Again; to all those that are “knowing” enough, the facts of this woeful tragedy “observingly” to “distil out,” the form and substance of this document of the 12th March, 1605-6, under the hand of Edward Oldcorne, alike afford evidence— conclusive evidence— that Father Oldcorne regarded the Gunpowder conspirators as repentant conspirators, through the virtual representative repentance of one of their own number.

And though it is true that, by the inexorable decree of the Universe, “The Guilty suffer,” each man for himself and not another, temporal punishment, searching, terrible, and keen, yet this is not the whole of the truth governing the perfected ethics of the matter. For “Man learns by suffering.” And guilt is pardoned on repentance, that is, on the observance and on the performance of certain equally decreed conditions.

These conditions are (1) confession, (2) contrition, which implies sorrow and regret, and (3) satisfaction or “damages,” which involves amendment, withdrawal, or reversal. And when all three conditions have been observed and performed, then

Hence, could the great moralist, by a complexus of intellectual acts, personal and vicarious, justly regard the whole band of plotters as transgressors released from the abstract guilt of their double crime. For it is a dictate of reason that the release of one joint debtor operates derivatively to the release, ipso facto, of all the rest.

Now, if Oldcorne possessed a conscious realization that, through the repentance, personal and representative, of the Gunpowder plotters, that Plot was no longer a plot, then, to speak after the manner of men, he must have had that realization as the resultant of two particular kinds, aspects, or sides of knowledge: ab extra, from without, that is, passive knowledge, or communicated, in the first step; and ab intra, from within, that is, knowledge active, or self-bestowed, in the second step.

Now, both passive knowledge and active knowledge here would imply, in the final analysis, a communication by some external mental agency, the agency of some living, intelligent being.

It would be implied in the first case, directly; in the second case, indirectly. But, directly or indirectly, the source would be the same.

Now, who can that aforesaid living, intelligent being, which reason demands, have been, if not a repentant plotter himself?

Therefore, by irresistible inference, the Letter is surely, with moral certitude, traced home at last.