Not that Hook was satisfied by Pusey's assurance that the sermons would be practical and uncontroversial. He would wish them to be controversial, only in an anti-Papist

sense.

REV. DR. HOOK TO E. B. P.

Oct. 20, 1845.

If you were to preach on the Church, Apostolical Succession, or anything else, evincing an attachment to the Church of England, you might do much good. Your abstaining from such subjects at this time will only confirm people in the opinion that you do not love the Church of England. . . . I hope you will be guided right, and I daily pray for it. But no words can express my fears.

To this letter Pusey replied:

Christ Church [Oct. 21, 1845].

I have been frightening you, or you yourself. I do not suppose there will be a Romanizing word from beginning to end of the sermons. I wish to write for people's souls, not controversy. All I have said about confession lies in this sentence: If it is too awful to any one to bear this (knowledge of one's sins) alone, or does anything weigh heavily, or need we counsel, or long we for peace through His pardoning words, our Church has taught us how to obtain it by opening our grief [or, as she says, by a special confession of sins]. Great grace has been so bestowed by God on those who seek it for His forgiveness and His love.'

You probably expected much more. I will leave out what of this you like, although you will see that I have used our Church's own words, not mine. If you like, I will leave out the words in brackets, which are from the Visitation of the Sick, although it is certainly great ' reserve' not to teach what our Church teaches. . . .

Ever your affectionate friend,

E. B. P.

Hook at once responded with the impetuous and generous warmth which characterized him :

REV. DR. HOOK TO E. B. P.

Vicarage, Leeds, Oct. 25, 1845.

A thousand thanks for your letter. It is perfectly satisfactory. I see now that you understand the state of things here, and I shall have perfect confidence in you. The services may do infinite good, but may do much mischief also-all depends upon discretion, surrounded as we are by malignant spirits, anxious to misrepresent anything. . . Yours most affectionately,

My very dear old friend,

W. F. HOOK.

Hook was not the only person connected with St. Saviour's who gave tokens of the panic that was created by Newman's secession. The Bishop of Ripon had approved of the plans for the church and of the course of sermons. Now that the church was completed, he objected first to three portions of the west window, then to the cross over the chancel-screen, and last of all to the altar-linen, which had been specially worked for the church. Pusey interposed no remonstrance; he left it to the Bishop to give orders for the removal of anything of which he disapproved. 'It would have saved expense and vexation,' observed Lady Lucy Pusey, ‘if the Bishop had done this before.'

The visit to Leeds was a great effort to Pusey. He had to go alone. He could no longer associate himself with 'the friend of above twenty-two years, who was to him as his own soul,' with whom he had hitherto shared whatever labours he had undertaken for the Church, and whose counsel had been to him for the last twelve years, in every trial, the greatest earthly comfort and stay 1. Nor of the nearer friends who remained was any able to accompany him. His wife's illness detained Keble; their own illhealth Marriott and Williams. Archdeacon Churton was kept at a distance by misgivings; Archdeacon Manning by business. Pusey's sense of solitude appears in a letter to his son, who was still at school at Brighton :—

MY DEAR PHILIP,

E. B. P. TO P. E. PUSEY.

Christ Church, Vigil of St. Simon and St. Jude, 1845, 6 o'cl. [a.m.]

. . . You will perhaps have heard in part of my many sorrows; they are thickening upon us; week by week brings some fresh sorrow; there is no human help for it; something may be done now and then. I have been trying what I could do, and this and the sermons I hope to preach at Leeds have taken up all my time, so that I have not been able to tell you how much joy it gave me, amid all this sorrow, to hear that you were fighting steadily, with God's help. . . .

I must break off, having been up all night, and having to set off for Leeds soon. I write this line that you may know about our services,

Leeds Sermons,' pref., p. ii.

The Bishop's Last Objections.

493

and pray God to bless what we would wish to be for His glory. The Plate will, I hope, be presented on All Saints' Day. May He ever bless you.

Your affectionate father,

E. B. P.

I am not depressed myself. Things are in God's Hands, and so I feel like one who, if I live, am to go through a great deal of pain, not knowing how things will end, but only saying, Thy Will be done, Thy Will be done.

A long day's journey, partly by coach and partly by railroad, brought Pusey to Leeds late on the evening of the day on which this letter was written. Tired as he was, he had at once to face new difficulties.

'Hook,' writes the Rev. J. B. Mozley, 'was exceedingly hearty, though very nervous beforehand and apprehensive. He had a declaration against Popery, ready to take off the effect of the meeting in that direction. The Bishop too was dreadfully nervous, and in fact one would suppose Pusey was a lion or some beast of prey,-people seem to have been so afraid of him. The Bishop was afraid of being entrapped into anything, and objected to this and to that '.'

...

It will be remembered that the founder of the new church had made it a first condition of his offer that it should contain an inscription of the words, 'Ye who enter this holy place pray for the sinner who built it.' This condition had been accepted by the Bishop, 'provided the party was alive for whom the prayers were required.' On the eve of the consecration, the Bishop, who had forgotten a consent given in happier circumstances, declined to proceed with the consecration until the inscription was removed. He was told that the church was only built on the condition of its being there. He now expressed his fear that the unknown founder might by this time be dead; but on being assured that he was alive, the Bishop waived his objection. It was agreed that if the founder should die while his Lordship was still Bishop of Ripon, he should be informed of the event. The founder lived to see the Bishop Primate of all England, and survived him fourteen years.

Pusey's hope that the Communion plate might be presented on All Saints' Day, without further alteration, was 1 'Letters of Rev. J. B. Mozley,' p. 172.

disappointed. The Bishop objected to the inscribed prayer that God would be merciful to Lucy Pusey. For the time, therefore, the Plate was withheld; in the following spring Pusey was able to suggest a new inscription1, which gave

expression to his deceased daughter's wishes, while it also met with the Bishop's approval.

The consecration itself,

1 The inscriptions finally chosen ran as follows: on the paten, Panem angelorum manducavit homo. Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia'; on the chalice,

on the Feast of St. Simon

'Calicem salutaris accipiam et sacrificabo hostiam laudis. Alleluia,' and Mors tua sit mihi gloria sempiterna et nunc et in perpetuum.'

and St. Jude, passed off happily. It was a fine day; a mild October sun did something to relieve the wonted gloom of the neighbourhood. From the early morning the church gates were besieged. The Vicar of Leeds and a large majority of the local clergy took part in the proceedings. Two hundred and sixty clergy in all were present. The people of the neighbourhood gazed with wondering but not unfriendly eyes on the unwonted sight of the long procession of surpliced clergy, as it wound up fron the schoolroom at the bottom of the hill to the western door of the church. There, beneath the much-questioned inscription, the Bishop received the petition for consecration; the 24th Psalm was repeated in alternate verses, as the procession passed up the nave; and the Bishop took his seat on the north side of the altar, where the legal formalities were completed, and the usual service of consecration proceeded with. The clergy filled the chancel and the transepts; all the other seats and the passages were closely packed with the laity. Matins were said by the incumbent, the Rev. R. Ward; the Psalms were chanted to Gregorian tones by the choir of the new church, assisted by that of the parish church. The founder himself chose an anthem befitting the penitential spirit in which the church was offered to Almighty God. It was Atwood's 'Enter not into judgment with Thy servant, O Lord,' and it was sung without an organ accompaniment. The Bishop preached on Isaiah v. 4, taking occasion to point out the blessings which we enjoy as members of the English Church, and the dangers which would be incurred by ungrateful abuse of them. The offertory amounted to £985. The Bishop himself was celebrant; there were five hundred communicants; and the service, which had begun at halfpast eleven, did not conclude until after four o'clock.

When, at its conclusion, the clergy reached the schoolroom which they had left five hours before, Dr. Hook proposed an address to the Bishop, to be signed by the clergy who were present, pledging them to loyalty to the Church of England. With the object of such an address