During these studies, Bayley began to question the claims of the Protestant Episcopal Church to be the Catholic Church founded by Jesus and the consequent contention that the "Romish" Church was the dissenting and heretical one. Archbishop Robert Seton (a grandson of Mother Seton, and Bayley's first cousin once removed) recalled Bayley's once telling him that "his earliest attraction to the Faith was received while reading the works of Saint Jerome, and was strengthened in it by the study of Christian antiquities." Bayley recalled in 1876 that in the preparation of an essay for Dr. Jarvis on the apostolical canons which obliged him to study the ancient councils and the fathers of the Church, he had become convinced "that the Pope had much more to do with the government of the Church, than we were willing to allow." In 1842, Bayley wrote to his friend John Williams concerning Jarvis' influence upon him, "when he saw the bias of my mind he used all his endeavors to turn it, from what he believed to be dangerous error, and I am convinced, that it was with a sincere and lively sorrow that he found his arguments, and I may say entreaties were likely to prove useless... But if I be asked whether the principles which I learned under his roof, and I may say general instruction, inclined me to join the Church in communion with Rome, I ... positively answer, Yes—I ... assert, that high-Churchmanship led me to Rome, as it has led and is likely to lead many others—It was the respect for Antiquity, and the testimony of the Fathers, which I learned in the course of instruction recommended by him that first inclined me to seek and at last enabled me to find a refuge from doubt and uncertainty, in the fixed, unalterable Catholic, or if you will, Roman or Papal faith". However, he must have temporarily allayed such doubts as proceeding from an immature mind, which, as compared with the ripe and seasoned scholarship of such as Dr. Jarvis, could not be depended upon to pass judgment on such an important matter.