Christ. It made me feel our isolation.'

On his return to England, he took up once more the work in his
Archdeaconry with what appetite he might. Ravaged by doubt,
distracted by speculation, he yet managed to maintain an outward
presence of unshaken calm. His only confidant was Robert
Wilberforce, to whom, for the next two years, he poured forth in
a series of letters, headed 'UNDER THE SEAL' to indicate that
they contained the secrets of the confessional-- the whole
history of his spiritual perturbations. The irony of his position
was singular; for, during the whole of this time, Manning was
himself holding back from the Church of Rome a host of hesitating
penitents by means of arguments which he was at the very moment
denouncing as fallacious to his own confessor. But what else
could he do? When he received, for instance, a letter such as the
following from an agitated lady, what was he to say?

'MY DEAR FATHER IN CHRIST,

'... I am sure you would pity me and like to help me, if you knew
the unhappy, unsettled state my mind is in, and the misery of
being ENTIRELY, WHEREVER I AM, with those who look upon joining
the Church of Rome as the most awful "fall" conceivable to any
one, and are devoid of the smallest comprehension of how any
enlightened person can do it. ... My old Evangelical friends,
with all my deep, deep love for them, do not succeed in shaking
me in the least. ...

'My brother has just published a book called "Regeneration",
which all my friends are reading and highly extolling; it has a