On April 6, 1877...
Venerable John Henry Newman, C.O., wrote a letter to a friend, from which the following extracts are taken:

My dear Mr. Jenkins,
It is, as you say, a most cloudy time—clouds which both portend ill for our religious future and conceal it. What is coming? Yet evil has often before now threatened and passed away. These signs in the sky are doubtless those which will precede the end in all things; yet in former times they have faded away instead of becoming clearer, and so it may be now. But, whether religion is to be utterly cast out or no, anyhow I fear there is coming on us a time of fierce trial for Christianity, and one is naturally led to think with compassion and anxiety on the danger that will come on many of the fresh innocent souls all around us who are now entering into life.

The Pope is the key note, the Bishops the third, the Priests the 5th, the people the octave and the Protestants the flat 7th which needs resolving.
—J. H. N.