'I am conscious of a desire,' he wrote in his Diary, 'to
be in such a position: (I) as I had in times past; (2) as my
present circumstances imply; (3) as my friends think me fit for;
and (4) as I feel my own faculties tend to.
'But, God being my helper, I will not seek it by the lifting of a
finger or the speaking, of a word.'
So Manning wrote, and thought, and prayed; but what are words,
and thoughts, and even prayers, to the mysterious and relentless
powers of circumstance and character? Cardinal Wiseman was slowly
dying; the tiller of the Church was slipping from his feeble
hand; and Manning was beside him, the one man with the energy,
the ability, the courage, and the conviction to steer the ship
upon her course. More than that; there was the sinister figure of
a Dr. Errington crouching close at hand, ready to seize the helm
and make straight--who could doubt it?--for the rocks. In such a
situation the voice of self-abnegation must needs grow still and
small indeed. Yet it spoke on, for it was one of the paradoxes in
Manning's soul that that voice was never silent. Whatever else he
was, he was not unscrupulous. Rather, his scruples deepened with
his desires; and he could satisfy his most exorbitant ambitions
in a profundity of self-abasement. And so now he vowed to Heaven
that he would SEEK nothing-- no, not by the lifting of a finger
or the speaking of a word.
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