Unchanging Faith in the English Church.

511

I know that you too will joy at all at which I joy, in itself; for you must joy far more than I at any signs of increasing holiness, or the return of penitents. Yet if I were to write that there were these consolations, I feared lest you should think that I was propping myself up by these tokens of God's grace. Yet it is a subject of joy, both in itself, since it is so to the blessed Angels, and as showing the Presence of His grace, more evidently than heretofore, drawing souls to Himself. I wished also that the writer of the article upon me in the Dublin Review should know that he entirely misunderstood the grounds upon which I said no more about the Roman Church in my sermon on the power of the keys, i. e. that I had no such motives as he ascribed to me. But this privately only. I have no wish to be less censured. I was pained by several things. I should have thought a person who knew so much ought to have known more, and he would not so have written. However, it is my own fault, if it is not useful to me.... No good can come from these personalities; however, there will be all sorts of blunders and mutual pain at first.

Thank you much for your kind message through C. as to your probable destination. I felt very glad you would be there, although one could not help a pang that the Propaganda is in part directed towards England. However, I have a faith that all will come right, wherever you are, though I see not how; and all, past and present, is to me a great mystery which I sigh over.

I am here recruiting, having had a cough, off and on, for these seven months, but it has now nearly disappeared. I was feeling very worn, but now, by God's mercy, have a feeling of returning health, which I have not had these many sore months.

I have not sent you my little ‘adapted' books, since I hear some R. C.s are very much displeased about them, although others have been very kind. You will know how sick at heart it makes me to write this.

You will be kindly glad to hear that poor Philip is going on well in spirit, while in body more crippled and with more disease. He has, at last, given up, amid his increasing disorders, the one wish of his heart, to enter Holy Orders, and has now, he says, one only thing to live for, that God's Will should be fulfilled in him and his own will perfectly conformed to His. You will remember him the more for this his wish.

My head is half in a whirl, with all the thoughts of the past, in writing such a letter as this to you.

God be with you ever.

Your very affectionate friend,

E. B. P.

I cannot write on the subject of your letter, nor would you wish me. Thank Mrs. B[owden] for wishing me to hear, as would least pain me. C. Marriott's love.

But the prolonged strain had been too much for Pusey.

A fortnight later he was dangerously ill. He wrote a short note in pencil from his sick bed to ask for Newman's prayers.

MY DEAREST N.

Tenby, July 30, 1846.

I am very seriously ill, although not as yet mortally. A low fever has settled in a weak part, the membranes of the chest: it seems to increase and my strength to diminish. The physician does not think it will end fatally. You will pray earnestly that God will have mercy upon my body and soul, and spare a sinner, and give him true repentance. Ever yours very affectionately,

E. B. P.

Pusey rapidly became too ill to write or read letters. Newman wrote for a further account, and, getting no answer, he fancied that Pusey must be in greater danger than was really the case, and set off for Tenby to see him. once more. Pusey had rallied somewhat, but the interview caused a relapse. A few days later Philip wrote to Newman:

'My father wishes me to tell you that the object of your prayers has not yet been granted, for although the physician says he is better, yet this is the day in which there has been most fever and weakness.'

Happily it was not long before Pusey entirely recovered. But after this there was no intercourse between the friends for seven years. Their mutual affection underwent no change; but such a silence was probably necessary if they were to understand the permanence of their new and altered relations to each other. Gradually Pusey abandoned the hope which had for a moment flitted before his mind that Newman might some day return to his old place in the English Church; and Newman learnt that Pusey was not, and never really had been, likely to take the step which he himself had taken. From time to time his later letters may have expressed hopes which may be right and charitable in a sincere Roman Catholic, but his deliberate judgment is given in the 'Apologia.' He tells us that when he became a Roman Catholic he was often asked, 'What of Dr. Pusey?' and he adds, 'When I said that I did not see symptoms of his doing as I had done, I was

Newman's maturer estimate of Pusey.

513 sometimes thought uncharitable1.' It would seem that, as time passed, Newman had gradually perceived that the language and the hesitations on Pusey's part, which he had in 1845-6 interpreted as meaning approximation to the Church of Rome, were really due to an intense affection for himself, and that Pusey's convictions respecting his own duty had undergone no change whatever since the days of their early friendship. Thus in the same passage he says:

'People are apt to say that he [Pusey] was once nearer to the Catholic Church than he is now; I pray God that he may be one day far nearer to the Catholic Church than he was then; for I believe that, in his reason and judgment, all the time that I knew him, he never was near to it at all?.'

This seems an appropriate point at which to pause in the account of Pusey's life. The events recorded in this last chapter have in a special way displayed his strength and character under very trying circumstances, and given opportunities for a fair estimate of his true position as a faithful son of the Church of England. In the whole project of St. Saviour's, its building, its consecration, and all the attendant circumstances and controversies, the following aspects of Pusey's work, character, and position are specially illustrated. First, the history shows the quiet way in which, wisely and boldly, as well as with self-effacing liberality, he hoped to build up and extend the Church by strengthening her hold over the masses of population in the great cities. Again, it illustrates that persistent temper of mind (with occasional fluctuations of despondency, it is true) which enabled him to persevere under the specially depressing and annoying opposition that met him, and the exaggerated suspicions characteristic of the time. But, further, it shows the method by which he determined to assert and defend the true principles and claims of the Church of England. He as much as any one realized and deplored the danger that resulted from the secession of Newman; but he was not to be led aside into indiscreet violence and denunciation with a view of defending himself and others against the Apologia,' p. 138.

1

2 Ibid.

general charge of Romanizing. He contented himself with a calm and restrained appeal to the ancient and primitive teaching of the Church, and with the evidences of life and practice as a natural outcome of that teaching. In dark days, when hearts were failing, and friends were straying away from the fold of the English Church, and beckoning him to follow; whilst a vast mass of obloquy and misunderstanding, taking every shape that could wound a sensitive and affectionate nature, fiercely bade him begone, he had to defend himself more than once against the double assault; to show that in his loyalty to Christian Antiquity, he had only taken the Church of England at her word; to show that she offered all the blessings, whilst she was free from great drawbacks that are to be found elsewhere; but also to show that in resolutely making the most of all the positive truth that she directly or implicitly sanctions, lies the best safeguard in the long run against disloyalty to her claims. This method-suspected by some, scoffed at by others, and utterly contrary to the whole tide of popular prejudice may truly be said to have been justified in the sequel. Every one acknowledged that a critical moment in the Revival had come. That Revival was no longer a movement in Oxford-it had begun widely to affect the whole Anglican Communion. And it was at this critical moment that Pusey's power was shown. He had learnt, from Keble and through Newman, the strength and claims of the Anglican position, and in faith and hope was ready to defend it with his own method and with true weapons. Thus, in spite of everything adverse, he was able to rally round him the more devoted of the younger clergy and to point them to a higher and a brighter future.

It was in a very true sense, then, wider and deeper than even Pusey himself understood, that 'an atmosphere of blessing' hung around the consecration of St. Saviour's. It was God's blessing on Pusey's faith and devotion-it was His benediction on the renewed life of His Church in England.

INDEX TO VOLS. I. AND II.