'I am conscious to myself,' he
wrote in his Diary, 'of an extensively changed feeling towards
the Church of Rome ... The Church of England seems to me to be
diseased: 1. ORGANICALLY (six sub-headings). 2. FUNCTIONALLY
(seven subheadings) ... Wherever it seems healthy, it
approximates the system of Rome.' Then thoughts of the Virgin
Mary suddenly began to assail him :
'(1) If John the Baptist were sanctified from the womb,
how much more the B.V.!
(2) If Enoch and Elijah were exempted from death, why
not the B.V. from sin?
(3) It is a strange way of loving the Son to slight the
mother!'
The arguments seemed irresistible, and a few weeks later the
following entry occurs-- 'Strange thoughts have visited me:
(1) I have felt that the Episcopate of the Church of England is
secularised and bound down beyond hope....
(2) I feel as if a light had fallen upon me. My feeling about the
Roman Church is not intellectual. I have intellectual
difficulties, but the great moral difficulties seem melting.
(3) Something keeps rising and saying, "You will end in the Roman
Church".'
He noted altogether twenty-five of these 'strange thoughts'. His
mind hovered anxiously round--
'(1) The Incarnation, (2) The Real Presence, i.
Regeneration, ii. Eucharist, and (3) The Exaltation of S.
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