He
tried to reassure himself, but it was in vain. He committed his
thoughts to a diary, weighing scrupulously his every motive,
examining with relentless searchings into the depths of his
heart. Perhaps, after all, his longings for preferment were
merely legitimatehopes for 'an elevation into a sphere of higher
usefulness'. But no. there was something more than that. 'I do
feel pleasure,' he noted, 'in honour, precedence, elevation, the
society of great people, and all this is very shameful and mean.'
After Newman's conversion, he almost convinced himself that his
'visions of an ecclesiastical future' were justified by the role
that he would play as a 'healer of the breach in the Church of
England'. Mr. Gladstone agreed with him; but there was One higher
than Mr. Gladstone, and did He agree? 'I am pierced by anxious
thoughts. God knows what my desires have been and are, and why
they are crossed. ... I am flattering myself with a fancy about
depth and reality. ... The great question is: Is God enough for
you now? And if you are as now even to the end of life, will it
suffice you? ... Certainly I would rather choose to be stayed on
God, than to be in the thrones of the world and the Church.
Nothing else will go into Eternity.'
In a moment of ambition, he had applied for the Readership of
Lincoln's Inn, but, owing chiefly to the hostile influence of the
Record, the appointment had gone elsewhere.
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