helped is that bitterness of spirit you have sometimes manifested towards others, which is not according to the dictates of charity. Add to that a want of respect for those in authority, and you have the factors which may have helped to bring this chastisement from God. I do not judge you [?]; you must know your own conscience, but I feel I ought to tell you what appears to me as likely to have been the cause of your misfortune. . . As it is, I can only pray earnestly to God to give you light and grace to see the truth and submit to it, and to beg our Holy Father not to cast you off. . . . That shall be my constant prayer, and one that I confidently hope will sooner or later be heard.
- ‘Believe me, my dear Father,
- ‘Very sorrowfully but very sincerely
- ‘Yours in Christ.’
Here, at least, a kindly and humane feeling reveals itself, in spite of the writer’s effort to adhere to the cruel system of his Church. Like the preceding letter, but much less harshly, it persists in viewing my action in a purely moral light: he cannot entertain the possibility of my being honestly compelled by my studies to secede. One pitiful effect of this is seen in his effort to sum up my faults—and he knew me intimately—my ‘pride’ of judgment is, I trust, obviously excusable, I was bound to form an opinion; and the fault of disrespect and harshness to authority
