From Loss and Gain
The first of the two novels by Venerable John Henry Newman, C.O.
In this scene, the main character (Charles Reding) receives some news from a close friend (and fellow Oxford undergraduate), which shows a bit of the type of reaction someone who converted to Catholicism in 19th England could expect.....
"Charles had to pass a day or two at the house of a relative who lived a little way out of London. While he was there a letter arrived for him, forwarded from home; it was from Willis, dated from London, and announced that he had come to a very important decision, and should not return to Oxford. Charles was fairly in the world again, plunged into the whirl of opinions: how sad a contrast to his tranquil home! There was no mistaking what the letter meant; and he set out at once with the chance of finding the writer at the house from which he dated it. It was a lodging at the west-end of the town; and he reached it about noon.

He found Willis in company with a person apparently two or three years older. Willis started on seeing him.

'Who would have thought! what brings you here?'he said; 'I thought you were in the country.' Then to his companion, 'This is the friend I was speaking to you about, Morley. A happy meeting; sit down, dear Reding; I have much to tell you.'

Charles sat down, all suspense, looking at Willis with such keen anxiety that the latter was forced to cut the matter short. 'Reding, I am a Catholic.'

Charles threw himself back in his chair, and turned pale.

'My dear Reding, what is the matter with you? why don't you speak to me?'

Charles was still silent; at last, stooping forward, with his elbows on his knees, and his head on his hands, he said, in a low voice, 'Oh, Willis, what have you done?'

'Done?' said Willis; 'what you should do, and half Oxford besides. Oh, Reding, I'm so happy!'

'Alas, alas!' said Charles; 'but what is the good of my staying?-all good attend you, Willis; good-bye!'

'No, my good Reding, you don't leave me so soon, having found me so unexpectedly; and you have had a long walk, I dare say; sit down, there's a good fellow; we shall have luncheon soon, and you must not go without taking your part in it.' He took Charles's hat from him as he spoke; and Charles, in a mixture of feelings, let him have his way.

'Oh, Willis, so you have separated yourself from us for ever!' he said; 'you have taken your course, we keep ours: our paths are different.'

'Not so,' said Willis; 'you must follow me, and we shall be one still.'

Charles was half offended. 'Really I must go,' he said, and he rose; 'you must not talk in that manner.'

'Pray, forgive me,' answered Willis; 'I won't do so again; but I could not help it; I am not in a common state, I'm so happy!'

A thought struck Reding. 'Tell me, Willis,' he said, 'your exact position; in what sense are you a Catholic? What is to prevent your returning with me to Oxford?'

His companion interposed: 'I am taking a liberty, perhaps,' he said; 'but Mr. Willis has been regularly received into the Catholic Church.'

'I have not introduced you,' said Willis. 'Reding, let me introduce Mr. Morley; Morley, Mr. Reding. Yes, Reding, I owe it to him that I am a Catholic. I have been on a tour with him abroad. We met with a good priest in France, who consented to receive my abjuration.'

'Well, I think he might profitably have examined into your state of mind a little before he did so," said Reding; 'you are not the person to become a Catholic, Willis.'

'What do you mean?'

'Because,' answered Reding, 'you are more of a Dissenter than a Catholic. I beg your pardon,' he added, seeing Willis look up sharply, 'let me be frank with you, pray do. You were attached to the Church of Rome, not as a child to a mother, but in a wayward, roving way, as a matter of fancy or liking, or (excuse me) as a greedy boy to something nice; and you pursued your object by disobeying the authorities set over you.'

It was as much as Willis could bear; he said he thought he recollected a text about 'obeying God rather than men'.

'I see you have disobeyed men,' retorted Charles; 'I trust you have been obeying God.' "