He decided to mortify himself, to read St Thomas Aquinas, and to
make his 'night prayers forty instead of thirty minutes'. He
determined during Lent 'to use no pleasant bread (except on
Sundays and feasts) such as cake and sweetmeat'; but he added the
proviso 'I do not include plain biscuits'. Opposite this entry
appears the word 'KEPT'. And yet his backslidings were many.
Looking back over a single week, he was obliged to register
'petulance twice' and 'complacent visions'. He heard his curate
being commended for bringing so many souls to God during Lent,
and he 'could not bear it'; but the remorse was terrible: 'I
abhorred myself on the spot, and looked upward for help.' He made
out list upon list of the Almighty's special mercies towards him,
and they included his creation, his regeneration, and (No. 5)
'the preservation of my life six times to my knowledge:

(1) In illness at the age of nine. (2) In the water. (3) By a
runaway horse at Oxford. (4) By the same. (5) By falling nearly
through the ceiling of a church. (6) Again by a fall of a horse.
And I know not how often in shooting, riding, etc.'

At last he became convalescent; but the spiritual experiences of
those agitated weeks left an indelible mark upon his mind, and
prepared the way for the great change which was to follow.For he
had other doubts besides those which held him in torment as to
his own salvation; he was in doubt about the whole framework of
his faith. Newman's conversion, he found, had meant something
more to him than he had first realised. It had seemed to come as
a call to the redoubling of his Anglican activities; but
supposing, in reality, it were a call towards something very