Project Canterbury
Life of Edward Bouverie Pusey
by Henry Parry Liddon, D.D.
London: Longmans, 1894
volume two
Transcribed by The Revd R D Hacking
AD 2002
CHAPTER XXXIV.
ST. SAVIOUR' S, LEEDS -- FIRST PROJECT OF A CHURCH
FOR LEEDS -- LAYING THE FOUNDATION STONE --
COSTLY GIFTS--ALTAR PLATE--ALARM AT SECESSIONS
-- OBJECTIONS RAISED BY HOOK AND THE BISHOP
OF RIPON--CONSECRATION--SERMONS--AN ADDRESS
TO THE BISHOP -- PUSEY' S ANTI-ROMAN POSITION --RELATIONS TO NEWMAN--HIS UNCHANGING FAITH IN
THE ENGLISH CHURCH--NEWMAN' S MATURE ESTI–MATE OF PUSEY.
1845--1846.
PUSEY' S attitude with regard to Rome and the English Church at the time of Newman' s secession has just been described. Personally he was in no way shaken. He did not share in the general dismay entertained by many earnest Churchmen. In spite of the anxiety and distress occasioned to himself by his friend' s secession, he continued the more positive methods for strengthening and extending the hold of the Church upon the masses.
It has been seen with what munificent generosity he had contributed to the Bishop of London' s scheme for building churches in East London. And in this he had been seconded by the devoted and self-sacrificing spirit of his wife. The same generosity and zeal for the spiritual welfare of men were now to go forth in another direction--in one of the great northern towns. In the same month in which Newman joined the Church of Rome, the church of St. Saviour' s, Leeds, built entirely by Pusey' s liberality, was consecrated.
While Mrs. Pusey was lying on what proved to be her deathbed in the early months of 1839, the discussion which preceded the erection of the Martyrs' Memorial was in progress. Pusey, it will be remembered, had declined to identify himself with Mr. Golightly' s scheme for paying monumental honour to three of the reformers; but he was willing to contribute to a church which should commemo–rate the blessings 'which we owe to the Reformation.' When Pusey stated this to Hook, the latter discerned an opportunity which might be made the most of:--
REV. DR. HOOK TO E. B. P.
Vicarage, Leeds, April 3, 1839.
We do most sadly want churches here. For two or three thousand pounds we could build a handsome one. Now many of our friends (wherein I think them, I confess, to have been mistaken, since we ought to honour all who have suffered hardship for the Church) refused to subscribe to the Oxford Memorial. Ought they not to show that it was on principle only that they refused to give,--but that their money is ready for the building of a church? They might easily raise the sum wanted. I should say, let it be at least equal to the sum raised for the Memorial. Let them come to Leeds--a most needy place. Let the church be dedicated to St. Bede, or Paulinus, or to some of the worthies of our Northern Church. Let it be erected by contri–butors to the Oxford Tracts and their friends--or by any other title by which you would prefer to have yourselves called....
Ever, my dear friend,
Most affectionately yours,
W. F. HOOK.
Mrs. Pusey' s death, and the cares which followed it, delayed Pusey' s answer to this appeal. But he did not forget it. We have seen that he looked upon his wife' s death chiefly in the light of a chastisement for sins of his own; Keble had had to warn him against excess of bitter self-reproach. From this date he regarded himself habitu–ally as a penitent; and the question was how to bring forth works meet for repentance. He determined to retrench personal and domestic expenses even more than heretofore, and to devote the money thus saved to the public purposes of the Church. He is himself the penitent referred to in the subjoined letter; but there was no reason for saying this to his correspondent, and more than one against doing so.
E. B. P. TO REV. DR. HOOK.
[Pusey], August 14, r839.
I know a person who wishes in such degree as he may, if he lives, to make up a broken vow, in amount if not in act. It would amount to about £1,500. It would be a long time before it could be raised, as it must be raised probably out of income. Supposing it ever raised, would it build you an Oratorium, such as you wish? The only con–dition which the person wishes to annex is an inscription such as this-- 'Ye who enter this holy place, pray for the sinner who built it,' to which I suppose there would be no objection. If you approve of it, as soon as any money comes in to him available for this purpose, it shall be paid to your account through me, and might gradually accumulate so as to raise somewhat above the £1,500, if he should live, or make a nucleus for building a chapel, if he should not.
Hook thanked him warmly for his 'offer of a church to be built by a friend.' He added:--
August 16, 1839.
I see no objection, to the inscription, but you forget that the leave of the Bishop must be obtained for it. I will, however, mention it to our dear good Bishop, and of course he will not object. Who would? And so I may close with your offer. I should like, if it be true, to have it said that the church is built by writers of the Oxford Tracts,--or something to mark the school from which the good deed emanates.
* * * *
Believe me, with the truest affection,
Your friend,
W. F. HOOK.
The Bishop consented to the inscription, provided the parties were living for whom the prayers were required. Pusey wished to leave matters in Hook' s hands.
E. B. P. TO REV. DR. HOOK.
Christ Church, Dec. 2, 1839.
My poor friend did not mean to make any 'demands' or conditions as to church-building. All he really wants is the inscription, and, having obtained that, he will gladly leave the rest to you. What I said was suggested by what you wrote some time since, in which you pro–posed that some of us should build an oratory at Leeds, after the plan at Littlemore.
The reason for suggesting Holy Cross as the dedication of the new church was that Holy Cross Day (Sept. 14th) was 'a great day for' Pusey. On that day he had been made a member of Christ by baptism; and he observed it, as the Prayer-book Calendar suggested, as a festival of the Redemption, in its relation to himself, throughout the last forty-nine years of his life.
The destruction of convents in Spain in the spring of 1840 led Pusey to think that it would be 'an act of piety to gather up some of the fragments, and replace them in a church in this country.' 'I hear,' he wrote to Hook, 'of a church which cost £30,000 to be sold for £3,000. A fortnight afterwards this idea took a more concrete form:--
E. B. P. TO REV. DR. HOOK.
Christ Church, June 5, 1840.
I have an opportunity of buying a church for my friend in Portugal near the coast. It is offered for £3,000, but the expenses of removal will I suppose be very heavy, though it is hoped that the duties might be remitted.
Now what would be the expenses of bringing the materials from the coast to Leeds? I see you are on a navigable river, but the expense might still be so great that it might be unadvisable to bring it there, or at least more than the ornamental work.
I do not yet know the size of the church; it is a conventual church, and if not bought would be desecrated; but after all, it may not answer the purpose, or may be sold already, but I thought it right to ask these preliminaries.
Ever your very affectionate friend,
E. B. PUSEY.
Hook replied that nothing could be easier than water-carriage by the river Aire to Leeds. But he was willing to release Pusey' s 'friend' from his promise, if he thought he could carry out his purpose better elsewhere than at Leeds. But Pusey preferred to build a church at Leeds. If his 'friend' could succeed in buying the Portuguese church it would be more beautiful than any of English make at the same cost. In a later letter Pusey adds:--
'July 17, 1840.
'I have no objection to its being known (which you suggested might be of use) that I am the instrument of the church being thus built at Leeds, but I should wish particularly that the degree of interest which I take in the matter should be kept as quiet as may be, lest it should be fixed upon me. How pertinaciously e.g. has the £5,000 given to the London churches been fixed upon Keble, although he he denied it again and again!'
By the close of 1840 the site of the new church had been purchased, and it was arranged that Pusey should preach at the laying of the first stone or at the consecration. In 1841 Pusey and Hook had gone so far as to discuss and endeavour to select a curate for the church.
REV. DR. HOOK TO E. B. P.
MY DEAR FRIEND, Vicarage, Leeds, Feb. 23, 1841.
I wish you clearly to understand what I desire with respect to your church. You will pardon me if, to express my wish concisely, I use an offensive (because made a party) term, but I wish for a fair living representative of the Oxford Tract system; one who will not offend people by adopting some minor but offensive (unjustly) points in the first instance, while all the greater things are neglected; one who will not talk of the celibacy of the clergy, and then marry: who will not talk of fasting, and never fast: &c., &c., but who will be a living example of what he preaches, and will proceed from right principles to right practices, preserving a consistency in all his ecclesi–astical arrangements. Send in short such as you approve of. I want consistency in him, an agreement, as far as may be, between what he says and what he does; one who may be an example to me as well as to others; who may be to me what the hermits were to St. Chrysostom. Now I do not mean to say that I want every clergyman to be thus. We have all our different callings; some are called to mix more with men than others. Then those who have families cannot do all that they ought to do in self-denial. You know not, my dear Pusey, how perplexed, how miserable I sometimes am, from not knowing how to act, pulled on one side by the claims of my family, on the other by the claims of the parish. In your prayers for unity, sometimes remember your poor friend. I am, my dear friend,
Most affectionately yours,
W. F. HOOK.
At the same time arose the question how the new church was to be endowed, and to what amount. Pusey writes about this just before the troubles concerning Tract 90:--
E. B. P. TO REV. DR. HOOK.
Christ Church, Feb. 22, 1841.
I am suspicious about endowments: we want more than all we can get for the present, and cannot afford to provide for posterity. We must shift as we can, and trust that when by God' s mercy we have weathered the present storm, He may give the peaceful days of Solo–mon, when His house shall be built in beauty and glory and solidity. I would not hinder others; but if I had an estate of £20,000 at my command, these seem days in which we should rather sell lands and houses and lay the price at the Apostles' feet, than endow churches with them. The Church is in greater present need than she was then·I should be glad to get rid of pews and pew-rents and have the offertory substituted. The Church might employ a voluntary system, though Dissenters cannot; she wants it in aid, only not as a substitute for endowments...
The vision of an imported church from Portugal having disappeared, Pusey set himself to consider how a new church might be built in England by 'his poor friend,' whom he now speaks of as 'Z' :--
E. B. P. TO REV. DR. HOOK.
Christ Church, Feb. 27, 1841.
How large should Z' s church be? He wishes to have no galleries; his notion was, if he cannot get anything from abroad, to begin on a plan which might admit of embellishment subsequently: if he lives long enough, he would gladly spend £6,000 on it.
Ever your very affectionate
E. B. P.
In June, Pusey sent Hook the plans 'for Z' s church.' He proposed at first to spend £3,000 on solid stone-work, only so much being carved as to avoid unsightliness. He wished to know whether a site could be secured near the church for what might ultimately be a 'clerical college.' This Dr. Hook was able to do: he had already purchased the land on which a church might be built. This land was situated in a part of Leeds which, until Dr. Hook' s appointment to the Vicarage, was untouched by the ministrations of the Church. Soon after that event the Rev. J. W. Clarke and the Rev. G. Elmhirst, as curates of Dr. Hook, began work in this district. Mr. Elmhirst must have been no common man. To great earnestness he united cheerfulness, simplicity, and excessive self-denial. He utterly sacrificed his health to the souls and bodies of his poor neighbours; he left Leeds with a broken constitution in 1841, and died, not long after, in Italy.
It was at the instance of this devoted man that Dr. Hook, assisted by other Churchmen in Leeds, purchased the site on which the new church was built. lie bought it originally with a view to building a school; and he built a very good one. But in order to acquire the site for the school he had to purchase a much larger piece of ground, of which a part was consecrated as a cemetery for the use of the poor in that part of Leeds, while the remainder was offered to Pusey, at Dr. Hook' s instance, by the school trustees, as a site for the proposed church. This site had been known as St. Peter' s Bank, having been formed, at least in part, out of the refuse of a coal-mine. The position was com–manding, but the ground was far from good; after the foundation-stone had been laid it was discovered that the shaft of' the disused pit took a direction which made an outlay of £1,000 necessary in order to make good the foundation.
The district in which the church was to be placed contained, at the date in question, something less than 6,000 persons. But the population was rapidly increasing, and was with rare exceptions poor; the well-to-do tradesmen lived in other parts of Leeds. Narrow streets, with low houses, were inhabited by mill-labourers and mechanics; and among or around these ran a branch of the river Aire, whose 'waters were brown and thick with mud, and dye-grease, and drains.' The physical discomfort was outdone by the moral degradation; every form of the foulest vice flourished, as was natural, in rank luxuriance . The moral, as well as the mental . atmosphere, was heathen, without the restraining forces which occasionally made heathenism respectable.
In July, 1841, tenders for the flew church were sent in, and preparations were made for laying the foundation-stone on September 14, 1842. Pusey was to have been present on the occasion, and to have preached in the parish church; but the controversies about Tract 90 and the Poetry Professorship had not been without their effect on the lower middle-class Protestantism of Leeds. The Vicar of Leeds had hitherto identified himself unreservedly with the Oxford School, and he was watched by a numerically powerful party with anger and suspicion.
REV. DR. HOOK TO E. B. P.
Vicarage, Leeds, Jan. 31, 1842.
With respect to the laying of the first stone of the projected church, I think that the best thing will be to have it done very quietly by myself, without attracting the notice of the public to it, as would be the case were you to come. Under the present excited feelings every stone which would be laid would be regarded as laid with a Popish intent: and we should have remonstrances addressed to the Bishop, who would be sure to attend to them, and the edifice would be so altered as to be more like a meeting-house than a church. You have no idea of the exasperated feeling of the Low Church people here: many of those who were coming round have gone back--violently so·It is known that the town is to be inundated with tracts, and to be made so hot that in six months the Low Church people think I shall be forced to resign·
On the whole, I repeat it that the stone of the church had better be laid without any greater ceremony than a few prayers offered by me; and you had better preach the consecration sermon.
I am, your truly affectionate friend,
W. F. HOOK.
Pusey, of course, agreed to keep out of the way; and the foundation-stone of the new church was laid without attracting any particular attention.
Mr. Derick had been selected to be the architect of the new church. In August, 1842, Pusey wrote to Hook as follows :--
[August, 1842.]
Mr. D[erick] tells me that it is usual to put an inscription in a bottle with a text of Scripture under the first stone of a church. In case then you have not prepared anything, I have written the facts and selected a text and some prayers, which I suppose might readily be engraven....
Z likes the inscription; it expresses his feelings: so I hope you will bring it all in.
Your very affectionate friend,
E. B. PUSEY.
'The subjoined inscription was engraved on the stone:-
This First Stone
of Holy Cross Church,
In the Parish of Leeds, and County of York,
was laid
Under the Altar,
In the name of Penitent,.
To the Praise of his Redeemer,
On Holy Cross Day,
A.D. 1842.
God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, whereby the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.
O Saviour of the world, Who by Thy Cross and Precious Blood hast redeemed us, save us and help us;
We humbly beseech Thee, 0 Lord.
By Thine Agony and Bloody Sweat, )
By Thy Cross and Passion, ) Good Lord, deliver us.
In the Hour of Death, )
In the Day of Judgement, )
Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.'
Pusey was much pleased by the account of what had taken place at laying the first stone of the new church. 'Everything,' he wrote, 'was managed beautifully.' Even Oakeley had been interested. Pusey dwelt on 'the wisdom and piety of engaging people' s affections and turning them in the right channel on such occasions.'
E. B. P. TO REV. DR. HOOK.
MY DEAR FRIEND, Christ Church, Sept. 27, 1842.
The service is indeed very beautiful. Z was much affected by it and your account of the day, as also by the poor man' s wish to con–tribute towards a monument to him. He wishes you, if you think right, to thank him, and tell him that the Church, if he be permitted to finish it, must be his monument; he wishes to be a penitent and would have no other (indeed, feels himself very unworthy of this, which is of all the greatest), but would ask him for his prayers.
I have been thinking how such gifts as the organ might be accepted without Z' s seeming to claim more than he may be permitted to do, in that he calls himself the founder: and Littlemore furnishes a hint. They have there, within the rails of the Altar, a tablet with the names of those who contributed to the building, and over them the text, Neh. xiii. 14-- 'Remember me, O my God, concerning this, and wipe not out my good deeds which I have done for the house of my God and the offices thereof' (I am not sure whether in full). There is a blank wall in the chancel of Holy Cross Church necessarily, in which I thought, instead of a niche, there might be a tablet with a canopy where the names of benefactors might in like way be inserted. This would find vent for any feeling like the poor man' s: and as Z probably will never be able to build tower and spire, perhaps some one will be found hereafter to add the tower, another the spire. In the present state of destitution, one should not like to have a sub–scription for this. Handsome embellishments, such as the tower and spire ought to be, should be done in a noble way.
My heart turns much towards Leeds. I have been very thankful that HE seems to be calling you on to some higher way of self-sacrifice. If I may venture so to say, what I have missed in your system and that of others who would be classed with you (e.g. Jelf, Churton, Palmer, Gresley), is the element of austerity, severity. . . . I should say, it seems to me to run throughout the writings of this class: there is a tone of easiness and satisfaction with all things, and an inaptitude to see what is amiss. Of course, this is one element of the true character; yet only one. We should love, and be thankful for, and hope well of our Church; and yet be conscious of her deficiencies, as good Bishop Andrewes was, and as Daniel 'confessed his own sins and the sins of his people.' I suppose the general neglect of fasting, until of late, has fostered this want of severity: but Catholic truth will never strike deep root in our Church without it. It is what we still most want: we have abundance of right-minded, earnest clergy (God be praised), but we seem to have few above. the average character, persons to cope with extraordinary difficulties, such as those of our days are. Things are taken far too easily. And therefore I felt the more thankful (and the more for the love I must have to you) that as God has these many years, and before us, made you a witness to one portion of Catholic truth, so now He is leading you to that which will give completeness and consistency to your insight into that truth, and deepen the character which I so much value and love. This is the striking side of Manning' s character, so wonderfully shown in his sermons, and so leading him into the unseen world; and one very impressive part of Newman' s deep impressiveness. .
God bless you and yours.
Ever your very affectionate friend,
E. B. PUSEY.
The building of the church went on slowly. Z' s money had to accumulate; and it may be remembered he had also been condemned by the Vice-Chancellor for a sermon at Oxford. Little therefore was done during 1843. In November, 1843, Pusey writes to say that the sum required by the contract was ready, and that he hopes the consecra–tion will take place on Holy Cross Day, Sept. 14, 1844. Meanwhile Hook 'had begun to look forward to this occa–sion with considerable misgiving:--
REV. DR. HOOK TO E. B. P.
Leeds, Nov. 20th 1843.
As to the interest taken in Holy Cross Church, it is confined to the poor people in the neighbourhood--I mean a friendly interest. The exaggerations and falsehoods circulated about it in the North are extraordinary, and I really dread the consecration. I think we shall require a troop of horse to keep order. The church will be filled with scoffing Methodists.
Believe me to be, my ever dear friend,
Very affectionately yours,
W. F. HOOK.
As the new church rose from the ground, Pusey became greatly interested in its details. He had, however, no special knowledge of art, and was obliged to fall back upon men who had of late been making Christian art a special study. Mr. Upton Richards introduced him to Mr. Benjamin Webb, at that time an active member of the Cambridge Camden Society and some of his corre–spondence with this accomplished man well illustrates his ideas upon questions of church furniture and arrangement. In selecting painted glass for the new church, he 'wished to go back to the austerity and simplicity of the older school of painting, yet with correctness of drawing and beauty of outline and countenance in which the ancient glass was defective.' A more pressing subject was the reredos. The feeling of the Camden Society was against giving the prominent position to the Creed, the Lord' s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, which had been customary in English churches since the Reformation. More room was wanted for such artistic treatment of the mysteries of Redemption as has since become general. Pusey' s con–sideration for popular predilections in favour of the tradi–tional arrangement, and his own conservatism of feeling on such subjects, are remarkable.
E. B. P. TO B. WEBB, ESQ.
Clifton, F. of Holy Innocents, 1843.
I should be very sorry to go against any decided feeling of those who are doing so much for Church architecture; yet I cannot but think that, however it may have been brought about that we have the Commandments, Creed, and our Lord' s Prayer near the altar, there is much good in it. You will feel that in reviving what is old we are not to disregard the actual position of the Church. Needs may have arisen and have been providentially provided for, even by uncatholic means. I thought there was much deep thought and reverence in Williams' tract 'On the Providential Superintendence over our Liturgy,' and again Newman speaks very cheerfully, somewhere, of our Church taking up things uncatholic in their origin and moulding them into what is Catholic. Now, I suppose, many ways the use of the Ten Commandments is and has been of great benefit to our Church. In our absence of discipline or private confession they stand as a fence around the Holy Communion, warning people not to break in; then, they suggest a detailed Catholic self-examination, and detailed confession to God: they are a protest against any doctrine of justification by what people think to be their faith, or by feelings: they imply what we so much want continued repentance. All thoughtful people also seem to have felt that what we have most need to be anxious about in this revival of our Church is lest this mighty stirring of men' s minds be wasted through want of sternness with self, and that there is a danger in the very 'beauty of holiness' without its severity. I cannot but think that the Ten Commandments, with their strict warning voice, are far more valuable to us, as attendants on the altar, than images or pictures or tapestry would be. Since also they were placed in the Ark, I do not see why they should not now stand in a place of honour under canopies. They are God' s words, and represent what His Hand traced: since then a canopy is a conventional mark of dignity, I do not think the ecclesiologist has ground for objecting to their being put under them.
I write this in self-defence, for I had been much impressed with the arrangement at Littlemore, in which, as perhaps you know, three [canopies] occupy the centre behind the altar, of which again the centre contains the cross: two on each side of the three centre [canopies] contain the Ten Commandments, &c. This tends to revive the mystical meaning of numbers, the three behind the altar, of which the centre only is occupied, being, I know, a very impressive symbol, and again combining with the four to form that which is the symbol of reconciliation between God and the world--seven. I had conse–quently asked Mr. Derick to design a reredos of some richness (which, as well as the altar, was to be painted), the three richest canopies encompassing the altar. The cross again being specially suited to Holy Cross Church, I own I should be very unwilling to give up this, for I think it may still be a valuable characteristic of our Church: still, I should like to know what your feelings are about it....
With every good wish,
Yours very faithfully,
E. B. PUSEY.
He held, with some tenacity, this opinion in favour of retaining the Commandments above the Altar. He begged his correspondent to consider
'whether there might not have been something providential in the way in which, contrary to the tendency of current doctrine, and as a correction of its errors as well as the loss of discipline, the Ten Commandments had, by common consent, come to be over the altar; whether it might not have been so ordered because we needed it.' 'Certainly,' he adds, 'they are as they stand in that holy place, a con–tinual witness to us. As different Churches have their different usages, so I thought this might have grown up, as of special value to us.'
In those days church building was so comparatively rare a thing that few details could be taken for granted. Pusey had to answer or decide questions which were not much in his way. What should be the material of the reredos-- wood or stone? What was to be the place and size of the porch? What the position of the organ? How were the angels at the Ascension in the painted glass to be robed? What was to be the colour and pattern of the altar-cloth? What designs were to be adopted for needlework on the pulpit, faldstool, and credence (termed by Pusey 'pro-thesis' )? These ecclesiological matters were not familiar ground to Pusey, and he is largely in the hands of his younger and better-informed correspondent. Now and then he gets out of artistic detail into questions of principle. Thus, with reference to the material and form of the altar:--
'I could not myself put up what should seem to be a mere table. When truth was not denied, tables were altars, as well as altars holy tables; now, they seem to me to involve at least a withdrawal of the truth; and if insisted upon, a denial of it. I dare not myself be any party to putting up a table; I would sooner have the consecration of a church suspended. I would spare any needless offence; but, if this be one, it seems to me unavoidable. But I hope with a few years it will much diminish, and every altar is a gain.'
With regard to the altar-cloth, it appears, there could only be one. 'As long,' wrote Pusey to Mr. Webb, 'as there is only one colour, I suppose violet best suits the state of our Church.'
Pugin had offered through Mr. Webb a design of the 'Holy Face' of our Lord in one of the windows.
'I like his design,' wrote Pusey, 'very much. The only thing about which any one can have doubts is the introduction of The Holy Face. I fear lest people will not contemplate it reverently as a symbol but only think of it as a legend. Else the words, " Is it nothing to you, &c." do bring out its meaning. There are two remaining in Cirencester Church.'
Pusey was himself accustomed to dwell much in devotion on the Human Face of our Lord' He continues:--
'I can hardly imagine a countenance more reverential, or on which the mind could dwell with more repose and comfort, than the Crucifixion by Albert Durer. As far as the expression of that Coun–tenance could be transferred, I should be very sorry to see it replaced [in the new church] by any other. Again, for the Agony, one by a modern German artist (it is one of the frescoes in the chapel at Munich) is, for the Countenance, everything I could wish.'
The illness and death of Lucy Pusey brought about a further contribution to the gifts for the proposed church.
E. B. P. TO B. WEBB, ESQ.
Miss Rogers' , Crescent, Clifton.
Wednesday in Easter Week [April I0], 1844.
The sudden illness of my eldest daughter, who is now sinking under consumption, has broken off my intercourse with Mr. Derick, but it gives me an occasion of applying to you sooner than I expected about the sacramental plate. She has a sum of perhaps £40 which had been given her, and this she wishes to give to something connected with the altar in Holy Cross Church. She has been nearly three years a communicant. There is also another sum, about the same amount, which might be similarly spent. These would perhaps purchase two cups set with some precious stones, if not very costly. Or you could tell me what their expense would be likely to be. I liked very much the pattern I saw at your house in L. Of precious stones, my dear child' s preference is to the carbuncle, as the type of the fire of Divine Love, or emerald, or a dark blue.
You would know whether it would be best to use the same stone throughout, or the four chief Church colours, or again twelve precious stones. Her preference (for any single stone) is to the dark blue.
I think it is not unusual to insert in the form of a prayer some reference to the donor; as Propitius esto Domine--you would know what forms there are authority for. One of the two, from whom this sum conies, is departed, but it is a sort of offering in her lifetime. I should only put the Christian names. He to Whom the words are used knows the rest.
When the cups, or one, is executed, I should like to have them, or it, sent down here, that, if so be, she may see what she would offer, while yet here.
When Pusey wrote this it seemed that all would soon be over. There was, however, a respite; and Lucy Pusey rallied sufficiently to take a keen interest in the proposed gift. Mr. Webb proposed five rubies, to Lucy' s great satisfaction. She discussed with her father the inscriptions on the sacred vessels.
E. B. P. TO B. WEBB, ESQ.
For the paten she inclined to 'Panem Angelorum manducavit homo. Alleluia.' ( 'At all events,' she said, 'I should like one with Alleluia.' ) For the chalice, 'Calicem salutaris accipiam. Alleluia.'
For the commemorative inscription, do you think a Bishop would accept of vessels, inscribed 'Orate pro bono statu, &c.' unless (which one dare not anticipate) she should be still alive, when the church is consecrated. I thought some intermediate form which could be looked upon as the prayer of the individual, and which yet others might use as a prayer, would be safe from objection and yet attain the end. Any one who habitually prayed for the departed would repeat such a prayer. I mean a form as analogous to that of Nehemiah, 'Remember me, Lord, for good,' or in tombstones, where the prayer is directly from the deceased. Were there such a form as 'Propitius esto, Domine, Luciae Mariae quae--Deo et Eccl. S. Crucis, &c.,' a person reading it would involuntarily pray it.
My dear child likes the thought of the cross in jewels very much. She loved to see the cross everywhere.
Lucy Pusey died on April 22nd. Two days afterwards her father wrote to Mr. Webb:--
Clifton, Eve of St. Mark, 1844.
You will be kindly glad to hear that your great promptness in sending the sketch for the chalice and paten was an occasion of deep interest to my child on the last day of her earthly life. The subject being so very sacred, I could show it her even then; and she pointed with much pleasure to the jewels, especially to that in the cross, and looked with reverential interest on the Crucifixion. We settled too four of the female saints, St. Mary, her own St. Lucia, St. Catherine, St. Agnes (whose age she recollected even then). We had lately received the Holy Communion for the last time together, so that the inscription with the Alleluia has a special interest.
I thought you would like to know this, and seeing your note on her bed, which I had placed there to explain some things from it, she asked with interest about you.
There is now no immediate hurry, thinking that some who loved her would like to give perhaps a precious stone or two, in order to be thus united with her. One has given me a topaz and a small gold bracelet, which might be used for gilding.
Pusey thought that his friends' might contribute jewels which had been used as ornaments, to decorate the holy vessels which were thus connected with his daughter' s memory. Of his wife' s jewels scarcely any remained: she had sold them some years before her death for the London poor. An unmarried donor sent him at once 'a garnet necklace, earrings, and brooch, which,' he adds, 'she preferred to giving me an amethyst brooch, because they were the more sacred, having been given by one, now, she trusted in Paradise.' He then applied to his nearest relations, Mr. Pusey sent a gift of money: Lady Emily sent some rings in which were set diamonds and pearls. Their children, Edith and Clara, wrote, begging that they might contribute something to the memorial of their cousin.
Certainly Pusey pursued his quest in the most un–promising quarters. 'I conclude,' he wrote to Keble, 'you have no precious stones by you: only sometimes they come where one should not expect. Some of my friends who have them are giving them to me to enrich dear Lucy' s chalice.' Keble must have been amused at this application. 'I fear,' he wrote simply, 'we have no jewels to offer.'
Eventually it was arranged that one chalice should be Lucy Pusey' s memorial, adorned with jewels offered by her friends; while the other chalice and two patens should be the gift of Lucy, her brother, and sister.
As the consecration was intended soon to take place, it became necessary for Pusey to select an incumbent for the new church. In August, 1844, the Rev. R. Ward, M.A., Incumbent of Christ Church, Skipton, accepted the charge. He had for many years enjoyed the confidence of Dr. Hook. 'Tell Newman,' wrote Hook to Pusey in 1838, 'that I can never be sufficiently thankful to him for sending me that excellent man, Ward.'
E. B. P. TO REV. DR. HOOK.
MY DEAR FRIEND, Ilfracombe, Aug. 16, 1844.
Perhaps you have heard what gives me great joy, that Ward ias decided to take charge of Holy Cross Church, with Slatter under him, at which J. K. also is very much rejoiced. So, by God' s mercy, have perplexities turned to good. I hope soon to be in a condition to ask you what you think about the district of Holy Cross Church. I do not wish to come under the Act; there is plenty to provide for; and I thought, if W[ard] sees good, rather a large district might be annexed to it in which chapels might hereafter, by God' s blessing, spring up. A good collection at the consecration might build one.
I thought of proposing Easter Tuesday as the day of consecration, so that the consecration might always fall upon a festival, and it would give a local and sacred interest and employment to what is often a time of idleness. .
Ever yours most affectionately,
E. B. PUSEY.
It was originally hoped that the church would be con–secrated on Sept. 14th--Holy Cross Day in the Church Calendar. The Bishop of Ripon objected. He had not been consulted about the dedication of the church: his approval of its proposed name had been taken for granted. The suggestion that the church should be consecrated on Holy Cross Day raised in his mind a scruple not only as to the day of consecration, but as to the dedication of the church. He feared that he might be committed to 'some legend.'
'Everything,' wrote Pusey to Hook, 'that I touch seems to go wrong. It has not been my fault, I trust, that Holy Cross Church has been so much talked of. I have tried to stop it; and even wrote anonymously in a newspaper to correct exaggerated statements about it. However, so it is: and in the present sensitive state of people' s minds, " every feather shows which way the wind sets," and I know the sort of feeling there will be that this rejection of the name by which it has unhappily become known far and wide, is a sort of movement in condemnation of certain people·Altogether this objection to the name disheartens me completely, and I know not what else may be objected to: whether the stained-glass windows, and whether it may not be better to defer presenting it for consecration until the whole is completed, although this involves the loss of a year, which one would be very sorry to incur.'
Pusey' s anticipations that more difficulties were before him were not without reason. Some one wrote to the Bishop objecting to the design for the west window. The Bishop had seen and approved the design: but he now objected to the representation of the Holy Face of our Lord.
'I have told the Bishop,' writes Pusey to Hook, 'that the same Countenance of our Lord is, of old, in Cirencester Church: it is not necessarily connected with the legend of St. Veronica (which Tillemont e.g. gives up). It is a sort of " Ecce Homoä! I thought that the Bishop knew all and had passed it. Now, I know not what he will do. The church is, I believe, conveyed over to him and I have said he may do with it what he thinks right. I cannot be a party to taking away the Angels. If the Bishop thinks right to take out part of the window and put in white glass he must. I commend the whole to our Lord, to Whose glory it was meant, and would have nothing to do with this myself, but pray Him to dispose it all, as is most for His glory.'
The Bishop was much annoyed. He cannot but have felt that he ought to have looked more carefully at the designs. He certainly made a grave mistake in using language which implied that Pusey had not dealt quite straightforwardly.
'As,' he wrote to Pusey, 'I have made this discovery of subjects being introduced of which I never had any distinct intimation, I shall feel it my duty to inspect the church myself, previous to the consecration, in order to see that other matters of the same kind have not occurred.'
To this Pusey replied with some warmth:--
'I have told your Lordship or shown to your Lordship everything about which you asked. Your Lordship asked for the drawings and I sent them. You wished to see everything yourself, and I sent them you to see. I really cannot think that it was for me to set myself to think what your Lordship might object to, and perhaps awake objections by so doing... . Your Lordship asked me to let you yourself see these drawings, and as you returned them without any objection, I concluded that you objected to nothing.'
Fresh difficulties were created by Sir Herbert Jenner Fust' s decision against the stone altar in St. Sepulchre' s, Cam–bridge, on January 31, 1845. In view of this case nothing had yet been decided between the Bishop and Pusey as to the material and form of the altar in Holy Cross Church. Mr. Webb, who was present in the court, described the Judgment to Pusey as 'deplorable' : the tone of his letter led Pusey, in his wonted manner, to make the best he could of it.
E. B. P. TO REV. B. WEBB.
Christ Church,
F. of the Purif. [Feb. 2], 1845.
We must not be unduly downcast with such wretched decisions. It does not alter our actual position. If they drive people into themselves to think more of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, we may gain by them. One is sorry for this seeming triumph over truth: but the Eucharistic Sacrifice is offered now on wooden altars, or, it may be, on tables unseemly for it. And belief may deepen, by God' s blessing, amid things adverse more than in prosperity·
But what was to be done about Holy Cross Church? Might the Bishop be asked to allow of a moveable stone altar, or a carved wooden altar with a stone slab?
The Bishop allowed Pusey 'to take an opinion as to whether a moveable wooden altar with a stone slab would be permitted under the terms of Sir H. J. Fust' s Judgment. Pusey seems to have taken the opinion of Mr. James Hope and Mr. (afterwards Sir) R. J. Phillimore, who held that such a Table was permissible. Meanwhile the Bishop had made up his mind for himself. He promised to consecrate the church in October provided the Holy Table be of the material of wood, moveable, and if the plate with the inscription to which he had objected were not there. The ground of this last objection was that the inscription might imply Prayers for the Dead.
E. B. P. TO REV. DR. HOOK.
[August, 1845.]
The Bishop has finally refused to consecrate the Church, if the plate with my daughter' s name is there, on the ground that it involves his sanctioning it, because he believes that he is not required to consecrate the church--that is at his own option. He is wrong in law, in this. However, so he has decided. There is then nothing to be done, but to keep back that part of the plate, the two chalices and one paten, on the day of the consecration. . . . The legal question as to Prayers for the Departed, supposing these to be ruled as such, is clear in our Church·.
Yours most affectionately,
E. B. P.
However, Dr. Longley was endeavouring to meet Pusey' s wishes about the patronage of the church, although legal difficulties, arising out of the Leeds Vicarage Act, presented themselves. Counsel' s opinion had been given that under the terms of this Act every church subsequently consecrated in Leeds must be in the patronage of the see of Ripon. 'In case I have the power,' the Bishop wrote to Pusey, 'I shall not object to vest the patronage in the four persons whom you name, namely, yourself, your younger brother, the Rev. C. Marriott, and the Rev. Richard Ward.' It was in their names that the church was eventually presented for consecration.
Under the pressure of objections which were so much more easily raised than settled, even Pusey, sanguine as he was, had at times begun to lose heart. Three months before the date of the Bishop' s decision respecting the plate and the altar, he had poured out his disappointment to Hook.
E. B. P. TO REV. DR. HOOK.
[April 20, 1845.J
Everything about St. Saviour' s is seemingly where it was four or five months ago. I know not whether there is not prayer enough, but not one step is gained. The Bishop does not decide against, but neither does he decide for anything. It is very wearing; but I would rather have any weariness, than a contrary decision. One' s heart is quite sick with continual anxieties day after day. A feather taken off would be a relief. The year is advancing, but nothing is settled about the buildings, and the building season is hastening by; the session is waning, but nothing is settled about the nomination to the church: the glass almost at a standstill, yet nothing about the window of Bearing the Cross, although there is not an emblem in it, or figure, for which there is not authority in our English churches. I have been anxious not to commit the Bishop, but there is nothing but discouragement; and it discourages others too that the wish to benefit our Church should be thus met. Even my dear child' s present of a most beautiful chalice is questioned because it has her prayer before her departure, her prayer in offering it, 'Propitius esto, Domine, Luciae, &c.'
However, I have the deep feeling that for such as me, it is only fit to have disappointment in all I do. May God forgive me and spare my work for His Son' s sake.
It had now been finally settled that the church should be called St. Saviour' s, and that it should be consecrated in October, 1845. Who would preach at the consecration?
That Pusey, the real founder of the church, should do so was a natural arrangement. But Pusey, it will be remem–bered, had been suspended from preaching at Oxford by the sentence of the Vice-Chancellor. The period of his suspension was over; but until he resumed preaching in Oxford, he did not like to preach elsewhere without the express sanction of the Bishop of the diocese. The Bishop, while unwilling to forbid his preaching, was also unwilling expressly to sanction it. Hook, indeed, before the Oxford suspension, had proposed that Pusey should preach both at the laying of the first stone of the new church and at its consecration; but the progress of events at Oxford, and the Bishop' s attitude towards the new church, had not been without their effect on his impulsive, though generous, nature. He still wished Pusey to preach at one service, but doubted about the Bishop' s giving an express sanction for his doing so. The Bishop would probably preach himself in the morning; Pusey might do so in the afternoon.
In August, 1845, Pusey suggested daily sermons in St. Saviour' s during the week following the consecration. This practice, which has since become so general as to attract no attention, was a novelty in the Church of England forty or fifty years ago.
E. B. P. TO REV. DR. HOOK.
Ilfracombe, August t i, 1845.
I thought there might be a course of earnest sermons (more directed to the feelings, perhaps, than on ordinary occasions of regular continued instruction) On solemn subjects, as the Four Last Things, Repentance, &c. Will you preach one of them, or more if you can: at all events, on the Sunday? I thought that perhaps we might have two every day and that one might ask some others likely to be there or to come. I would like to have asked J. Keble, Manning, Is. Wil–liams. I think a good deal might be done in this way. According to Bishop McIlvaine' s account, there were genuine 'revivals in this way in the Church in America,' and the R.C.s have something of the kind in their missions.
However, good must come, one should hope, from earnest stirring sermons, with earnest intercession, at least to some.
Ever your very affectionate friend,
E. B. PUSEY.
Hook had agreed with Mr. R. Ward, the incumbent– designate of the new church, that Pusey should preach once every day during the week. He cordially accepted the scheme of two sermons a day by different preachers. He would not preach himself but he begged Pusey to ask Keble, Manning, and Isaac Williams to help him. 'Will you write at once,' he asked Pusey, 'in my name' as well as yours?' He suggested that Dodsworth should be added to the list. 'I am ready,' he continued, 'to do anything you think right, now that I know you to be a good Anglican.' Pusey replied in the highest spirits. He sent Hook a list of the proposed subjects, and added:--
E. B. P. TO REV. DR. HOOK.
Aug. 25 (?), 1845.
My wish is that they [the sermons] should be, as perhaps I said, warm, energetic, earnest, with both severity and love, and addressed more to the feelings at the end than sermons generally are.
I think it would be best that you should take share, because the object would be the stirring up of people' s souls in Leeds. There will be more difficulty to find preachers for the latter part, because people will wish to get back to their parishes, at least for the Sunday.
I have written to Manning, am writing to Is. Williams and Keble. I shall have sermons, I hope, from Copeland and C. Marriott.
I do hope that a good deal might be done in this way, and that we shall not leave the instrument of preaching in the hands of others. It too is a gift of God and a means of grace. ...
Yours most affectionately,
E. B. PUSEY.
Hook objected, oddly enough, to Copeland' s name, on the ground that 'he will certainly go to Rome with Newman.' He added:
'Aug. 24, 1845.
'If any of the preachers fall away into the fearful schism of Rome, against which I am accustomed to preach so very strongly (I am this very day about to denounce the heresy of Rome in praying to saints), more mischief will be done than I can calculate. If Copeland preaches, I ought to have some pledge that he is not going over to Rome. You know how I abhor Popery.'
Pusey assured Hook that Copeland was quite safe. The Bishop cordially approved of the whole plan of the sermons. Hook invited Pusey to stay at the Vicarage for the occa–sion, but desired that he should consult the incumbent, of St. Saviour' s as to whether it would not be expedient, for practical reasons, 'to stay' in the house attached to St. Saviour' s. Pusey 'did not know how far people might not misinterpret his not being with Hook.' 'I wish,' he added, 'to do whatever is. best, neither compromising you nor giving needless occasion to misconstruction' Hook rejoined:--
'Sept. 22, 1845.
'I really know not what to advise; for as to what people will say, we know that, whatever is done, " Evangelicals" will say everything that is unkind and false. And I believe that it matters in these days very little what one does. Men think what they imagine maliciously that one ought to do, and state it as a fact that that is done.'
It was eventually decided that Pusey should stay at St. Saviour' s.
There might have been no further difficulty; but within three weeks of the day fixed for the consecration, Newman left the Church of England. Towards the end of September rumours of his immediately approaching secession were already in circulation. When Pusey assured Hook that Copeland would not follow, he added, 'At least, as things now are he has no thought of it. But what will be the result of the next few years many, I fear, would not take upon themselves to say for themselves.' Hook was, not unnaturally, alarmed at a hastily written sentence into which he read more than it meant, but which was likely to increase prevalent suspicions.
REV. DR. HOOK TO E. B. P.
Sept. 22, 1845.
The latter part of your letter distressed me. Surely we ought to put forward the Protestant view of our Church in the strongest way, if there is danger of persons apostatizing to Rome. I shall take this course indubitably. I find that many sensible and right-thinking men take a very different view of poor Newman' s fall from that taken by Woodgate. They think that his strong mind will soon be disgusted with the abominations of Popery, and will lapse into infidelity. It will be awful indeed if we find him at the head of an infidel movement, for infidelity is only waiting for a leader to be aggressive.
The times indeed are out of joint.
Yours most affectionately,
W. F. HOOK.
Pusey' s replyis important, as stating clearly one of those convictions which from first to last shaped his religious life.
E. B. P. TO REV. DR. HOOK.
Sept.' 24, 1845.
I am very sorry to have distressed you. I wholly forget what I, wrote. But I am quite sure that nothing can resist infidelity except the most entire system of faith; one said mournfully, 'I could have had faith.; I cannot have opinions.' One must have a strong, positive, objective system which people are to believe, because it is true, on authority out of themselves. Be that authority-what it may, the Scriptures through the individual teaching of the Spirit, the Primitive Church, the Church when it was visibly one, the present Church, it must be a strong authority out of one' s-self.
I am sure that our Church will do absolutely nothing, through any 'Protestant view' or system in it. It is only by identifying itself with some stronger authority that it can have any hold of people' s minds. If we throw ourselves in entire faith upon the early undivided Church, and say dogmatically, 'Whether this people will hear or whether they will forbear,' 'This is the truth, the voice of the whole Church, and, in it, of God, to you,' this will tell. But in proportion as we do this, I am sure, that our protest against Rome will be weakened, and that we shall see that she is Catholic in some points, at least, where we have been taught to consider her uncatholic.
What I wish to do is to treat positive truth uncontroversially, and leave the issue with God.
But on October 9, as we know, Newman had taken the decisive step. The consequences, with respect to St. Saviour' s, Leeds, were at once apparent. Archdeacon Churton de–clined to be one of the preachers after the consecration: 'Late events had too much disheartened him for any public effort.' He would 'stay at home and pray to Him Who walked the waves to still a storm which is past our powers of pilotage.' Hook thought that the proposed course of sermons must be given up; and Pusey himself had been too intimate with Newman not to think that Hook would be relieved if he were not present at the consecration.
E. B. P. TO REV. DR. HOOK.
[Christ Church], Oct. t6, [1845.]
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I would not of course do in your parish what you would not wish, and therefore, if you so think best, I will not be at the consecration at all. My only feeling is for others. I had written to B. C[hurton] that I see no ground why what is for the good of souls should be given up.... Things distressing around, so far from being any occasion for not exerting ourselves in anything which we hope to be for God' s glory, seem the very reason why we should the more. I am sure that increased prayer, and more devoted exertion, are the only remedies in this crisis.
You must also take into account the great injury of adding to dejection as if we were paralyzed. The plan, having been once arranged, cannot be abandoned without a virtual confession of dis–qualification on our own part to preach. You have no idea of the extent of dejection. . .. To me the abandonment of the plan appears a most mistaken step.
However, you must judge as you think best..
Yours very affectionately,
E. B. PUSEY.
If we were all sitting at home fasting and weeping for our own sins, and the sins of our people, 'this would be a different thing. If we are to go on doing our active duties, I see not why we should give up what is for God' s honour.
Hook would not hear of Pusey' s absence:--
REV. DR. HOOK TO E. B. P.
Vicarage, Leeds, Oct. 17, 1845.
Robert Wilberforce is with me, and I have consulted him, and we have agreed that it would be inexpedient to give up the sermons entirely, but that they had better not be continued beyond the following Sunday. As to your not coming, it would be ruin to us, as it would be supposed that you were prohibited by the Bishop. I only hope things will be done as quietly as possible. You must remember that there are not five persons in Leeds who will sympathize with you.
Pusey persevered in insisting that the week of sermons should not be given up.
'It is not,' he wrote to Hook on Oct. 19, 'as if we were coming together to preach controversy, or lecture on the Church' s Apostolical commission. How can one preaching on earnest subjects stir up Puritanism? And after all what harm can Puritanism do? And then there is the good, if some are edified; rather, if Puritanism clamours, it will be ashamed afterwards.'
Upon this Hook consented, somewhat reluctantly, to carrying out the-original plan. If the sermons were to be printed, they might as well be preached.
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, t845.
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' . Nor of the nearer friends who remained was any able to accompany him. His wife' s illness detained Keble; their own ill-health 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
E. B. P. TO P. B. PUSEY.
Christ Church, Vigil of St. Simon and St. Jude,
MY DEAR PHILIP, 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, 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 rail–road, 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 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 inscription, which gave expression to his deceased daughter' s wishes, while it also met with the Bishop' s approval.
The consecration itself, on the Feast of St. Simon 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 from 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 consecra–tion; 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 con–secration 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 half-past eleven, did not conclude until after four o' clock.
When, at its conclusion, the clergy reached the school–room 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 Pusey had, of course, entire sympathy, but the terms in which it was drawn up were too largely due to the heated controversy and panic of the time to be welcome to him.
The clergy were too tired and hungry to do more than agree that there should be an address, while its terms were left open for further discussion.
At the evening service Pusey preached to a very crowded. congregation. His subject was the loving penitence of St. Mary Magdalen, with whom he associates himself, both in her sin and her repentance. He reminds his audience more than once that the church was the offering of a penitent; he assures them that 'as yet this stray sheep is not laid up in the everlasting fold,' and that it 'was a joy to him that his penitent love had called forth that of others.' All that his hearers' knew was that Pusey knew who this penitent was, and they might further have inferred that Pusey knew him intimately. But that the penitent was himself, the preacher, was more than any would have surmised; although this circumstance added greatly to the power of the sermon. It was sufficient for Pusey that God knew his singleness of purpose, his lowly penitence, his hopeful perseverance in spite of all hindrances, his sincere concern for the souls of his fellow-men. Unaffected by general suspicion, by the hesitancy and changeableness of Hook' s support, or by the scarcely concealed distrust of the Bishop, he was able thus quietly, without the knowledge or appreciation of men, to dedicate his noble offering to God.
During the octave of the consecration, nineteen sermons were preached besides that of the Bishop; three sermons on four of the days and two on the others. Of these ser–mons Pusey delivered no less than seventeen, ten were entirely written by him; the others he preached for their respective writers; but he appears to have added to each some of his own thoughts. He seems to have broken down when attempting to utter one of the most solemn passages in Keble' s sermon on 'the Last Judgment,' This sermon is probably the finest in the series, but Pusey' s own con–tributions to the course were not unworthy of the occasion, These sermons illustrate, as well as any he has published the two governing characteristics of his religious mind--the vivid intensity with which he grasped the realities of the unseen world, and the hopefulness which animated his whole con–ception of the relations between the soul and its Maker and Redeemer. The penitent is conducted from the abyss of humiliation and defilement, but without any compromise of moral truth, to the Presence Chamber of heaven.
Pusey was much cheered by the spiritual results of this effort, so far as they could be measured.
'The sermons,' he wrote to Keble, 'became a sort of " retreat" for people to think in stillness over very solemn subjects. And yours impressed persons much. It was a very blessed time. God' s blessing seemed visibly settled there. People came, day after day, to the three sermons (mostly), listened very earnestly, and returned home with a deepened sense of responsibility. This was expressed very affectingly. It was a very cheering week. There seemed such a much deeper spirit among the clergy, a greater sense of the need of intercession.'
Meanwhile Hook became very uneasy, and false rumours increased his discomfort. He therefore wrote to Pusey expressing his conviction that Newman' s secession made a strong anti-Roman declaration necessary, if he was to hold his own in Leeds against Puritanism no less than against Rome. He probably overrated the value of such documents; he certainly attached to vehement language about Popery a value which it does not possess for any except the impetuous or half-educated. But it is difficult at this date to do full justice to the anxieties of the position.
Pusey received this renewed appeal just as he was pre–paring to preach on the Eve of All Saints. But he lost no time in answering it in terms of characteristic mildness and discretion.
MY DEAR FRIEND, Vigil of All Saints, 1845.
I am looking over my sermon for 7.30, but I wish just to relieve you of your anxiety: first, there is no new clergyman come to St. Saviour' s; secondly, I do not know any Romanizers with me. The only persons whose sermons have been preached are C. Marriott' s, J. Keble' s, Is. Williams' , with Richards and Dodsworth, all of whom you knew of.
You really have no reason to dread St. Saviour' s: there has been no reserve with the Bishop. Ward is no Romanizer but devoted to his Master' s work simply. He has told the Bishop all he wishes; pray do not mistrust him, nor think that I am going to make any instrument of St. Saviour' s. I do not wish to meddle. And I am sure W[ard] needs no advice of mine, although I would say to him what you say.
With regard to the address to the Bishop, I think it would do good: I do believe much good has been done by this meeting: people, as far as I have seen, are going back to their work more cheerfully and devotedly, with hearts warmed by those fervent responses at the day of the consecration. I have heard nothing which has cheered me so much this long time. With devotion in our Church all will be right in the end. Pray do not make use of the declaration without seeing me. It would be cruel to me to make what is in fact my gift to Leeds (since but for me it would not have been given) an occasion of fresh suspicion against me, by putting out a document which I cannot sign. My dear friend, no one can suspect you of Romanizing, except such as object to what the Church really teaches, as Romanizing, which you know many do.
Nothing can really have been quieter than the services at St. Saviour' s. There has not been a word Romanizing. And they have, by God' s blessing, done good, I know, to some consciences.
Pray have confidence in me that I mean all I say, and say to you all I mean. God bless you.
Your very affectionate friend,
E. B. P.
It would have been a great misfortune if Pusey and Hook had been unable at this juncture to unite in some expression of hopeful loyalty to the Church of England, although it was plain that Pusey could not assent to the ultra-Protestant kind of manifesto which for the moment Hook was advo–cating. In the end Hook, as generous as he was impulsive, gave way, and the subjoined document, which had been written by Pusey, was forwarded to the Bishop of Ripon
MY LORD,
The late occasion of the consecration of St. Saviour' s Church having united together many, whose office lies out of your Lordship' s diocese, with those over whom you are set in the Lord; it will not, we trust, seem out of place, if we take this occasion of expressing in common our respectful sympathy with your Lordship amid the great and sorrowful distresses of this time. Yet amid our deep sorrow for the departure of those who have left our Communion, we trust, that by the mercy of God, there is no ground for discouragement, even in our. present manifold distresses, but that His Fatherly Hand which has been over our Church, hitherto preserving and guiding her so mercifully, will be with her to the end. In reliance upon His gracious aid, we earnestly desire to give ourselves the more devotedly to those duties it has been pleased to call us in this portion of His vineyard, in thankful acknowledgement of His great and undeserved mercies vouchsafed to us in it. And since every good gift is from God, we humbly commend ourselves to your Lordship' s prayers, as we ourselves hope to offer more fervently henceforth our own imperfect prayers for your Lordship, and other Bishops of our Church.
(Signed) W. F. HOOK, D.D., Vicar of Leeds.
E. B. PUSEY, D.D.
EDW. CHURTON, M.A., Vicar of Crayke,
and 156 others.
How completely Hook had recovered the feelings towards Pusey which were natural to him will appear from the letter which Pusey received soon after his return to Oxford
REV. DR. HOOK TO E. B. P.
Vicarage, Leeds, November 11, 1845.
MY VERY DEAR FRIEND,
I wish much to hear how you are after all your exertions last week, and to tell you how entirely to my satisfaction all things were done. The dear clergy of St. Saviour s seem to be setting to work in good earnest. Ward will preach at the parish church on Sunday, D.V., and I at St. Saviour' s. My own flock, who are devoted to the Via Media like their pastor, and who were alarmed at first lest I should be wishing to introduce a Romanizing system, seem to be quite contented with things as they are. I hear from all quarters that much good has been done to the strangers who attended, especially to some wrong-headed but right hearted young men.
With reference to your plate, I intend always to remember Her in my commemoration of the Departed, that is, once every day and especially at the Holy Communion. I feel that from my friendship for you I may have the privilege of doing this.
If in anything relating to the late transactions I have hurt your feelings or expressed my own too strongly, I should ask your forgiveness if I did not feel sure that I have obtained it already. I have been much perplexed and worked upon by opposite parties, and had many troubles, and my nerves are so thoroughly shaken that I mean to go away for a week or ten days. This is very wrong, but I cannot help it: you know not all I have to go through: I mention it now that you may
pray for me the more earnestly.
I think in a preface or dedication of your sermons, it might be expedient to mention the fact that a stronger address was at first designed, but that all hard words were softened that all might unite in expressing devotion to the Church of England. I am afraid when the address goes to the Bishop he will take the opportunity to administer a reproof: I doubt the policy of the measure. I also think you should turn the matter well over in your mind before you dedicate the sermons to him, unless you have his permission. He may think it an attempt to involve him.
When next you come to Leeds you must be my guest.
I am, your devotedly attached old friend in the Via Media,
W. F. HOOK.
The memory of 'that blessed peaceful week,' as he called it, at St. Saviour' s, was a great source of strength and consolation to Pusey in the troubles which now surrounded him at Oxford. His last thoughts about it are expressed in the preface to the volume of sermons which were preached at Leeds, and which were published at the close of the same year. In the subjoined words Pusey takes a last look at a passage in his life which, associated as it was with trouble and anxiety, had yet been so full of encouragement and hope:--
'On the late occasion God did bless very visibly the solemn services. There seemed, so to say, to be an atmosphere of blessing hanging around and over the Church. How should not one hope it, when, besides those gathered there, many were praying Him, in Whose hands are the hearts of men, and Who turneth not away the face of those who seek Him? It was the very feeling of those engaged, that God was graciously in a heavenly manner present there. He seemed, amid the solemn stillness of those services, to speak in silence to the soul of each; and many hearts were there by His secret call, and through the Holy Eucharist which we were permitted daily to celebrate, stirred to more resolute, devoted service. To Him be the praise, Whose was the gift.'
Pusey returned to Oxford only to find himself in the midst of other difficulties created by Newman' s departure. One of the first letters he had to write was to the husband of one who had joined the Church of Rome, and to whom Pusey tried to explain how the avoidance of the usual controversial topics against Rome was to be reconciled with tenacious allegiance to the Church of England.
E. B. P. TO REV. J. SPENCER NORTHCOTE.
Christ Church, Th. after All Saints, 1845.
* * * *
I did not answer your wife' s letter, being so very hurried, and obliged to do everything against time, and also that I had nothing to say, except what would give pain. Those who go seem to be sadly hurried on. Almost every case seems to me to have that about it which is a token against it.
The first reason why I left off saying anything against Roman doctrine to persons who were drawn towards Rome, was that it seemed to me to be appealing too much to private judgement. It seemed to be making individuals judges between the Churches, whereas the great body in the Church must necessarily be incompetent to enter into the question. Then too controversy seemed to jar the mind, and put it in a bad and irritated state. Then also people seemed to be better bound by their affections than by negations. Our duty to our own Church is irrespective of every question whatsoever as to the Church of Rome. It is our duty to God, Who has placed us in it, and made her the channel of His grace to the soul. This seemed to me a direct appeal to people' s affections and responsibilities, whereas, in controversy, they usually forgot both. It seemed to dry them up.
This was my ground at first. Afterwards I began to hope that the actual decrees to which the Roman Church is bound might be so explained, e.g. by another General Council, that they could be accepted by us, and that the Churches were not hopelessly at variance. But in proportion as one hoped this, one could not but be hindered from speaking against the decrees. I began to hope that what is commonly called 'Popery' might not be a part of the formal system to which the Roman Church was actually committed. There is, of course, still a very serious objection to joining a system in which these things are tolerated and encouraged. Still the positive grounds seemed to me most to come home to persons. They are grounds of thankfulness and duty to Almighty God, Who has given us, where we are, so many blessings, so that if any are not saved, it is wholly their own fault.
The rejection of our own Church is so solemn and awful a step that I believe that it will in the end retain many who would not be retained by any grounds against the Church of Rome. It is rejecting her whom God has not rejected. I wish time could have been gained. People seem hurried away, so as not to give themselves time calmly to see their duty.
I am very tired with a night journey from Leeds. What I saw there was very encouraging. Indeed, the deepening earnestness of persons in our Church, as it is a token for the future, so it binds one the more, as being a token of God' s gracious Presence.
You will be glad of the enclosed Intercessions. I hope that they will be used widely, and that the religious poor will be able to join in the first simple form.
God bless you ever.
This is a letter which is obviously dealing with the needs of a particular correspondent. But it is impossible, when once the question of the Roman claims has been raised, to prevent an appeal to private judgment, which has to decide just as really whether those claims are accepted or set aside. It is true also, as Pusey says, that contro–versy is pregnant with moral mischief; but when we are confronted with a controversial position, how is it to be avoided? Pusey is on strong ground--ground which he knew from experience to be strong--when he urges that men are better bound to a Church by their love of her than by their rejection of some other Church. Loving as he did the Church of England devotedly, he could not under–stand how others did not share this affection, or how it could fail to be strong enough in their case, as it was in his, to dispense with the necessity for the controversial weapons of divines of a former generation. But as time went on, the necessities of his position obliged Pusey to abandon, or at least to modify, this non-controversial attitude towards Rome. For Rome made statements which, if true, traversed and rendered impossible the position of the Church Of England as a portion of the Body of Christ. But were those statements true? It was practically impossible to avoid this issue, and accordingly, within a few weeks, we find Pusey writing, on the defensive indeed, but still in active controversy with Roman teaching.
The appearance of Newman' s essay on the 'Development of Christian Doctrine' was one of the causes which com–pelled Pusey to recur to a more adverse position with regard to the claims of Rome. Pusey had expressed hopes about that essay in his sanguine way; but when it appeared, it must have shown him that between him and the friend of so many years a wider gulf existed than he had supposed? Development, as stated by Newman, was, so Pusey thought, more likely to be effectively employed in advancing destructive theories than in the interests of the creed of any portion of the Christian Church; it was opposed, moreover, to the Vincentian rule of the quod semper, &c., which in Pusey' s mind was the base of the Tractarian movement. Certainly in his Whit-Sunday sermon of 1843, Newman had indicated the direction in which his own thoughts were moving; but Pusey was not attentive to such unwelcome indications, and may easily have persuaded himself to think of the sermon as a theological incident of no particular significance. Now, however, he was face to face with a theory having a peculiar fascination for a large class of modern minds, and obliging him for their sake, if not for his own, to weigh its worth.
Later in the spring he had occasion to write to the Rev. T. E. Morris, who at the beginning of Lent Term, 1846, had resigned his tutorship at Christ Church on account of the secession of his brother, the Rev. J. B. Morris, to the Church of Rome.
E. B. P. TO REV. T. B. MORRIS.
Christ Church, March 6, 1846.
MY DEAR MORRIS,
It was a comfort to us to see you undisturbed amid so severe a shock. I am very sorry to see your brother so vehement: it is out of love for us; but I wish he had more love for her through whom he has become whatever, by God' s grace, he is. No good can come from thus shutting the eyes to all there is of good in her that nurtured him, and calling her 'The Establishment,' as Lord J. Russell, &c. do. Copeland said this morning, 'I could have imagined any amount of good, if each side were alive to see what there is of good and noble in the other; but no good can come of this.' Some, I hear, of those who have gone over, have been sorely disappointed at what they have found (not of those with whom your brother is); they had left a higher standard than they found. I trust they may do good in raising it. But will none ever leave their stiff theory of 'extraordinary grace,' and when people are drawing their life from Sacraments, will they always think that the Sacraments--I cannot write it. However, we must have patience and pray. Mysterious as it all is, I cannot think that such good men as J. H. N. and your brother will be thrown away there, sorely disappointing as to me dear N.' s extreme line is, and unconvincing. It seems to throw me further back; I had hoped that things which go so far beyond their own Formularies would have disappeared. I could not imagine dear 'N. writing, as the French R. C. writers do, of the-Blessed Virgin, and exciting the feelings by descriptions of her love and tenderness. It would be an entirely different 'ethos' from his sermons. And I cannot think it will be. But his defence in his essay is as disappointing to me as it is unsatisfactory. If the French language is to come in, I do not see (as Bishop Medley said to me once) of what use the Epistle to the Hebrews is to be to us. . .
Remember me, with kind sympathy, to your father. Things are deeply mending, if we wait, work, and pray.
God be with you ever.
Yours affectionately
E. B. PUSEY.
Friday after First Sunday in Lent, 1846.
Macmullen is gone to J. K. at Hursley. Dear Williams is sinking very gently. The Heads say, 'We want peace.' I wish it had been found out sooner.
Writing to another person on March 2, 1846, Pusey expresses his convictions, as he took stock of them after the recent shock, in the following terms:--
E. B. P. TO A LADY.
Christ Church, first Monday in Lent,
Feb. [March] 2, 1846.
To sum up what I mean as to our position, I believe with our divines--
1. That the authority of the Pope, which was set aside, was human and not Divine.
2. That the Pope, excommunicating unjustly Queen Elizabeth and her adherents, his sentence was not confirmed in heaven against us, as the event shows.
3. That there were real corruptions at the time (as R. C.' s confess), which we set ourselves to reform by ourselves, having a right so to do, whether it was the wisest course or no.
4. That in so doing, and in the Reformation itself, we contravened no decision of the Church, nor ruled anything contrary to the faith.
5. That having the Apostolic Succession, we have the Sacraments, and being neither heretics nor schismatics, we have their grace, with the power of the keys.
6. That having these, we have all things necessary to our salvation, and that those among us who would be saved anywhere, would be saved in the Church of England.
7. That having the Succession, we are the Catholic Church in England, i. e. that Church which God planted here for man' s salvation. (This I say without implying anything as to R. C.s among us, although I think the temper shown, as among the Irish, certainly is no mark in their favour.)
8. That having been placed by God in this Church, we have no right to choose for ourselves.
9. That there are very serious things in the Roman Communion which ought to keep us where we are. I would instance chiefly the system as to the Blessed Virgin as the Mediatrix and Dispenser of all present blessings to mankind. (I think nothing short of a fresh Revelation could justify this.) Then the sale of Masses as applicable to the departed, the system of Indulgences as applied to the departed, the denial of the Cup to the laity.
10. I should also say, that if it were clear that the Church of Rome was the Church, of course we should have nothing to do but to submit. While we do not see this, then such grounds as I have named, which we cannot see to be right, are strong grounds for re–maining where we are. I feel at once held by the Church of England, and repelled by these things in the Roman Church. I find myself (with our divines) as far off as ever from being able to use the prayers to the Blessed Virgin they use, and repelled by the language of their devotional book-- 'have recourse to Jesus and Mary' ; 'by the aid of Jesus and Mary.'
I cannot think that all this, so different from what one finds in the early centuries, can be right. It goes far beyond the Council of Trent; yet however hereafter, in any reconciliation of the Churches, those decrees might be ruled so as not to authorize this, an individual cannot act thus. He will not separate the letter from the practical system. It would be wrong to join the Roman Church unless one was convinced beyond all doubt that it was the only Church; that out of it was no salvation. Now it may be these very things are marks that we should not consider her thus exclusively the Church. She is unlike the Church when the Church was one. Claims of power which had been limited by General Councils divided the East and West. The temporal claim of Rome has a note upon it, that it has been the breaker of unity, first in the East, at last with ourselves. And Rome herself has suffered by it. As I said in my last, grave persons speak of the Court of Rome as 'having been the most wicked in Europe; none can speak more strongly of [those] times than Baronius; a very religious Roman Catholic nobleman at Rome so speaks now. It is the temporal authority which has made it so. This may well make one pause ere one commits oneself to believe that that system alone, not being that even of the first five centuries, is Divine. 'As far as the constitution of the Church is concerned,' Mr. N. wrote rightly in 1840, 'the separation between Rome and England does not constitute so great a difference from the age of St. Cyprian, as does the ecclesiastical monarchy of Hildebrand from that of St. Augustine.'
In spite of this being the real state of Pusey' s mind, it was natural enough that Newman should hope for his conversion to Roman Catholicism. They had worked together for so many years, they had been on terms of such intimacy and generally of such entire sympathy with each other, that it required in both of them a severe effort of the imagination to anticipate that they would work apart from, and, on certain subjects, in opposition to each other for the remainder of their lives. Thus it was that at first Newman may have expressed himself in private more or less confidently on the subject of Pusey' s conversion to Rome, especially to younger men who had looked up to both of them. Writing with the unrestrained fervour of a neophyte, who no doubt, without meaning it, read his own reflections or wishes into Newman' s words, Mr. J. B. Morris actually ventured to report to his brother: 'Inter nos, N. thinks from past events in P.' s life that he must ere long be deranged or a Catholic.' Neither of these alterna–tives was to be realized in the sense of the writer; the world had abundant evidence of Pusey' s sanity to the end of a long life, and all efforts to induce him to become 'a Catholic,' otherwise than as he had always been, were doomed to disappointment.
After Newman' s secession the friends saw nothing of each other for two months. The walks to Littlemore were dis–continued. At the end of Term, in December, Newman called at Christ Church. Pusey afterwards spoke of New–man' s manner as 'sharp.' They met again on February 18, and this meeting also would seem to have been marked by a certain constraint. Newman followed it up by a letter which depicts in his own inimitable way his affection and his disappointment.
REV. J. H. NEWMAN TO E. B. P.
MY VERY DEAR PUSEY, Littlemore, Feb. 21, 1846.
How rightly I judged that it was best at present that we should not meet! This has been the reason of my keeping away from you. Since I saw you on Wednesday, I have heard that you thought my manner, on the only time I called, at the beginning of December, sharp. Such misunderstandings must be just now. What good then is there in meeting to mistake each other? It is the same with writing. I cannot write so as to please even myself. W. U. Richards, as hearing from you, spoke of this supposed sharpness of mine to Morris, as an evidence of deterioration of 'ethos' in me, which should act as a dissuasive from joining the Church of Rome. That is, a number of persons are making great sacrifices in credit and circumstances: their brethren, who feel called to remain as they were, pass this over altogether, and in the face of it have the heart to scrutinize the details of their manner in conversation, in order to find a charge against them. Surely such critics are in want either of arguments for their own cause, or of charity. May none of us hereafter be judged by so severe a judgement as is now exercised towards the converts generally! And after all, that severity perhaps has no other foundation than the newness of their position, which their censors have not entered into.
Would I could say something which would sound less cold than this, but really I dare not. I could not without saying something which would seem rude. Alas! I have no alternative between silence and saying what would pain. May the day come, when it will not be so. Then old times will come again, and happier.
Till then,
Ever yours affectionately,
JOHN H. NEWMAN
This letter was written during the last hours which Newman spent alone in his home at Littlemore, when his heart was full almost to breaking of the memories of the past. On the following day, Quinquagesima Sunday, February 22, he left Littlemore, and spent the evening with his friend, Manuel Johnson, at the Observatory, where he passed the night. Copeland, who was with them, kept Pusey informed of what had passed, and on the following morning, when his nine o' clock Hebrew lecture was over, Pusey went up to the Observatory to say good-bye to his old friend, who was to leave Oxford for good later in the day.
Pusey was too much distressed to say more than he could help. He wrote to Keble within the two days-- February 22 and 23--without alluding to the subject which filled his heart. But he sent after Newman to Oscott a short note, to assure him of his affection. This note drew from Newman an appeal which had been impossible during their interviews with each other; it expresses the tone--happily transient--of the new convert, and gives a picture of Pusey' s religious progress and position which in the 'Apologia' he acknowledged to be quite erroneous.
REV. J. H. NEWMAN TO E. B. P.
Maryvale, Oscott, Birmingham.
MY DEAR PUSEY, Feb. 26, 1846.
Thank you for your affectionate note. I will but say that I cannot conceive, and will not, that the subject of so many prayers as are now offered for you, beginning at Rome, and reaching to Constantinople and England, should ultimately remain where you are.
And I am confirmed in this expectation by observing how very much you have changed your views year by year. I think the year can hardly be named which you ended with the same view of the Roman Church as you began it. And every change has been an approximation to that religion.
This, my dearest Pusey, is an earnest which satisfies me about the future, though I don' t tell others so--nor am I anxious or impatient at the delay, for God has His own good time for everything. What does make me anxious, is, whenever I hear that, in spite of your evident approximation in doctrine and view to the Roman system, you are acting in hostility against it, and keeping souls in a system which you cannot bring out into words, as I consider, or rest upon any authority besides your own.
Excuse this freedom, and do not let me pain you. I am in a house in which Christ is always present as He was to His disciples, and where one can go in from time to time through the day to gain strength from Him. Perhaps this thought makes me bold and urgent.
Ever yours very affectionately,
JOHN H. NEWMAN.
Pusey did not reply for a fortnight. He then wrote to announce the recovery of the Rev. I. Williams from the illness which had so long threatened his life. He added:--
Thank you very much for your most affectionate note. I have given a wrong impression about myself in some things. But I have not time to explain now, And explanation could only give pain.
Ever your very affectionate and grateful
E. B. P,
Christ Church, Third Sunday in Lent, 1846.
The intervals in their correspondence were lengthening. A month later Newman acknowledged Pusey' s note.
REV. J. H. NEWMAN TO E. B. P.
Maryvale, April 15, 1846.
I do not like Easter to pass without your getting a line from me to assure [you] of my love and constant thoughts of you. My love to the children too, with one or other of whom I suppose you are.
Your news about Isaac Williams was most cheering. There have been many prayers offered up here, that he might be reserved, till he was a Catholic--but all is in God' s hand.
Ever yours affectionately,
JOHN H. NEWMAN.
Pusey did not acknowledge this note. On July 11 Newman wrote again:--
REV. J. H. NEWMAN TO E. B. P.
MY DEAR PUSEY, 17 Grosvenor Place, July 11, 1846.
I wish it were not my lot to write letters distressing to your kind heart. It will not always be so, I do believe. Our present sorrows are the necessary process of a joyful end.
You may guess what I write about. Mrs. Bowden expected that her last letter, enclosing your papers, would have prepared you for what then was to be, and now has taken place. However, from your letter received this morning she finds it has not sufficiently done so. She has asked me in consequence to write a line to you to express her concern, that one so considerate and anxious as you have shown yourself in her trial, should have been accidentally left unacquainted with the termination in which it has issued.
Ever yours, my dear Pusey,
Very affectionately,
JOHN H. NEWMAN.
This note obliged Pusey, as he thought, to make his real position clearer to Newman, and to put an end to the unfounded expectations in which Newman' s affection induced him to indulge.
E. B. P. TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN.
MY DEAR NEWMAN, Tenby, Sunday night, July 12, 1846.
Thank you very much for your kind and tender letter, as well as for that which I had at Easter. I did not write sooner, partly because I have been much overworked for a long time, till now, when I am told to recruit, partly because I thought I could hardly write anything which would not pain you. For you have one wish for me; and I am no nearer that than heretofore. I cannot unmake myself; I cannot see otherwise than I have seen these many years; I have come to think otherwise in some details; but as [to] the one point upon which all turns, I am no nearer to thinking that the English Church is no true part of the Church, or that inter-communion with Rome is essential, or that the present claims of Rome are Divine. I earnestly desire the restoration of unity, but I cannot throw myself into the practical Roman system, nor renounce what I believe our gracious Lord acknowledges.
And so I must go on, with joy at the signs of deepening life among us, and distress at our losses, and amazement that Almighty God vouchsafes to employ me for anything, and thinking it less than I ought to expect when everything is brought to a contrary issue from what I desire.
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.
Tenby, July 30, 1846.
MY DEAREST N.
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 inter–view 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 by 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 sometimes thought uncharitable.' 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 oppor–tunities 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 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 misun–derstanding, taking every shape that could wound a sensi–tive 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.
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