for such incidents are not devoid of public interest, and are matters of very deep concern to the Catholic body. The Roman Church claims such a monopoly of demonstrative evidence that it receives a check when its credentials are rejected by one who is so familiar with them; it is—or would be, if it were frankly admitted—a flat contradiction of their persistent teaching that their claims only need to be studied to be admitted. Hence the ecclesiastical policy is to conceal a secession, if possible, and, when it is made public, to represent it as dishonest and immoral. My own position would not for a moment be admitted to be bonâ fide; the gentler of my colleagues seem to think that a ‘light’ has been taken from me for some inscrutable reason, whilst others have circulated various hypotheses in explanation, such as, pride of judgment, the inebriation of premature honours, &c. But of some of my fellow-seceders I had heard, before I left the Church, the grossest and most calumnious stories circulated; pure and malicious fabrications they were, simply intended to throw dust in the eyes of the laity and to make secession still more painful. The majority of priests, when questioned about a secession by Catholics, will simply shake their heads and mutter the usual phrase: ‘Wine and women.’
But in the first instance every effort is made to keep secession secret, even from clerics. I have mentioned a case in the note on page 62 which is, I think, known only to a small number of ecclesiastics:
