As you said you should be at Canterbury during the whole of September, I have fixed Thursday, the 24th of that month, for my first visitation at the cathedral. Believe me, my dear Lord, Your Lordship's most faithful servant, After an interval of three weeks Bishop Bagot wrote to Pusey, mainly in the very words of the Archbishop's letter, but, as was perhaps natural, without mentioning the Archbishop's name. Pusey and Newman might have a private union of prayer, but the Bishop was not sanguine as to its results, and he could not give it his Episcopal sanction. Pusey wrote again; and again Bishop Bagot forwarded his letter to Lambeth. THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY TO THE BISHOP OF OXFORD. MY DEAR LORD, Lambeth, July 20, 1840. I return Dr. Pusey's letter, which breathes the same amiable spirit that distinguishes all that comes from him. In everything that regards the government of the Church the very learned and pious divines who think with Dr. Pusey are accustomed to express and to pay the greatest deference to the Bishop. In this they are right; but I question whether the principle as applied by them would not tend, if carried out in effect, to generate schism, to make each diocese a separate Church with customs and practices of its own, instead of a member of our Anglican Catholic Church, concurring in usages, no less than in doctrine, and further to introduce a system liable to change according to the opinions of individual Bishops in succession. Believe me, my dear Lord, W. CANTUAR. The proposed union for prayer nearly came to nothing: nearly, but not quite. Bishop Bagot did not encourage it. Newman's sketch of a plan1 was used in private for some years by some friends in and near Oxford; and it was published in 1846 under the title of Prayers for Unity and Guidance into the Truth.' 1 Newman drew up the subjoined Plan for the Society of Prayer for Unity':-Lord have mercy, &c.; Our Father, &c.; O Lord, shew Thy mercy upon us; Pss. 80, 122, 133; It furnished the idea of the short St. John xiii; O God the Father, &c., for Unity; as a Prayer, Dan. ix, 16–19; Turn Thou us, O Lord, we beseech Thee, &c.; Veni Creator; the Lord bless us and keep us, &c. The Littlemore 'Monastery.' 135 prayers circulated in 1845 by Pusey, Keble, and Marriott for use at three Hours of the day for the unity of the Church, the conversion of sinners, and the advancement and perseverance of the faithful. In this shape they have been ever since in daily use by members of a little society known as the Brotherhood of the Holy Trinity, and have become better known to Churchmen through the Intercessory Manual of the Rev. R. M. Benson of the Cowley Society of St. John. While this correspondence was going on another subject was mooted which touched Pusey very nearly, and which was ominous, perhaps, of coming trouble. Newman spent Lent, 1840, at Littlemore, where he 'gave himself up to teaching in the Poor Schools and practising the choir'.' But his mind was moving on more anxious questions, especially, as he tells us, on the questions which led to the publication of Tract 90. These were not unconnected with the wish to retire from Oxford and to carry out at Littlemore a plan which had been much before the minds of himself and Pusey. REV. J. H. NEWMAN TO E. B. P. Littlemore, March 17, 1840. Since I have been up here an idea has revived in my mind, of which we have before now talked, viz. of building a monastic house in the place, and coming up to live in it myself. It rose in my mind from the feeling which has long been growing on me that my duty as well as pleasure lies more at Littlemore than I have made it. It has long been a distress that I know so little of my parishioners in Oxford, but tradespeople it is next to impossible to know, considering how they have hitherto been educated—at least, impossible to me. It has pained me much to be preaching and doing little more than preach-knowing and guiding only a few, say about half a dozen moreover, from the circumstances of the case, however little I might wish it, preaching more for persons who are not under my charge, members of the University. All this is independent of any monastic scheme. I have given twelve years to St. Mary's in Oxford, may I not in fairness and propriety give something of my continual presence to St. Mary's at Littlemore? In such a case I should have no intention of separating myself from St. Mary's in Oxford or the University. I should take the Sunday afternoon service at St. Mary's, if that were an object, and should be 16 'Apologia,' p. 234. continually in Oxford-indeed I must be, as being full of ties as a Fellow of Oriel. Next, as to this plan of a μov: I could not be here much without my library-this is what immediately turned my thoughts to a building; and then all we had on former occasions said about it came into my mind. I am quite of opinion, first that such a scheme cannot begin in Oxford, nor in London or other great towns. Next I think we must begin with a complete type or specimen, which may preach to others. I am sanguine that if we could once get one set up at Littlemore it would set the example both in great towns, and for female societies. Again, perhaps it might serve as a place to train up men for great towns. Again, it should be an open place, where friends might come for a time if they needed a retreat, or if they wished to see what it was like. And further, if it be an object, as you sometimes kindly think, to keep me to Oxford (and indeed as I should like), a plan like this fixes me. I should conceive myself as much fixed as you are by your canonry, whereas at present I am continually perplexing myself whether I am not called elsewhere, or may not be. Nor do I think that in such a plan I am neglecting the duty of residence at Oriel: first, because the college has made me their Vicar to this parish, nay made me such as Fellow, for did I resign my Fellowship I resign the living; next, because the Sodalitium might be looked upon as a hall dependent in a way on the college, as St. Mary's Hall was. And let it be called St. Gregory's-and let your four volumes first enter it. If it were ever brought to pass, perhaps you would come up to it now and then on saints' days-or when you wanted change of air. And now I have said my say so far. Money, I hope, would be forthcoming the ground however is an anxious thing. Pusey had two minds about the subject of this letter. The plan of life contemplated was substantially his own; but the withdrawal of Newman from Oxford would be a disaster to the cause which they both had at heart. E. B. P. TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN. Christ Church, March 19, 1840. I thought much, as you will suppose, of your plan. I am glad that you think at all events of retaining the pulpit at St. Mary's, for your preaching there has certainly been made a great instrument of good: so that one may feel very confident that it was, in part at least, for that end that it was ordered you should be Vicar of St. Mary's. There is only one other point which I should like you to consider, viz. whether it would not be compatible with your plan that you should be occasionally resident (e. g. during great part of the terms) in Oxford: supposing you to reside six weeks, this would make but eighteen, i. e. one-third only of the year about. You know how much the presence of a senior Fellow helps to form the 00s of the body: and you have no adequate representative. Marriott must be a great loss. You, however, know the state of your own body best, but it is a thing to be thought of. Then also your Tuesday evenings certainly have been the means of forming people; so that your occasional residence in Oxford and your presence among us would have great advantages. With respect to the plan itself, one may, I think, lean much upon those tendencies which gradually grow in one, and (though I do not see why you should have been 'continually perplexing' yourself 'whether you are not called elsewhere') your reasons seem to me valid. Then certainly it would be a great relief to have a μový in our Church, many ways, and you seem just the person to form one. I can then only repeat, what is my habitual prayer for you, rò epyov τῶν χειρῶν σοῦ κατευθύνοι Θεός. For myself, one has a feeling corresponding to that with which Elisha (I mean as far as outward circumstances go) may be supposed to have heard the words, 'Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head to-day?' However, if I am to act more for myself, I suppose it would be somehow in this way. I hardly look to be able to avail myself of the μový, since I must be so busy when here on account of my necessary absences to see my children, unless indeed I should live long enough to be ejected from my canonry, as, of course, one must contemplate as likely if one does live, and then it would be a happy retreat. Would it not be better to take an English rather than a Roman saint, or why should it not be St. Mary's of Littlemore? But I suppose it will be some time before you obtain 'ground' for such an end. You would not make up your mind, in such a case, not to accept the Provostship at all events? Newman would meet Pusey's suggestions so far as he could. REV. J. H. NEWMAN TO E. B. P. Littlemore, (?20) March, 1840. You cannot help writing what is kind: and what can you mean by speaking in the way you do about you and me? What you suggest has a good deal to be said for it. Suppose I began only as far as this, to be in Oxford each term for six or eight weeks? The disadvantage of being in two places is the irregularity which it would cause; and it would not be compatible with having others here besides myself. But I might do as much as this, build two rooms, one for me, one for my books, so that the building could afterwards be increased, and call it for a time but the quasi-parsonage of Littlemore. This is all very fine talking, however, when I have not got the ground, and I should fear it would be no easy matter to persuade the owner, a strange old man living at Dorchester, to sell it. The whole plan necessarily is a work of time. I would not hold out against your and Keble's strong opinion, else I have myself come to the view that the Provostship, if it could be mine, would not be tanti. There is a mass of College business to be attended to, and of Hebdomadal: and one's time cut up in vacations by residence at Rochester with books at Oxford. If one could do as one would, I would have Marriott Provost; he has a particular art of taking young men, and has had it from an undergraduate. [Rest of letter gone.] Pusey did not in his heart like the plan; but he had too much love and reverence for Newman to oppose it directly. Hence the hesitation, and, apparently, the indistinctness of purpose, in the subjoined letter. E. B. P. TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN. Christ Church, Eve of the Annunciation, 1840. I wish you not to lay over-much stress on what I sent for you to consider, touching term residence in Oxford; for, other things apart, you know your own College best (though probably not the degree of your own influence) and I should be afraid to bias you: I think you [are] best under the guidance of what is suggested to you. Is there not something between a regular μový and 'two rooms, one for you and one for your books'? Might not rooms be built which might form a wing of a μový, on the same plan on which you would build the povn, but still large enough to admit of two or three or four friends staying there during the vacations, and perhaps you might even find one of them capable of being sub-Prior, and so staying on during your absence. This need not startle people, as a μový would, though, φωνάντα συνετοῖσιν, it would be under the size of an ordinary parsonage-house, and there would be nothing decisive about it, though people would suspect of course, and meanwhile might get familiarized to the idea. With regard to the irregularity of having two homes, I do not think that that is any great difficulty, as far as study is concerned, provided you give yourself definite work. I found that I could work at Holton and even at Budleigh Salterton very well. If you only occupied the rooms during vacations it might furnish occupation for a college servant or two, which you were anxious about. |