A little later, a
more important position was offered to him-- the office of sub-
almoner to the Queen, which had just been vacated by the
Archbishop of York, and was almost certain to lead to a mitre.
The offer threw Manning into an agony of self-examination. He
drew up elaborate tables, after the manner of Robinson Crusoe,
with the reasons for and against his acceptance of the post:
FOR AGAINST1. That it comes
unsought. 1. Not therefore to be accepted. Such
things are trials as well as
leadings.2. That it is honourable. 2. Being what I am, ought I
not therefore to decline it - (1)
as humiliation; (2) as revenge on
myself for Lincoln's Inn;
(3) as a testimony?
And so on. He found in the end ten 'negative reasons', with no
affirmative ones to balance them, and, after a week's
deliberation, he rejected the offer.
But peace of mind was as far off from him as ever. First the
bitter thought came to him that 'in all this Satan tells me I am
doing it to be thought mortified and holy'; and then he was
obsessed by the still bitterer feelings of ineradicable
disappointment and regret.
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