He had
no profound associations to tear out of his heart. He merely altered
the premisses of a syllogism. When Catholicism was presented to him in
a logical form, it met with no inward bar and repugnance. The house
was empty and ready for a new guest, or rather the first guest. If
Gibbon anticipated the Tractarian movement intellectually, he was
farther removed than the poles are asunder from the mystic reverent
spirit which inspired that movement. If we read the _Apologia_ of Dr.
Newman, we perceive the likeness and unlikeness of the two cases. "As
a matter of simple conscience," says the latter, "I felt it to be a
duty to protest against the Church of Rome." At the time he refers to
Dr. Newman was a Catholic to a degree Gibbon never dreamed of. But in
the one case conscience and heart-ties "strong as life, stronger
almost than death," arrested the conclusions of the intellect. Ground
which Gibbon dashed over in a few months or weeks, the great
Tractarian took ten years to traverse. So different is the mystic from
the positive mind.
Gibbon had no sooner settled his new religion than he resolved with a
frankness which did him all honour to profess it publicly.
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