CHAPTER XXXIII.

RUMOURS AND ANXIETIES-AN APPEAL FROM PUSEYMANNING'S FEELING TOWARDS ROME-NEWMAN'S SECESSION-PUSEY'S LETTER ΤΟ THE 'ENGLISH CHURCHMAN' KEBLE'S COMMENTS

PUSEY'S POSITION.

REVIEW OF

1844-1845.

SINCE his resignation of St. Mary's in September, 1843, Newman had lived in the 'monastery' at Littlemore, surrounded by a few most intimate friends, while the little church of St. Mary's, Littlemore, was served by the Rev. W. J. Copeland. Newman and his associates spent their time in attending the daily services in the church, in observing the Canonical Hours at home, and in an amount of literary work and anxious correspondence which left no margin of leisure. During the last year of his life in the Church of England, Newman was reading for or writing his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine,' and his mind was so far detached from the Anglican position that his secession was at any moment at least possible. Pusey alone, hoping against hope, could not altogether resign himself to recognize what was plain to most; and, as we have seen, went on consulting him as if they still had, as much as ever before, practical interests, anxieties, and hopes in common.

With the keen desire that everything should be done likely to re-establish Newman, it was a great distress to him when, shortly after his return from Ilfracombe in September, 1844, Mr. Eden, the new Vicar of St. Mary's, showed him a letter from Copeland, in which the latter begged to be relieved of his charge at Littlemore. The strain of so difficult a situation might well be too great

for one so deeply attached to Newman, yet at the same time so loyal a son of the Church; but Pusey thought that, at such a crisis, considerations of a personal character only ought not to be entertained.

E. B. P. TO REV. W. J. COPELAND.

Christ Church, 15th Sunday after Trinity, 1844.

MY DEAR COPELAND,

Eden has just read to me a note of yours; as you speak so freely to me, I felt that he might, though he otherwise felt it to be confidential. Indeed, my dear friend, it must not be. You cannot estimate the value of your being there to N[ewman]. I dread everything, every loosening of every cord, and this is like sending him adrift, and parting with the last thing which holds him to L[ittlemore]. If there were any clear call of duty it would be otherwise; but now, for all our sakes, you must stay. Nobody can estimate the use he is in God's hands where he is. He has set you down there, as me, I trust, here. We must all have many heavy thoughts; we are under a very heavy cloud; still God may be nearer to us for all that; only let us stay where we are, and we shall see the salvation of the Lord by-and-by. I would have called this evening, but I say things so badly. One's heart is half-broken, and all these moves are like shaking a broken limb. So pray, you must stay on.

God bless and comfort you.

Your very affectionate friend,

E. B. PUSEY.

Copeland obeyed Pusey and remained. But another anxiety followed. Mr. A. J. Christie, Fellow of Oriel College, had intended to take Holy Orders at the end of 1844. He had been a pupil of Pusey, and Pusey was greatly attached to him, not merely on account of his marked ability, but for higher reasons which a singularly elevated and attractive character could not but suggest. Mr. Christie had apparently, after the fashion of perplexed young men of that time, been asking advice in very various quarters, and had at last become much perplexed as to whether he should be ordained at all.

'I did not tell him,' wrote Newman to Pusey on Oct. 12, 'what I think, that if he goes into our orders, he will one day be sorry for it. But why I think this is a matter of impression, and I cannot give grounds. I certainly do not think he can possibly sign our Articles, but he thinks he can. He goes with Ward; I cannot.'

A. J. Christie, of Oriel.

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Pusey's love and reverence for Newman-his inability to think that any real divergence of conviction was possible— prevented him from seeing that they were really looking at the question from different points of view.

E. B. P. TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN.

Saturday evening, Oct. 12, 1844. What you say must decide me not to say anything to C[hristie], grievous as it is, in so great a degree to lose his direct services for our Church. I asked the Bishop, not without the secret anxiety one has about everything, but still with the faith that all would come right. However, now he has, of his own mind, resigned it (though it costs him a good deal, and more as the time of final decision approaches), I must not dissuade him against your 'impression,' who see so much further, that he would one day be sorry for it.'

So, I have done. But I wish you would think whether, this resigned, Medicine is the best line for him. If things go on well, and he is led on in the line which his publication of S. Ambr. de Virg. points to, he might, in a single state, do good service as a physician of the poor (perhaps in some such establishment as, by God's blessing, Holy Cross may become). Else Instruction seems more his line. He wishes to do anything you, or you and I, might think best for him. He seems to have no preference for Medicine, and he would have a great deal very revolting to go through. He would like you to say what you think best for him.

I have nothing more to say now, thank you.

Pusey was too uncomfortable to let the matter rest. Five days afterwards he wrote again to Newman.

E. B. P. TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN.

Thursday night [Oct. 17, 1844]. Christie called upon me by appointment after I saw you, and his determination had given me such a pang yesterday that I could not help talking with him about it. I could not find from him, although I asked him plainly, any reason why he should not be ordained, nor that he went further than myself as far as appeared without going into the details of each doctrine.

Your strong expression staggered me, and I should not think myself fit to think one way when you think another; still, I should like to know more what you think best for Christie, in whom, as a pupil and on other grounds, I have so much interest. It seems so sad for such services to be lost, and hopes which he himself has had as long as he can recollect, and which, so one might hope, were drawings, to come to nothing.

If you are not coming soon into Oxford, I should like to walk out to talk with you.

It was inevitable that reports about Newman should be in circulation; the current gossip of Oxford, or rather of Puritan Oxford, is described by an authority on the subject, Mr. Golightly.

REV. C. P. GOLIGHTLY TO REV. W. S. BRICKNell.

MY DEAR BRICKNELL,

Oxford, Friday, Nov. 1, 1844.

It is possible that you may have already heard from some other correspondent the reports prevailing here. It is all over the University that Newman, Ward, Oakeley, Lewis, and others are going over to Rome immediately. A great stir is taking place undoubtedly. It is reported to-day that Newman is already gone.

All this is uncertain. I have however ascertained one very important fact, that Newman has written to Isaac Williams to say that it is 'impossible for him to continue in so fallen a Church.' Williams has cut the party, and wishes Newman's intention to be known. He told this to Ley of B.N.C., a man of good character, and brother of a quondam Fellow of Trinity, a friend of Williams; and my informant has twice called on Ley, and for my satisfaction heard the statement from his own lips.

Thus much is quite certain; and, if you can spare the time, I should much like you to come in here on Monday, and dine and sleep at my house. The Tablet, which has a long and curious article upon the Puseyite Movement, intimates, 'on the authority of a forthcoming pamphlet,' that Pusey has been brought up to the same point as Newman and Ward. Should Pusey secede with them, my calculation is that thirty Masters of Arts, and in all perhaps 100 members of our Church, would turn Romanists by the end of the year.

Immediately upon the secession of the party I conceive that Newman and Wiseman would each publish an artful pamphlet to catch waverers, and that the latter in his will cull from the Bishops' Charges all the compliments that they have paid to the learning, ability, and piety of the party.

Believe me, yours most truly,

C. P. GOLIGHTLY.

I wish to consult you not only upon the general subject, but more particularly as to whether anything or what should be written to the papers at once.

Nov. 1, 1844.

P.S.-I thought perhaps they might be entering the Communion of Saints on All Saints' Day.

The reports about Newman found their way into the London papers on November 2, and they caused, as was inevitable, a widespread perplexity. Among the letters

Account of Newman's despondency.

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which Pusey had to write with reference to this perplexity, the subjoined is remarkable. It contains an account of Newman's 'despondency,' as Pusey now conceived of it.

E. B. P. TO REV. PREBENDARY HENDERSON.

MY DEAR HENDERSON,

[Christ Church], Nov. 14, 1844.

You are quite right in thinking that N[ewman] has no feelings drawing him away from us: all his feelings and sympathies have been for our Church: he has toiled for it as no other has, constructed defences for it, and brought out her system, as no other could. What I fear is a deep and deepening despondency about her, whether, with all the evils so rife in her, the tolerance of heresy and the denial of truth, she is indeed part of God's Church. From time to time he seems encouraged by tokens of God's grace vouchsafed in her, but the tide sets the other way he is very heavy-minded. He does feel sympathy very much, or the want of it: he has felt very much what has been said of late: he said the other day, 'I have a literal heartache.' But it is not this, I believe, which has been doing the mischief, but, what you say, the tolerance of heresy. He seems to me to have the keenest and most reverent perception of the offensiveness of heresy, that I ever witnessed. It is something quite of a different kind from anything that I ever saw elsewhere; I know not how to convey the thought. It is a sort of reverent shrinking from it, as one might conceive in a very pure mind from something defiling. It seems even to affect his frame, as one might imagine ‘a sword piercing,' a pain shooting through every part.

Of course I do not mean to blame our Bishops; but in the habits in which we, and much more they, were brought up, the mind was directed to certain gross forms of heresy, such as the Socinian, and scarcely realized the others at all-thought of them as something abstract, not being brought in contact with them, or seeing their effects. Thus, in America, a Nestorian Bishop was actually recognized by some of our Bishops, and in England very unguarded language has been used about the heretical bodies in the East. We are so practical a people, that we can hardly see a thing to be wrong which we do not see working ill. Hence, people even who assent to the word FOTÓKOS, often cannot see any great harm in its denial, because they do not see its bearings. Then, too, we are so inured to our existing evils that we do not feel them acutely. We have been so accustomed to hear the Sacraments denied, that it hardly seems to strike our Bishops, when 500 clergy (I think) sign their denial of them. On the other hand, anything new does strike us. And thence the anomaly of great apprehension expressed, all along, as to what has been taught from this place, while glaring heresy passes unnoticed. Thus the Bishop of Gloucester leaves unnoticed Mr. Close and all