And  when  these  differences  of  view  led  to  controversy
and  sharp  conflict  of  tongues,  it  was  perhaps  inevitable
that  the  Converts  should  let  it  be  known  that  they  thought
poorly  of  the  intellectual  equipment  of  their  opponents,
and  that  they  sometimes  found  it  difficult  to  argue  with
people  on  whom  the  refinements  of  polite  controversy
were  so  obviously  wasted. To  the  old  Catholics  this


VICE-PRESIDENT   OF  ST. EDMUND'S       69

seemed  the  most  unkindest  cut  of  all. It  was  as  though
the  very  wounds  they  had  received  in  the  battle  which
had  kept  the  faith  alive  in  England  were  being  turned
into  a  reproach  to  them. Certainly  they  had  been  intel-
lectually starved,  just  as  so  many  of  them  had  been
crippled  and  impoverished  in  their  estates,  but  that  was
only  one  small  part  of  the  great  sum  of  suffering  which
they  and  their  fathers  before  them  had  endured  for  the
sake  of  their  religion. Their  intellectual  deficiencies  were
admitted,  but  these  were  thought  of  as  part  of  the  price
they  had  willingly  paid  for  their  loyalty  to  Catholicism,
and  for  the  enfranchisement  of  their  souls. And  who
were  their  accusers?  Who  were  these  who  now  smiled
condescendingly  at  their  imperfect  education  and  lack  of
polish,  or  their  want  of  familiarity  with  the  ways  of  the
world  ?  Their  accusers  were  the  children  of  the  deserters ;
the  descendants  of  those  who  had  betrayed  the  cause  in
the  hour  of  trial ;  men  who  were  now  creeping  back  into
the  camp  when  all  the  danger  was  over. Was  it  for  such
men  to  want  to  instruct  those  who  had  borne  all  the
burden  and  the  heat  of  the  day,  and  held  the  fort  so
well?

Between  the  forward  school,  represented  by  the  Con-
verts eager  to  insist  upon  their  own  ideals  as  those  of  the
Church,  and  the  Catholic  families,  conscious  of  all  they
had  suffered,  and  resentful  of  the  imputation  that  they
were  the  victims  of  "  a  low  form  of  National  Catholicism,"
there  were  all  the  elements  for  a  little  ecclesiastical  con-
flagration. It  is  not,  of  course,  suggested  that  the  feelings
here  described  were  always,  or  even  usually,  present  in  an
acute  form. 