authoritative critics might recognize the profane inspiration of poets.
After reading the paper with the utmost care I felt so embarrassed about
it that (with the awkwardness of youth) I did not even write to thank
the amiable author who had taken so much trouble to help me, and I only
thanked him briefly on meeting him at a friend's house, where it was
impossible to avoid the interchange of a few words.

This autobiography is not intended to be a book of controversy, so I
shall carefully avoid the details of religious changes and give only
results. I do not think that anything in my life was ever more decisive
than the receipt of that long communication from Mr. Bardsley. The day
before receiving it I was in doubt, but the day after I felt perfectly
satisfied that the Divine inspiration of the books known to Englishmen
as the "Scriptures" rested simply on the opinion, of different bodies of
theologians who had held meetings which were called Councils. The only
difference between these Councils and those of the Church of Rome was,
that these were represented as having taken place earlier, before the
Church was so much divided; but it did not seem at all evident that the
members of the earlier Councils were men of a higher stamp,
intellectually, than those who composed the distinctly Roman Catholic
Councils, nor was there any evidence that the Holy Spirit had been with
those earlier Councils, though it afterwards withdrew itself from the
later.

The Protestant reader will perhaps kindly bear with me whilst I give the
reasons why I ceased to be a Protestant, after having been so earnest
and zealous in that form of the Christian faith. It appeared to me--I do
not say it _is_, but it appeared to me, and appears to me still--that
Protestantism is an uncritical belief in the decisions of the Church
down to a date which I do not pretend to fix exactly, and an equally