No one knows what my religious views
are. I object to confession, and I will not confess. My standpoint is,
and I hope ever will be, the Truth, as it is in me, known only to
myself."[8] This attitude he maintained to the world to the day of his
death; but to his wife he was different. Let me make my meaning quite
clear. I do not say Burton was a Catholic or that he was not; I offer
no opinion. But what I do assert with all emphasis is that _he gave
his wife reason to believe that he had become a Catholic_; and in this
matter she acted in all good faith, in accordance with the highest
dictates of her conscience and her duty. Burton knew how strongly his
wife felt on this subject, and how earnest were her convictions. He
knew that his conversion to Catholicism was her daily and nightly
prayer. These considerations probably weighed with him when he signed
the following paper (reproduced in facsimile on the opposite page). He
signed it on the understanding that she was to keep it secret till he
was a dying man:
"GORIZIA, February 15, 1877.
"Should my husband, Richard Burton, be on his death-bed unable to
speak I perhaps already dead--and that he may wish to have the grace to
retract and recant his former errors, and to join the Catholic Church,
and also to receive the Sacraments of Penance, Extreme Unction, and
Holy Eucharist, he might perhaps be able to sign this paper, or make
the sign of the cross to show his need.
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