 
 Father ; may we place our hearts in Thy hands. 
 
 0, eternal God, we have often sought Thee in Thy holy places, 
 in the silence of the forest, or by the ocean's ceaseless roar: 
 we have listened to Thy voice in the storm, and felt Thy spirit 
 breathing on us in the twilight of the day's repose. We have 
 heard the still small voice of our conscience, inspired by Thee, 
 whispering its solemn warnings ; let us now, in the social 
 union of our charity and our prayer, raise to Thee our united 
 aspiration for goodness, wisdom, courage, tenderness, sincerity, 
 charity. 
 
 Thy glorious presence here and everywhere surrounds us; 
 breathe into us Thy peace, Thy repose, Thy heavenly calm. 
 Raise us from illusions and vanities into the temple of holier 
 thoughts. 
 
 Be merciful to us, Father. Judge us not as sons of wisdom 
 and of strength, but as wanderers fallible and frail. The judg- 
 ment we ask, grant that we, O Father, may extend to others. 
 We wander with our brothers and our sisters over the deserts 
 and gardens of the earth, beset with difficulties, oppressed with 
 toil. We began our journey in weakness, we continue it in 
 inconstancy, we accomplish it in weariness. But Thou, O 
 Father, art our strength, our hope, our joy; in Thee, on Thee, 
 we repose. Amidst the crowd of friends we often feel alone, 
 deserted, solitary. May we remember there is no solitude for 
 the mind in sympathy with Thee, God. The soul is often 
 darkened and the spirit saddened ; may we be cheered in 
 thought of Thy strength and Thy joy. From that strength 
 and joy may we gather the inspiration of trust and of gladness. 
 All things in Thy universe are doubtless in mysterious sympa- 
 thy with Thee. The stars, the seas, the winds, the mountains, 
 look on Thee, and love Thee, and are by Thee inspired. Thy 
 streams of beautiful light flow gently through all souls. Our 
 minds and hearts are bathed in Thee. May we be borne 
 upwards into the region of purest and holiest aspiration 
 through the starry regions of many reverent thoughts. May 
 our spirit ascend to Thee, and 011 Thee repose.
 
 324 
 
 May our desires and wishes be purified. May goodness and 
 wisdom fill us and unite us in Thee, whether we meditate alone 
 or now in this house of holy thought ; or when we walk through 
 the noise of the busy town ; or hide ourselves amidst the green 
 hills; or saunter by the ocean's musical shore. 
 
 Thou art the fountain of beauty, of wisdom, of goodness, of 
 thought, of power. To thee all holiness and purity must tend. 
 We thank Thee, universal Father, all-pervading spirit, and in 
 Thee we desire to live, to work, to repose, to die. Amen. 
 
 EVENING. 
 
 O God, the giver of good, we thank Thee in health and 
 joy, our Maker, and our heavenly Father, We thank Thee, 
 heavenly Father. 
 
 For all the glory of the heavens, for the light of day, for the 
 beauty of the earth and sky, for the rain and for the sun- 
 shine, We thank Thee, heavenly Father. 
 
 For the blessed hours of silence, when night follows day ; 
 for the sleep of weary eyes and Thy providence around us, 
 We thank Thee, heavenly Father. 
 
 For our neighbours, kindred, and friends ; for all the good 
 they have done us, and for a tenfold blessing upon them, 
 We thank Thee, heavenly Father. 
 
 For the benefits of liberty and peace, for books of wisdom and 
 genius, and power to read them, We thank Thee, heavenly 
 Father. 
 
 God, we thank Thee for all the gifts we have welcomed, 
 for all we have forgotten, and for those which by our unwor- 
 thiness we have lost. 
 
 Give us patience, heavenly Father, when Thou breakest the 
 staff which upholds us, and Thy wisdom takes away what Thy 
 goodness gave ; when Thou makest the wife a widow and the 
 child fatherless, Thy will be done, heavenly Father. 
 
 When Thou showest man the evil of his ways and briugest
 
 325 
 
 sorrow upon his soul for others, though the wrong word is not 
 yet unspoken, nor the deed of guilt yet undone, Have mercy 
 onus, heavenly Father; bring us back to Thee, heavenly 
 Father. 
 
 In all time of sorrow, and in the hour of remorse ; when we 
 learn the virtue which we believed not, and when our wicked- 
 ness finds us out, Be merciful unto us, most merciful Father. 
 
 By Thy knowledge of our weakness and Thy love to man 
 make our repentance healthful, and our shame wholesome ; 
 and bring us back to Thy holy will, Bring us back, we pray 
 Thee, heavenly Father. 
 
 When we turn from evil and do good ; when we forgive those 
 who have wronged us as we ask Thy forgiveness; when we 
 offer ourselves before Thee as guilty, but pray to be made fit for 
 Thy service, Take us again for Thy children, heavenly Father. 
 
 Lead us from our youth upward, and order all our lives; 
 when we are of full age, guide ; and in the time of drooping, 
 sustain us, These things we ask, heavenly Father. 
 
 Thou that knowest whence we came, we trust to Thee 
 whither we shall go ; teach us only Thy will on earth, and 
 Thy will be done with us hereafter. In Thy hands we leave 
 ourselves, heavenly Father. Thy will be done for ever, 
 merciful Father. Amen.
 
 POSTSCEIPT. 
 
 Copy of a letter addressed to the Executive Committee 
 of the British and Foreign Unitarian Association. 
 
 " BEADING, June 24th, 1891. 
 " DEAE MB. IEBSON, 
 
 " Having occasion to write to the Committee, I 
 feel impelled to write also something personal. 
 
 " I learn from my local doctor, Mr. May, and the 
 London Specialist, Mr. Allingharn, that my life is in 
 all probability merely a question of months, as I am 
 dying of cancer in the bowels. 
 
 " Roman Catholics are already, as I was informed 
 yesterday, again starting reports of my return to the 
 Eoman Catholic Faith. 
 
 " I do not want the testimony of the last 21 years 
 of my life to be thus destroyed. 
 
 " I left the Eoman Catholic Church in July, 1870, 
 sorrowfully, because, to my regret, I could no longer 
 believe it. 
 
 " Never once for one minute have I regretted that 
 step. I now, as heretofore, look upon that act of 
 secession as the most virtuous act of my life. 
 
 " I found amongst Unitarians the religious home 
 and religious sympathies I anticipated. I am grateful 
 to them for countless acts of kindness, of friend- 
 ship, of confidence let me also add of forbearance. 
 During my earlier years amongst Unitarians, I did 
 not realise that very many deemed it right and true 
 to render to Christ a supremacy of authority to which 
 I did not see my way, and therefore I often pained
 
 327 
 
 many by the marked omission of liturgical expressions 
 dear to their inherited sympathies. 
 
 " I do not think I was sufficiently alive to that fact" 
 during the events accompanying the Theodore Parker 
 controversy. 
 
 " If I gave pain, I am sorry, but I was not in- 
 fluenced by any unkind motives. 
 
 " I look back to these 21 years as the happiest of 
 my life. Indeed I approach death able to say that 
 each year has been happier than the last. This is 
 doubtless partly due to the fact that 20 of those years 
 have been of married life, not marred by one single 
 incident of disagreement or of pain one unbroken 
 harmony of a perfect and increasing affection. 
 
 " But my wife was and is a thorough Unitarian, 
 and I attribute to her Unitarian tone of mind what 
 has tended to modify the over-strained sentimentalism 
 and romance of my Roman Catholic training. 
 
 " I am more than ever convinced that no blessing 
 more precious can be bestowed on the young than to 
 train them in the Christian Theism of the most 
 independent and most reverent tone of Unitarian 
 thought. 
 
 " I will ask you to convey this to our valued friends, 
 so that after my death the members of the Com- 
 mittee will be able to say that I lived and died happy 
 in my Unitarian convictions. 
 
 " With much gratitude to so many kind friends, 
 " Always very truly, 
 
 " B. EODOLPH SUFFIELD."