"
He loved to dash out of college through the chill mists of a November
morning to worship with "the few righteous men" of the University in the
Chapel of Pusey House, which "conveyed a feeling, to me most
gratifying, of catacombs, oubliettes, Jesuitry, and all the atmosphere
of mystery that had long fascinated me."
He tells us how his nature "craved for human sympathy and support," and
speaks of the God whom he "worshipped, loved, and feared." He prayed for
a sick friend with "both hands held above the level of my head for a
quarter of an hour or more." He was a Universalist "recoiling from the
idea of hell." He believed in omens, though he did not always take them,
and was thoroughly superstitious. "The name of Rome has always, for me,
stood out from any printed page merely because its initial is that of my
own name." "At the time of my ordination I took a private vow, which I
always kept, never to preach without making some reference to Our Lady,
by way of satisfaction for the neglect of other preachers." He was a
youth when he took the vow of celibacy. He had the desire, he tells us,
to make himself thoroughly uncomfortable--as Byron would say, "to merit
Heaven by making earth a Hell." His superstitions were often ludicrous
even to himself. On one occasion in boyhood, he was trying to get a fire
to burn: "Let this be an omen," he said. "If I can get this fire to
burn, the Oxford Movement was justified.
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