Anonymous

“ Clap him down where you will, he sidles up by virtue of an internal guiding law to the North Side, and his soul only recovers its balance, and is in joy and peace, when he has safely doubled the corner. ”

“ Will it please your worship to order the confinement, in an iron cage, of the deacon Laurence with this Britannic mongrel Christian. I confidently anticipate great entertainment to your Lordship, and I am satisfied that if you will condescend to inspect the cage to-morrow morning, nothing of the several parties will be discovered except the os sacrum of each, which your Lordship is well aware, takes that place in man which, in the inferior order of mammals, is occupied by the tail. ”

“ I checked myself with a jerk after the lapse of a thousand and odd years in the midst of the times of persecution.
I hate persecution.
I found myself deposited, with all my Anglican principles and prejudices, in the city of Rome.
I should have preferred Jericho.
Suddenly I discovered myself standing candle in hand in the gloom of a Catacomb.
The ventilation of the catacombs is most imperfect, and the close proximity of the dead to the [Pg 6] living must be prejudicial to health, it should be made a matter of investigation by the sanitary commissioners. ”

“ It will always be a difficult matter to transfer publications (however valuable) back over a thousand years from the date of their issue, still the attempt might be made, and I strongly urge upon the Society to confine and concentrate its efforts for the future, on an attempt to convert the Primitive ages to the principles of the English Reformation. ”

“ How full of novelty and of gratification it would have proved to the apostle of the Gentiles to ascertain that his words were capable of being twisted to establish Anglican theories, and O! glorious thought! the whole system of worship of the Early Church, instead of being modelled on the pattern of things in the Heavens, might have been brought to resemble [Pg 13] the sublime simplicity of Morning and Evening Prayer at, for instance, Grubbington-in-the-Clay. ”

“ The deacon assured me solemnly that the Church had ordered the use of incense, not as a disinfectant but as an offering of adoration, and that the rule of the Universal Church was enough for him,—which was impertinent of the young man. (N.B. Curates are evidently alike in all ages.) His name I ascertain was Laurence. He was afterwards a martyr. My church at Grubbington is dedicated to him. ”

“ You should see an Anglican Bishop in full vestments! That is a sight not to be forgotten. I regard the Anglican episcopal costume to be the neatest thing out in ecclesiastical vesture. The view of a Bishop from behind is quite overwhelming. Stay! ”

“ A young man, a deacon in what the Ritualists call a dalmatic, proceeded to vest me. Some people think it a duty to do at Rome as the Romans do. I [Pg 8] object to such want of principle, and if I acquiesced on this occasion, it was under protest. If I go to Rome or Thibet, I shall follow the custom I have instituted at Grubbington-in-the-Clay, North Devon, diocese Exon. ”

“ That I dreamt what follows is simply impossible; the phenomena of dreams depend entirely upon the existence of imaginative faculties, but these are entirely deficient in Anglican skulls. What I relate must therefore be regarded as fact; I am unable to account for the fact, but it [Pg 5] is not required of man to understand or to intellectually grasp, in order to believe, certain facts which come to him on high authority. The human mind is finite, &c.... ”

“ Oh, Betsy Jane, Betsy Jane! And the dear children! And the baby! What on earth shall I do?
[Pg 23]
CHAPTER III. HOW I STOOD BEFORE THE PREFECT.
I have never succeeded in adequately describing to Betsy Jane my feelings under escort to bonds and imprisonment, and perhaps worse; and if I failed in making the wife of my bosom appreciate the horrible anxiety under which I laboured during that walk, I must necessarily fail with the public. Not of course that I was alarmed on my own account, but I felt for my wife and family, and I was all of a tremble for Grubbington parish. Mrs. ”