Chapter 1

"Dublin, October 25, 1834.

"My dear Newman,

"A most shocking report concerning you has reached me, which indeed carries such an improbability on the face of it that you may perhaps wonder at my giving it a thought; and at first I did not, but finding it repeated from different quarters, it seems to me worth contradicting for the sake of your character. Some Oxford undergraduates, I find, openly report that when I was at Oriel last spring you absented yourself from chapel on purpose to avoid receiving the Communion along with me; and that you yourself declared this to be the case.

"I would not notice every idle rumour; but this has been so confidently and so long asserted that it would be a satisfaction to me to be able to declare its falsity as a fact, from your authority. I did indeed at once declare my utter unbelief; but then this has only the weight of my opinion; though an opinion resting I think on no insufficient grounds. I did not profess to rest my disbelief on our long, intimate, and confidential friendship, which would make it your right and your duty—if I did any thing to offend you or any thing you might think materially wrong—to remonstrate with me;—but on your general character; which I was persuaded would have made you incapable, even had no such close connexion existed between us, of conduct so unchristian and inhuman. But, as I said, I should like for your sake to be able to contradict the report from your own authority.

"Ever yours very truly,

"R. WHATELY."