CHAP. XIII.] CONVERTS TO ROME. 183 



be nailed to the wall, that he might be unable to turn with it 

 toward the altar. The offending clergyman has resigned for the 

 sake of peace, and part of his congregation sympathizing in his 

 views have raised for him a sum of 6000 dollars. In another 

 paper I see a letter of remonstrance from a bishop to an Episco 

 pal clergyman, for attending vespers in a Romanist church, and 

 for crossing himself with holy water as he entered. The epistle 

 finishes with an inquiry if it be true that he had purchased 

 several copies of the Ursuline Manual for young persons. The 

 clergyman, in reply, complains of this petty and annoying inqui 

 sition into his private affairs, openly avows that he is earnestly 

 examining into the history, character, claims, doctrines, and 

 usages of the Church of Rome, and desirous of becoming practi 

 cally acquainted with their forms of worship that when present 

 for this purpose he had thought it right to conform to the usage 

 of the congregation, &c. 



It would be easy to multiply anecdotes, and advert to contro 

 versial pamphlets, with which the press is teeming, in proof of 

 the lively interest now taken in similar ecclesiastical questions, 

 so that the reader may conceive the sensation just created here 

 by a piece of intelligence which reached New York the very day 

 of our arrival, and is now going the round of the newspapers, 

 namely, the conversion to the Romish -Church of the Rev. Mr. 

 Newman, of Oxford. Some of his greatest admirers are put to 

 confusion ; others are rejoicing in the hope that the event may 

 prove a warning to many who have departed from the spirit of 

 the Reformation ; and a third party, who gave no credit for sin 

 cerity to the leaders of a movement which they regarded as 

 retrograde, arid who still suspect that they who have joined in it 

 here are actuated by worldly motives, are confessing that they 

 did injustice to the great Oxford tractarian. One of them re 

 marked to me, &quot; We are often told from the pulpit here that we 

 live in an age of skepticism, and that it is the tendency of our 

 times to believe too little rather than too much ; and yet Protest 

 ants of superior talent are now ready to make these great sacri 

 fices for the sake of returning to the faith of Rome !&quot; I might 

 have replied, that reaction seems to be almost as much a princi- 



