MY DEAR MISS SKENE,
I ought to have written to you long ago, and really do not know what to say—except "mea culpa." There will be much to tell you when we next meet.
I am quite firm, thank GOD, in the Church. I have outgrown any "convert enthusiasm" I may ever have possessed; but I have long ceased to think of anything else even as a possibility, or to feel anything novel in Catholic practices. I am quite quiet, and I think, thank GOD, so far doing pretty well.
You ask me about Rome. As to politics, my feeling in favour of the Temporal Power is very strong. Of course it had its faults, the extreme leniency of the criminal tribunals being probably the worst; but, putting the question of right aside, a Christian could institute no comparison between the Italian and the Pontifical Governments. Religiously, Rome is neither so good nor so bad as the extreme people would make it out. It was very edifying, and there was a great deal of piety—more conspicuous, perhaps, among the foreigners than the Romans, but of course that was to be expected, as the former came on purpose. The sanctuaries of Rome are very precious, especially the Holy Reliques and the graves of the Martyrs, and I love them very much.
At the same time I think that this dreadful Revolution may be possibly a scourge in the hand of GOD to bring about His Will, though every Catholic must be appalled at the wickedness of the new Pontius Pilate and his accomplices. Perhaps the fiery trial may destroy some abuses, stop some things one does not like to see, and bring about others more profitable to Rome herself and to us.
As to the Greeks in America, it is impossible for me, I am sorry to say, to have anything to do with supplying them with my own or any other Liturgical books for use in their (as we believe) schismatic worship.
Always most sincerely yours,
BUTE.
1870, The Roman situation
It is evident from one or two of his letters already quoted, that Bute, who was well aware of the strong feeling aroused among the people of his titular island by his conversion to the Roman Church, had felt some natural apprehension as to their possible attitude towards him when he returned after a somewhat prolonged absence to live amongst them. "I have been getting along very comfortably here," he wrote soon after his arrival at Mountstuart, "but have so far no opportunity of knowing what the people think of me behind my back." A letter addressed a little later to the same correspondent in Oxford is interesting in this connection.
Mountstuart,
November 10.