_The Rev. J. H. Newman to J. R. Hope, Esq._

January 3, 1842.

My dear Hope,--A happy new year to you and all of us--and, what is even
more needed, to the English Church. I am afraid of moving about
Convocation. Not that we should not be in safer hands than in those of the
Bishops, but, though it restrained their acts, it would abridge our
liberty. Or it might formally recognise our Protestantism. What can we hope
from a body, the best members of which, as Hook and Palmer [of Worcester
Coll.], defend and subscribe to the Jerusalem Fund...? Therefore I do not
like to be _responsible_ for helping to call into existence a body
which may embarrass us more than we are at present.

I think your [Greek: topos] about the Augsburg Confession a very important
one, and directly more men come back will set a friend to work upon it.

I am almost in despair of keeping men together. The only possible way is a
monastery. Men want an outlet for their devotional and penitential
feelings, and if we do not grant it, to a dead certainty they will go where
they can find it. This is the beginning and the end of the matter. Yet the
clamour is so great, and will be so much greater, that if I persist, I
expect (though I am not speaking from anything that has _occurred_)
that I shall be stopped. Not that I have any intention of doing more at
present than laying the foundation of what may be.

... Are we really to be beaten in this election [for the Poetry
Professorship]? I will tell you a secret (if you care to know it) which not