2. That it is honourable. 2. Being what I am, ought I
not therefore to decline it—
(1) as humiliation;
(2) as revenge on myself
for Lincoln's Inn;
(3) as a testimony?
And so on. He found in the end ten 'negative reasons', with no affirmative ones to balance them, and, after a week's deliberation, he rejected the offer.
But peace of mind was as far off from him as ever. First the bitter thought came to him that 'in all this Satan tells me I am doing it to be thought mortified and holy'; and then he was obsessed by the still bitterer feelings of ineradicable disappointment and regret. He had lost a great opportunity, and it brought him small comfort to consider that 'in the region of counsels, self-chastisement, humiliation, self-discipline, penance, and of the Cross', he had perhaps done right.
The crisis passed, but it was succeeded by a fiercer one. Manning was taken seriously ill, and became convinced that he might die at any moment. The entries in his Diary grew more elaborate than ever; his remorse for the past, his resolutions for the future, his protestations of submission to the will of God, filled page after page of parallel columns, headings and sub-headings, numbered clauses, and analytical tables. 'How do I feel about Death?' he wrote.
'Certainly great fear:
1. Because of the uncertainty of our state before God.
2. Because of the consciousness—
(1) of great sins past,
(2) of great sinfulness,
(3) of most shallow repentance.
What shall I do?'
He decided to mortify himself, to read St Thomas Aquinas, and to make his 'night prayers forty instead of thirty minutes'. He determined during Lent 'to use no pleasant bread (except on Sundays and feasts) such as cake and sweetmeat'; but he added the proviso 'I do not include plain biscuits'. Opposite this entry appears the word 'KEPT'. And yet his back-slidings were many. Looking back over a single week, he was obliged to register 'petulance twice' and 'complacent visions'. He heard his curate being commended for bringing so many souls to God during Lent, and he 'could not bear it'; but the remorse was terrible: 'I abhorred myself on the spot, and looked upward for help.' He made out list upon list of the Almighty's special mercies towards him, and they included his creation, his regeneration, and (No. 5) 'the preservation of my life six times to my knowledge:
(1) In illness at the age of nine. (2) In the water. (3) By a runaway horse at Oxford. (4) By the same. (5) By falling nearly through the ceiling of a church. (6) Again by a fall of a horse. And I know not how often in shooting, riding, etc.'