A Friendly Remonstrance.

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are eminently conspicuous in some of those with whom you have been most associated. No man can know Williams without loving him. You have yourself formerly in your writings cautioned some of your followers against these excesses. Do you not discern enough in the present time to see that there is tenfold need of such caution now? I say, as I said to you at Oxford, that it is impossible to believe that God's blessing will be with these misguided efforts, in which the child behaves himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable.' You, and Keble, and Newman have been placed, against your own wish or purpose, at the head of a party. But when the party was formed you tried to direct it. In this, I fear, you have failed, and for this reason. Instead of controlling the ebullitions of the young wrongheads, you have suffered yourselves to be inoculated with their frenzies. Instead of saying to them, what, I do not use the proscribed term of common sense, but what good sense would have suggested, 'Wait and be patient. Study Church History, and read the Fathers, before you write. Try fasting before you preach it. Prepare men's minds for a restoration of ceremonies before you restore them'; you have let them get ahead of you and drag you after them. Hence your proposal of reviving monastic life, and your very unfortunate appearance at Dublin, which has so deeply perplexed our best allies there. Hence No. 90, written not to express Newman's own views, but theirs who would needs venture to the edge of the precipice, to show how bold they were, and how little they cared for the opinion of the old and prudent, which youth regards as timidity. As for yourselves, that which has compelled me, most unwillingly, to forsake that entire union with you in which I found so much comfort, has been that you have seemed to treat these excesses as if they were providential indications for your guidance, and thought it a kind of 'quenching the Spirit' to keep them within rule and order. . . .

This letter is already longer than I meant it to be, but it would be all idle, and worse than idle, if it was written without attempting to point out a remedy. It is then thus. There are great dangers on one side, most unhappy suspicions on the other. It is most true that you have all three formerly, some more lately, expressed your opinions unequivocally enough about the Church of Rome. But you have been to Dublin since, and you know what advantage has been made of it. There have been too many other things, which have alike been interpreted as marking progress to a certain end. May I beg of you yourself to send me a few lines which I can show to friends in this neighbourhood, to express, what I do not want to be assured of, that you are not changed by your visit to Dublin; on the contrary, as you expressed to me, you are more convinced practically of the disingenuousness of the present leaders and teachers of Romanism in Ireland and in this country.

What more I would urge is, that defying all misinterpretation on either side, you should now do what a filial sense of duty to the Church

of England, the Church of the Prayer-book, would direct. Put forth some declaration of principles which may be accepted by the Church as final-let it only speak the firm uncompromising language of that good confessor whom you all venerate, the admirable Bishop Kenlet it say you are resolved by God's grace to live and die 'in the Holy Catholic and Apostolic faith, professed by the whole Church before the disunion of East and West; more particularly the communion of the Church of England, as it stands distinguished from all papal and puritan innovations, and as it adheres to the doctrine of the Cross.'

With regard to the young men, if you have any such among you as you cannot guide, you must let them drive their own way. But they will do very little harm, if you are not supposed to direct them; and if, as I believe, you are not consulted by many of them in what they do, why should you labour under the reputation which they procure for you? I can only say that the Church of all times will know how to make a distinction between those who patiently abide under persecution, and those who do all they can to bring it upon themselves— between Polycarp, and Quintus the Phrygian. . . .

Pusey replied with his wonted patience and mildness:

E. B. P. TO REV. E. CHURTON.

Christ Church, Dec. 11, 1841.

I thank you very much for your kind letter. I must write briefly, having to look over an University sermon for to-morrow.

...

I agree with you that it is quite unnatural that Presbyters should be directing any efforts in the Church, but if the Bishops will not do it, what are we to do? We must give advice when asked. We have always wished to direct people away from ourselves to the Church, as you say, the Church of the Prayer-book.

I fear there has been a great deal of want of self-command and humility among some young men, and that they have been tempting God and speaking in an unchastened way. But surely Newman's efforts have been strongly to produce the opposite temper, and this is, I hope, for the most part that prevalent. I have been desirous of instilling caution and humility and patience, and pray daily that God would give it us. I do not think that in Oxford there is the unpractical character you speak of, though I hear of it from Hook; people hear first before they speak of it, if they do speak of it.

Newman has just been preaching two very powerful sermons, solemnly warning people who have any hope that the Holy Spirit has been present with their hearts, not to forsake that Church where their Saviour's Presence is. They were on 'The Kingdom of God is within you. No one has any notion how much he has done to withhold people from forsaking our Church for Rome; and continually the cases

1

1 Sermons on Subjects of the Day,' ed. 1844, No. 21. Cf. ib. p. 348 note.

we meet with are not such as are going over from our writings, but in utter ignorance of the principles of our Church-from the Low Church or No Church, not from us.

With regard to Rome, the unnaturalness of our present insulated state, separated from the rest of the East and West, is felt in a degree in which probably it was not felt formerly by such men as Bishops Ken and Andrewes; but there is no wish for a premature union: it is only wished and longed and prayed for, that we may both become such, that we may safely be united. Some feel this more especially towards Rome, on account of the benefits she conferred on us in times past; my own thoughts (as you will see in my Letter to Jelf) have been directed rather to the reunion of the whole Church. I need not tell you that these feelings expressed in that Letter are unaltered by my visit to Ireland. Indeed, as I said publicly in my letter to Dr. M[iley], the result of that visit was to make me less hopeful as to any near reunion of the Church, seeing how little inclined they were to give up what were the most grievous offences in our eyes. There seemed no disposition to amend. Newman never would even think of any terms on which the Church could be reunited; he thinks everything of the kind premature, as of course it would be in us: he works for futurity. As to monasticism, I do not go further than Archbishop Leighton in what he says about 'retreats for men of and mortified tempers,' which he regrets were lost at the Reformation. I have long strongly thought that we needed something of this sort; it is not Romanish but primitive-B. Harrison, as well as others, think co-eval with Christianity; all minds are not formed in the same way nor need the same course of training. I think it would be a great blessing to our Church to have some such institutions, but this is no new view with me; what I thought when I wrote to the Bishop of Oxford I think now. My visits to the convents at Dublin have not changed my views, except so far that I should not think now of any formal institution, but wish people quietly to form themselves.

I really must not add more except that I am grateful for your letter, and am

Ever your affectionate friend,

E. B. PUSEY.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

PUBLISHED LETTER TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY THEOLOGICAL PROFESSORSHIP-CENSURE ON HAMPDEN REAFFIRMED-FEARS OF SECESSIONSNEWMAN'S MISGIVINGS-DEATH OF DR. ARNOLD — NEWMAN'S RETRACTATION-PUSEY'S TRUST IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

1842-1843.

THE situation of affairs in Oxford at the termination of the struggle for the Chair of Poetry was undoubtedly more anxious than any that had preceded it. The disposition among the younger men to give the Movement a Roman direction was aggravated by a sense of failure within the University, and by the increasingly hostile tone of Episcopal authority. Episcopal charges were being published almost every month, which scarcely varied the monotony of denunciation. The Bishop of Winchester refused a second time to ordain Mr. Young, a refusal which obliged even the author of 'The Christian Year' to appeal to the Primate in a document which, notwithstanding its studied respect and moderation, is the severest condemnation of an attempt to substitute the prejudices of a party for the formularies of the Church of England in the administration of an important diocese. Bishop Blomfield, whose scholarship and talent for organization did not imply independence of the gusts of popular opinion, was turning more and more decidedly against the men who had strengthened his hands in the earlier days of his Episcopate. After reading No. 90,' he said at a dinner-table full of young clergymen, 'no power on earth should induce me to ordain any person who held

Proposed Address to the Archbishop.

273

systematically the opinions of that Tract.' Archbishop Howley, too, was not prevented by his chaplain from a partial abandonment of the attitude which had won the love and respect of the Oxford writers. Writing to Pusey about a proposal of Mr. Bellasis', to get up an address from the legal profession in favour of the Tracts, Newman remarks:'Jan. 2, 1842.

'It seems to me his project is a very desirable one, if it can be done as he hopes. The Archbishop, observe, is taking a new line. Last March he stifled addresses for the Tracts because they would elicit counter addresses. Now he receives one against them, and that at SUCH a moment! As if there were not excitement enough! As if not violence enough on the side he backs up!'

Pusey, too, was, although reluctantly, in favour of the address, as is shown by the following letter:

E. B. P. TO E. BELLASIS, ESQ.

116 Marine Parade, Brighton,

Jan. 3, 1842. Newman has just forwarded to me a letter of yours. I was against any address of sympathy to us last year as feeling that we did not want it, and I was afraid lest it should call forth a counter declaration, and commit people before they considered what they were doing. I had not heard of the Cheltenham address or the Archbishop's reply. But if they have begun the attack, I quite agree with you that it is desirable that there should be counter addresses, else the Bishops will be misled. I very much fear that they do not in the least realize the state of feeling in the Church and will consequently make mistakes, which may be very injurious; it is natural to judge of things by the sensation they make: they have no idea of strong, deep, quiet feeling. I hope that the Poetry election will, amid all its evils, have some effect this way, but I should think such addresses as you speak of will also do good, both as expressing sympathy, putting the Bishops more in possession of the real state of things, and inclining them in the end perhaps to wish all such addresses at an end on both sides, which will tend to give us what we so much want-peace.

I like the topics you have mentioned, and agree with your reasons why the barristers should begin. Excuse haste.

Yours very faithfully,

E. B. PUSEY.

I do fear that we are suffering very much from want of courage. Truths are depreciated, and things allowed to go by default, when, if persons were to speak out boldly, they would carry others with them: 1 Afterwards Mr. Serjeant Bellasis. He eventually became a Roman Catholic. VOL. II. T