longings for preferment were merely legitimate hopes for "an elevation into a sphere of higher usefulness." But no, there was something more than that. "I do feel pleasure," he noted, "in honour, precedence, elevation, the society of great people, and all this is very shameful and mean." After Newman's conversion, he almost convinced himself that his "visions of an ecclesiastical future" were justified by the rôle that he would play as a "healer of the breach in the Church of England." Mr. Gladstone agreed with him; but there was One higher than Mr. Gladstone, and did He agree? "I am pierced by anxious thoughts. God knows what my desires have been and are, and why they are crossed. … I am flattering myself with a fancy about depth and reality. … The great question is: Is God enough for you now? And if you are as now, even to the end of life, will it suffice you? … Certainly I would rather choose to be stayed on God, than to be in the thrones of the world, and the Church. Nothing else will go into Eternity."
In a moment of ambition, he had applied for the Readership of Lincoln's Inn, but, owing chiefly to the hostile influence of the Record, the appointment had gone elsewhere. A little later, a more important position was offered to him—the office of sub-almoner to the Queen, which had just been vacated by the Archbishop of York, and was almost certain to lead to a mitre. The offer threw Manning into an agony of self-examination. He drew up elaborate tables, after the manner of Robinson Crusoe, with the reasons for and against his acceptance of the post:—
| For | Against | |
| 1. That it comes unsought. | 1. Not therefore to be accepted. Such things are trials as well as leadings. |
