Page:Correspondence between the Warden of St Columba's College and the Primate of Armagh.djvu/15

11 as no one else is, — I have abstained from all action of any kind, and have been content to remain entirely passive, even when my silence was liable to be misconstrued into complicity with acts which I considered dishonourable; but that when my name had been used without my knowledge or authority, and, as I now learn, "by mistake," I remained passive still and would not withdraw it, because I felt that to do so would be an act of extreme moral cowardice.

Such is my offence; and for this your Grace calls upon me to resign, on the ground of an engagement, of which I have no recollection, and which I certainly should not have felt at liberty to make in the sense in which I am now required to perform it.

My Lord, I came here at your Grace's earnest desire, from a sphere of comparative ease and security. You know something, though very little, of what I have had to contend with, in every way, in my endeavours to perform the duty here assigned me, and to make this School a fit place of education for the sons of Christian gentlemen. How far I have succeeded it is not for me to judge. If I have to any extent, it is, I feel, a cause of deep thankfulness, and an ample recompense for all I have endured; and however painful it might be to relinquish a post in which I am now permitted to see some fruit of three years’ most anxious labour, it would ever be a satisfaction to me to reflect that my removal was occasioned by a protest against what I must ever regard as a plain