cork.'

The proposal was certainly not favoured by Manning. Protests and
procrastinations, approving Wegg-Prossers and cork-like Lord
Feildings--all this was feeding the wind and folly; the time for
action had come. 'I can no longer continue,' he wrote to Robert
Wilberforce, 'under oath and subscription binding me to the Royal
Supremacy in Ecclesiastical causes, being convinced:

(1) That it is a violation of the Divine Office of the Church.

(2) That it has involved the Church of England in a separation
from the Universal Church, which separation I cannot clear of the
character of schism.

(3) That it has thereby suspended and prevented the functions of
the Church of England.'

It was in vain that Robert Wilberforce pleaded, in vain that Mr.
Gladstone urged upon his mind the significance of John iii 8.
['The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound
thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it
goeth; so is everyone that is born of the Spirit.'] 'I admit,'
Mr. Gladstone wrote, 'that the words might in some way be
satisfied by supposing our Lord simply to mean "the facts of
nature are unintelligible, therefore, be not afraid if revealed
truths be likewise beyond the compass of the understanding"; but
this seems to me a meagre meaning.' Such considerations could
hold him no longer, and Manning executed the resignation of his
office and benefice before a public notary. Soon afterwards, in