CHAPTER XX.

 

PROGRESS--S. P. C. K. COMMITTEES--KEBLE'S SERMONS--

VISIT TO GUERNSEY--FIFTH OF NOVEMBER SERMON

--TRACT ON THE HOLY EUCHARIST--MISSIONARY

EXHIBITIONS--COLLEGES OF CLERGY FOR LARGE

TOWNS--DR. HOOK AND THE TRACTS--HARRISON,

CHAPLAIN TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.

 

 

1837--1838.

 

 

THE years that immediately followed the Hampden controversy were not characterized by any striking out–ward incident, nor by any specially urgent controversy. It was a time seemingly of steady and deepening progress. The slighter tracts had ceased, and had made way for more solid treatises, appealing not so much ad populum, but, as was said, ad scholas and ad clerum. It was a time now not only of writing but of preaching: it was a time to drive home to the heart and conscience principles which had been more or less intellectually accepted. Thus there was emerging, besides Newman's Parochial Sermons, the series of Plain Sermons by contributors to 'Tracts for the Times.' Pusey himself was not only preaching in various places, but pressing on Keble the duty that lay on him also to publish his sermons. He was, on the one hand, feeling after the idea of Colleges of Clergy for work in the large cities; on the other he was, either by conversation or cor–respondence, dealing with individuals who had been power–fully affected by their acceptance of Church principles. He was beginning to exercise a general direction in the difficult questions that these principles sometimes raised. In fact the Movement was now becoming a matter not only of  theoretical principles, but of practical and devotional life.

Not that there was any cessation of activity in matters of controversial interest. To touch on minor points: Pusey himself had a long correspondence with the Secretary of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge on the subject of publishing the Apocrypha in translations of the Bible issued by the Society. The uncritical and uncatholic exaggeration of the admitted distinction between the canonical books and those subordinately inspired works, which form so valuable a link between the Old and New Testaments, was tending to ban the Apocrypha altogether in the S. P. C. K.: it had succeeded in doing so in the British and Foreign Bible Society. Pusey went twice to London to bring forward resolutions on the subject at meetings of the Foreign Translation Committee. He was somewhat hopeful after the first meeting.

'The business,' he wrote, 'has been on the whole satisfactory, and the Dean of Chichester, who was rather on the other side, said that the discussion would do them a great deal of good. None of my resolutions were exactly carried; but two were, which will do much good.'

Another topic of controversy at the Translation Committee was a proposed Hebrew Prayer-book. The trans–lation of the words 'declare and pronounce' in the daily Absolution did not satisfy Pusey, and he also objected to the proposed rendering of the Christmas collect.

                                                                                                              'July 3, 1837.

'I am out of the Translation Committee, I believe. All my proposals failed, and the language held on both occasions was so schismatic, and the result . . . will be so directly such, that I could belong to it no longer. So I have written to one of the bishops to resign my appointment, which was a demi-official one.'

e had previously expressed anxiety with regard to the proposed translation of the Prayer-book into Greek and Arabic, and writes as follows:-

E. B. P. TO REV. HENRY JOHN ROSE.

                                                                                        Christ Church, December 16, 1836.

Will you be so kind as to ask your brother what the S. P.C. K. mean by publishing our Prayer-book in Greek and Arabic? I do not want to make a disturbance unnecessarily, but it seems to me a strange proceeding. If it be to create among them a respect for our Church, this is well, although perhaps scarcely the object we should choose, when we have so many colonies to look to; but if it be with any view of supplementing the Greek Liturgy, I think it requires a most serious protest. What have we to do with interfering with the Greek Church, or to disturb Liturgies of which large ingredients at least are as, or more, Apostolic than our own? We have passed through the fire, and although we may bless God that, although scorched, we have escaped vitally unharmed, what have we to do to set up ourselves as models for all Churches? Are we to be Anti-Romanist Popes, and prescribe rites and liturgies contrary to those which the Eastern Christians have received from their Fathers? Certainly, from what I have seen, I should be very sorry to see the Grecian services expelled by ours. First, because they are hereditary; (2) they are longer, and so a protest against the listlessness of those who would shorten ours; (3) they have ancient rites which, on whatever ground, we have relinquished (as Exorcism before Baptism, the Invocation of the Holy Ghost at the Eucharist), or glossed over (as the Oblation).

Then, too, have we not enough to do without meddling with the Christians of the East? Let us, if it be a work of charity, reprint their Liturgies, that they may use the devotions of their own Church better. But before we attempt a crusade (I would not profane the word), rather, before we go out of our way to thrust our own Liturgy upon persons who ask not for it, let us at least look to those who ask for it. Let us assist (where there must be much need) our North American colonies, or the East Indies, or there are at least seven languages in West India into which we are called upon to translate it. To the heathen or the Jew our Liturgy may often prepare the way better than the Bible, because it bears evidence of a Christian Church, who think and feel as Christians, whereas the Bible often appears nothing but our condemnation.

An Arabic Prayer-book in Hebrew characters would be very useful for the Jews, of whom those in North Africa are of the better sort; or, again, it might be useful to the Mohammedans, but let us not 'stretch ourselves beyond our measure,' or 'boast ourselves in another man's line of things made ready to our hands.'

Altogether the Church Societies look very miserably; it is like those who boast of emptying the meeting-house by turning the Church into one. The extracts from correspondence of the S. P. G. one might have mistaken for a Church Missionary Report. This publication of private anecdotes must be very pernicious to those who have to furnish them, those who out of curiosity read them, and those who are to be the subjects of them. Societies ought not to think it part of their office to furnish a certain quantity of anecdote in order to raise money.

But, as has been said, preaching was one of the chief methods of working at this period; and Newman was as urgent as Pusey that some of Keble's sermons should be published. Keble's low estimate of the value of any of his own productions made him very unwilling to contribute anything at all. Hence the subjoined letter:--

E. B. P. TO REV. J. KEBLE.

                                                                                                               March 20, 1837.

Newman's and my continual wish is, 'Would one had 100 heads and 100 hands'; so much to be done and so few to do it: and what are you doing, our father in the faith, perhaps Newman's elder brother only now? 'More, Master P., than they who all their life long have been "multa et praeclara minantes"and realized nothing.' True, but it is because almost all one's plans have been ill-devised or ill-ma–tured, and cracked in the furnace, and will carry no water,--it is just for this perhaps that one looks the more anxiously to those who have more skill or have formed themselves more carefully. So now let me repeat my question with all deference, 'What are you doing?' Where are Psalms 50, &c., and how are the rest going on, and why do they tarry? Where are the sermons? 'But N. plucked these.' Yes, but because N. asked for the new ones, and you sent him some old ones, he plucked these and asked again for the new ones: are we not to have them? We all want them. People will read sermons who will nothing else, and if their reading is not altogether free from the infection of criticizing, yet it is freer than anything else. They carry some devotion into their reading, and so, we may hope, will carry some good away with them; besides, the very reading of sermons is part of an inherited religion. Then, too, it is not fair to let Newman bear the whole brunt alone, as if his theology were something peculiar, or as they call it, the New-mania. Isaac Williams and Copeland and everybody, in short, are very anxious to have your volume of sermons, and, if nothing else will do, we must sign a requisition, as the fashion of the day is, or, after the manner of old times, make some solemn appeal, which you would shrink from not complying with, but the sermons we must have....

What day would suit you for reading your paper on the Fathers next ? If you take Irenaeus, should you still like to keep St. Athanasius for a more distant day, for you must not be overloaded with transla–tion; and N. would like it very well. Cyril of Jerusalem is beginning very well in new hands, Mr. Church's, of Wadham, Marriott's friend; the Confessions are waiting until I can get an old and a good translation (which there is) to revise.

The post is just going out, so I will only add our sincere hopes that Mrs. Keble is better, or at least not worse in these cold winds, and that she will soon be better.

Are we indeed (i.e. the Cathedrals) out of the paw of the lion?

                                                           Ever your affectionate and grateful friend,

                                                                                                             E. B. PUSEY.

Passion Week, 1837.

Farewell, and recollect the SERMONS.

In his spare time--so to describe it--Pusey was engaged in expanding the first part of his tract on Baptism, and in revising both the original text and the translation of St. Augustine's Confessions for the Library of the Fathers. In this labour he was largely assisted by his wife; who, though in very weak health, spent many hours of every week in the Bodleian Library. But these labours for a more remote future were interrupted by constant sermon work. Thus, describing the second Sunday after Easter, he writes:--

E. B. P. TO MRS. PUSEY.

                                                                                                          April 10, 1837.

I preached for an hour in the morning in Mr. Dodsworth's chapel; then we administered the Communion to above a hundred people. And then, not feeling myself tired, I refitted the beginning of my sermon on Prayer, and preached for an hour in the evening, and my chest did not feel it in the least.

On the following, Sunday, April 16th, he preached at St. Mary's, Oxford.

On May 25th he preached again in Oxford in aid of the Diocesan Society for the Religious Education of the Poor. The sermon gave a practical turn to his great tract: he based .on St. Mark x. 13, 14 an earnest demon–stration that Baptism is the ground and encouragement of Christian education. In the evening he writes to his wife:--

'I promised to write to-day, to say that I was not, if I was not, tired ; and I have only time just to say so. My sermon was, I am told, an hour and a half. People were very attentive, and the dear little children very quiet and good. . . . I thought much, of course, of our own little ones. I was a good deal flushed when it was over, and walked in the meadow with Hook before dinner.'

On St. Barnabas' Day, on his way to Guernsey, he preached a striking sermon in London on 'Christian kindliness' and charity, in aid of the newly-founded Additional Curates' Fund. His holiday was spent partly in Guernsey and partly in Sark. The Channel Islands, from various causes, have been the stronghold of the Puritan tradition for three centuries; and Pusey's name would already have inspired excellent people who had no other means of information than party newspapers with the greatest apprehensions. At the end of three weeks Pusey thus describes his experiences:--

E. B. P. TO THE REV. J. H. NEWMAN.

                                                                                                                Guernsey, July, 1837.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

You will be glad to hear that on the whole the health of my dear wife is mending, although she is still very weak, so much so that she cannot walk (except a little in a room) by herself, nor up and down a few stairs when necessary without a good deal of help. However, she is less weak than she was, and so we look on it as an earnest of a fuller restoration of health in His good time, although the cough is not gone, or, rather, increased. I am very sorry to hear of the alarming illness of Manning's and H. Wilberforce's wives.

This is a pleasant, although a very soporific island: it has beautiful bays and sea-views, but not at all favourable to study. I have just finished revising half the Confessions, but have done nothing besides. My article in the Brit. Crit., Baptism, &c., are all in statu quo. How–ever, the Confessions will readily be done while I stay here, and the rest be forthcoming, I trust, in due time. . .

The town here, which is about half the island, is half dissenting, half x, with a straggling y, one or two of them perhaps, and some z's. I find that I have been attending their great goddess Diana, a chapel, the attendance or non-attendance upon which constitutes a person a Christian; and there is another z chapel, I fear one of our English exportations. They actually re-elect the minister to this idol-shrine of theirs every five years, and since 1818, when it was built, they have had seven or eight clergymen; and they thought that they had done a great deal in securing the purity of their minister. One-third of the trustees are sick of the system, so it will probably receive its coup-de–-grace shortly. At one time they had two clergy, one of whom preached against the other, against the Wednesday prayers, and recommended the people to go to the dissenters rather than church when his colleague preached: advice which has been strongly taken, for now there are not twenty people at the Wednesday and Friday prayers (before they were daily), and the dissenting chapels are large and full. This race has passed away; however, even the Bp. of W. had to recommend to them to subscribe to the S. P. G., and was answered that it was inexpedient, because it would interfere with the Church Missionary Society. The surplice is still a badge of Papistrie, and is used only in the two English churches, although the Bishop recommended it.

If one might judge from this place, the Record, with its attacks upon us, has done good; it seems to have raised a curiosity about Catholic views, and to have prepared people to find them less bad than they were told.... Another, the oldest x clergyman in the island, father of Brock of Oriel, asked for a conference on Baptismal Regeneration. It is not come yet, and I do not expect anything from it but kindly feeling; still, I saw in these and other cases that the Record had over–shot its mark. Meanwhile the young men come up to Oxford and return y's.

The most interesting phenomenon here, however, to me is the Governor, a Lt.-Colonel, Sir James Douglas, a very active, intelligent, straightforward, well-informed, painstaking man, who does simply and downrightly whatever he sees to be his duty, and who, without any help from without, has come to the Catholic views. I was sitting opposite Cornish, a little below him, at dinner, when, Ireland being spoken of, he burst out with such a strong natural eloquence, regretting that the, Irish clergy had departed from our first Reformation, that of our Prayer-book, spoke of them warmly as excellent, pious, self-devoted men, but that all their exertions were crippled; they were wearing themselves out doing nothing, neither gaining from the Romanists nor helping their own people; that it was lamentable that because the North was wrong people should think they must go due South; then spoke simply and well on the value of Ordinances: in short, it was the Via Media, coming from the lips of a layman and a veteran officer. Cornish's eyes glistened with joy; I hailed the omen and told him that that was just what we were struggling for at Oxford, of which he knew nothing.

I heard some more of his history in a conversation of two hours, and it did not appear that he had any outward help except his Prayer-book as a comment on the Ordinances (the Communion he had received weekly for four years where he was last quartered), only he mentioned a sermon of Mr. Sibthorp's which he said would in Ireland be con–demned because it would not tell against the Papists. The only question there is, what will tell against Popery. (I imagine Mr. S.'s sermon was on the Eucharist.) 'And yet, he said, 'it was only what is in the Prayer-book.' It was very encouraging--a sort of earnest that there are Corneliuses of whom we know nothing. I have been happier ever since. I cannot give you any idea of the simple, vivid straightforwardness and upright warmth with which he spoke. I have not, long, been so struck with any one.

Pusey spent a month in Guernsey, and on July 13 went for another month to Sark. There he preached three times. A Cornish miner was washed off the pier by a wave, and Pusey preached on 'Sudden death'. On St. James' Day he followed up the lesson by a very characteristic appeal on 'Obeying calls.' A third sermon to the islanders, on the ninth Sunday after Trinity, had been preached before at Holton: it was on the wisdom of the children of light, and a few alterations made it appropriate to the circumstances of his island audience. On Oct. 1st he preached for a relation, who was Curate of Churchill, near Chipping Norton, on 'grieving the Holy Spirit.' On the 5th of November he preached in the University pulpit the first of his sermons which may be described as historical. The occasion fell on a Sunday, and Dr. Gilbert, the Principal of B. N. C., who was Vice-Chancellor, asked Pusey to preach at rather short notice.

'I hardly know,' Pusey writes to Newman in anticipation of his duty, 'how to manage it. I am not at all at home on Church and State questions. Nor have I good historical knowledge of any sort. It would be an excellent subject for the tracing God's Providence in the Church, and how every act in the Church, as in individuals, is full of consequences, and therefore such days ought to be kept. But for this I have not knowledge nor time to acquire it Then K.'s favourite text, "In quietness and confidence,"or "Stand still, and ye shall see the salvation of God,"as opposed to the bustling spirit of the present day, and the scheming one of the Church of Rome. Or, again, "The gates of hell shall not prevail against her."Or not doing evil that good may come, against Rome and the Jesuits and our expediency. In short, I feel like a person with a great gun put into his hands, but he does not know exactly with what materials to load it or how to use it.'

And to another friend:--

'I have been looking over our pamphlets since to see what sort of subjects they used to preach on, but I cannot make out that many preached on anything. I am rather perplexed, and yet have no time to wait to choose·. I think I shall take "Stand still"as my text; yet I am much inclined on the other hand to take the indefectibility and unshakenness of the Catholic Church.'

The sermon was eventually of the type to which Pusey inclines in these extracts. Its title is descriptive of its contents: 'Patience and confidence the strength of the Church.' It is an assertion of the application and place of the passive Christian virtues in any adequate conception of political duty. The Gunpowder Plot is regarded as, among other things, a repudiation of the passive side of Christian morals; but Guy Fawkes was in this respect a sample and predecessor of many very differently minded persons of a later time.

The service for the 5th of November commemorated the landing of William of Orange as well as the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot; and the principle of passive obedience to Governments, which was the condemnation of Guy Fawkes, could hardly be invoked in support of the Revolution of 1688. Accordingly Pusey insists upon its application with an impartiality which made criticism from many sides inevitable. Certainly the arrival of William 'saved the nation from the miseries of anarchy and civil war'; and 'for this and the preservation of the Church amid this convulsion we have great cause of thankfulness.' But 'the line which men took in resisting James' evil' was in principle as indefensible as the wicked enterprise of Guy Fawkes; and it was not unconnected with the 'deadness' and 'shallowness' which characterized the English Church and theology during the eighteenth century. Nay, the precedent has not ceased to be a power for evil in our own day.

'The present storm which lowers around our Church and State' is but a drawing out of the principles of what men have dared to call the "glorious revolution,"as that revolution was the sequel and result of the first rebellion.'

This was enough to raise, and it did raise a storm, though, as storms were in those years, not a violent one.

'Pusey's sermon,' wrote James Mozley to his sister, 'is making a great fuss: I suppose it is the first time of the Revolution being formally preached against since Sacheverel.'

A clergyman wrote a pamphlet to prove that passive obedience to one authority in the State when in opposition to other authorities was unsanctioned by Holy Scripture. The Edinburgh Review in a temperate article, understood to be by Merivale, attacked Pusey's position on its practical side, as involving an unquestioning invariable submission to all the administrators of the law which is inconsistent with true social well-being: if James II. might not be misled, neither might a foolish and misguided parish constable. Pusey had a right to reply that it was not a question of resisting James--James had been resisted by Ken and Sancroft--but of deposing him; and Pusey does not maintain the divine origin of Kingly rule, but the divine origin of Government. The two appendices to his sermon which were Pusey's answer to his critics are probably the most purely political piece of writing which Pusey ever attempted. Certainly the political question involved a case of conscience; but the days were passing, if they had not already passed away, when the Church of England would identify herself with any particular political opinions; and, in Pusey's own words, he had in later life little heart for themes which did not more directly concern the well-being of souls.

It was a proof of the felt reality of Pusey's sermons that they always involved him in subsequent private correspon–dence; and on this occasion Mr. Robert Scott, then Fellow afterwards Master of Balliol College, and Dean of Rochester, wrote to ask Pusey whether the literal enforcement of the rules in the New Testament respecting non-resistance to temporal rulers would not involve a like duty of taking no steps to avert calamity, and refusing to prosecute criminals for personal injuries, and whether such a construction of the moral teaching of the Gospel would not bring it into conflict with principles and duties upon which society rests.

 

                                                                                              'Ch. Ch., Nov. 1837.

'I felt,' wrote Pusey in reply, 'the difficulty you name. But I felt also that it must be met by raising our tone on that other class of subjects. We see the evil of resistance on a great scale, and since it is founded on a number of particulars, do not on a small scale; but it may be as bad, and, since more frequent, worse. Individual prosecutors seem to me wrong in principle. The State, I think, ought to do it, as the father of the family, and only call upon individuals to bear witness, as a father would ask another child if one did not answer.

'The difficulty as to the rules in the New Testament is surely in themselves or in us. They seem to direct plainly certain things, and men cannot bring themselves to think that they mean what they seem to mean. The difficulty of explaining "resist not evil"is intrinsic to itself. In St. Justin's time they took it literally, and seem to have gone on much more happily. But one may take measures to prevent injuries, e.g. lock one's door--let the law protect one if it will. If individuals did not prosecute, the law would, and then the same result would be arrived at, as far as public peace is concerned, by the way of obedience, and without revengeful feelings.

'Taking wrong patiently would turn more hearts than are converted by discussion.'

Pusey's correspondent's second question was whether an English King had not entered into engagements, the breaking of which forfeited the allegiance of his subjects--engagements which did not bind Roman Emperors whose authority is contemplated by the New Testament precepts. Pusey replies:--

'With regard to the Coronation Oath, it binds the Sovereign, of course, though it seems a part of the "compact-system"now to think that a portion of his subjects can release him. But I do not think that, though more bound to his subjects than Caligula, he is more responsible to them... ; that they have any more right to take the redress into their own hands. He is morally bound, and they may, and ought, to remind him, to expostulate with him, but then leave him in the Hands of God, as David did (1 Sam. xxvi. 10)... . With consequences I think we have nothing to do; though even on that ground, with all the evils of resistance before our eyes, one could not easily be brought to think that those of non-resistance would be greater. However, I suppose it will often be the trial of faith that the evils will threaten to be overwhelming; as I suppose Antichrist, whether resisted or no, will inflict very great evils, but at the end the days will be shortened, and those who persevere will escape.'

The chief interest of the sermon lies in the proof which it affords of Pusey's strong and growing moral affinities with Keble. Pusey and Keble had been on opposite sides in the political struggle of 1829: Blanco White even describes Pusey, perhaps not without some exaggeration, as 'at that time one of the most Liberal members of the University.' The political difference meant a certain underlying moral difference. Keble's moral temper led him to view reform and change with distrust, if not with aversion: his faith in God's presence and guidance made all high-handed self-willed action on mans part appear more or less irreverent. It was then quite in Keble's spirit that Pusey now extracted from the two events commemorated on the 5th of November the principles that we may safely leave things to God, and that there is great risk that man's impatience may mar the blessings which God designs for His Church. But these principles have at least as obvious an application to religious as to political conduct. The temper which would have resisted James' illegal action, and have taken the conse–quences of resistance by undergoing personal inconvenience or suffering while refusing to do anything that might lead to his dethronement, was the temper which in the coming days of trouble would listen in silent sorrow to Church authority repudiating the principles which alone could justify its existence, but would not on that account be betrayed into disloyal desertion of the Church herself. The question has often been asked how Pusey and Keble were able to remain in the Church of England during the unhappy years when its rulers set themselves so generally to condemn them. The moral side of the answer to that question will be apparent to a careful reader of the sermon, 'Patience and confidence the strength of the Church.'

'We may not,' Pusey urges, 'be over-anxious even about holy things, such as the deliverance of the Church from unjust thraldom or from spiritual disadvantages.' Israel was in bondage for four hundred years in Egypt; for seventy years in Babylon. 'O tarry thou the Lord's leisure.'

The sermon was dedicated to Keble, 'who in years past unconsciously implanted a truth which was afterwards to take root': and with 'every feeling of respectful and affectionate gratitude for this and many other benefits.' Pusey forwarded it to him with the subjoined letter

E. B. P. TO REV. J. KEBLE.

                                                                                                  Christ Church, Nov. 15, 1837.

You will perhaps be surprised at the dedication; and that surprise may be an encouraging token how on other occasions in which you have spoken out the truth it has taken root, though you never saw it. It was at Fairford, many years ago, when I was thoughtlessly, or rather, I must say, confidently, taking for granted that the Stuarts were rightly dethroned, that I heard for the first time a hint to the contrary from you. Your seriousness was an unintended reproof to my petulant expression about it, and so it stuck by me, although it was some time before it took root and burst through all the clods placed upon it.

I did not send the dedication to you beforehand, partly because there seemed hardly time, although there would have been as it happens; partly because I did not wish you to see or know of it beforehand. I thought you might object to expressions if you saw them, which, when beyond recall, you might take quietly.

During November, 1837, Pusey again preached twice before the University; once on Jesus Christ, the One Foundation of Christian faith and hope; and again, on the Divine Judgment. But he had been still more seriously engaged upon the third of the subjects which it fell to his lot to discuss in the 'Tracts for the Times.' Already he had written on Fasting and Holy Baptism. The other great Sacrament naturally followed in Tract 81. He had formed a plan of such a work in the previous year. When staying at Holton he had preached on the subject in the village church, and his letters show that his mind was constantly dwelling on it. When asked to complete his tract on Baptism by another on the Baptism of Adults, 'my own wishes,' he replied, 'as you know, lead me to Absolution and the Lord's Supper.' It was Pusey's manner to look out for tokens of God's guidance respecting matters of which his mind was full. Such tokens he found in the many indications of a desire for instruction in Eucharistic truth. As he expresses it very beautifully in the preface to this Tract:--

'The ardent longing which God has in so many minds awakened to know and practise the faith of the Church, such as it was in the days when she kept her first love, is a warning which may not be passed unheeded; and they who know that Church's way have a duty laid upon them to declare it .'

He was thus led on to that careful exposition of the doctrine of the Eucharist which formed so large a part of the work of his life, and in behalf of which he was before long called upon to bear painful witness. All instructed Churchmen are aware that the Holy Eucharist is at once the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ truly present, and the presentation or offering of the Sacrifice made by Christ upon the Cross to the Eternal Father. Of these two divisions of the subject, the first would naturally claim a prior treatment, both as being essential to the nature of the Sacrament, and because, apart from the true Presence of Christ's Body and Blood, the Sacrifice in the Eucharist is unintelligible. But the writers of the Tracts had appealed to primitive antiquity, and they were confronted by the fact that antiquity is full of the doctrine of a Sacrifice in the Eucharist. On the other hand, in much of the current teaching of the English Church this doctrine had fallen to a very great extent into the background; and this circum–stance made an immediate restatement of the doctrine a natural feature of the general enterprise represented by the Tracts.

Pusey begins his tract with a statement of the primitive teaching about the Eucharistic Sacrifice, as he understood it; he then passes on to draw distinctions between this primitive doctrine and that of the Roman Church. When he comes to speak of this doctrine as held in the English Church, he sketches the alterations made on this subject in the various reformed Prayer-books. In a passage of con–siderable force, Pusey apologizes for the English Reformers by insisting on the difficulty of attaining to an adequate apprehension of truth amid struggles such as those of the sixteenth century. He points out that the Reformation in the English Church was in no sense completed until the Caroline divines had appeared en the scene; and that our standard of doctrine is not the Prayer-book of 1552, but the Prayer-book of 1662.

'The divines of the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries had different offices. In the sixteenth we are to look for strong broad statements of truths which had been obscured by Popery, but often without the modification which they require and receive from other portions of the Gospel. In the seventeenth we have the calmer, deeper statements of men to whom God kid given peace from the first conflict.

Each had their several offices, and were severally qualified for them; and they only risk disparaging the Reformers of the sixteenth century who would look to them for that which was not their office; namely, a well-proportioned and equable exhibition of the several parts of 'the Catholic Faith, which was, in the appointed order of things, rather reserved for the seventeenth'.

This leads him, not without good reason, to attach very great weight to the teaching of a series of divines whose continuous exposition of the doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice he gives in the Catena to which this essay is the introduction. The Catena was, at least in the main, the work of the Rev. B. Harrison, and it cites sixty-five authors, ending with Bishop Phillpotts, who was ruling the see of Exeter. Of these authors some state the doctrine fully enough, while others are vague and undecided, whether from being overawed by the Puritan tradition, or as only writing loosely and popularly. That they were concerned about it at all is a fact bearing witness to the continued reception of the doctrine in the Church of England since the Reformation, even though some of them inadequately understood it.

When referring apologetically in later life to some of his earlier writings Pusey would often say, 'In those days we were learning': in the light of his later Eucharistic teaching he would probably have applied the remark to the preface of this tract. At the same time it is noticeable that in September, 1836, Newman, incidentally anticipating the principles of Tract 90, had written to him: 'As to the sacrificial view of the Eucharist, I do not see that you can find fault with the formal wording of the Tridentine Decree. Does not the Article on "the Sacrifices of Masses,"&c. supply the doctrine or notion to be opposed? What that is, is to be learnt historically, I suppose.' Pusey also acquiesced in the formal wording of the Council of Trent on the subject, except so far as its words were modified by the doctrines of Transubstantiation and Purgatory .

Besides the question of Eucharistic doctrine, Pusey's correspondence at this time gives clear evidence of various other questions more or less difficult in respect to doctrine, practice, or terminology, arising out of a more general appreciation of Church principles and order. As regards doctrine, for instance, Pusey is asked by his old college friend, the Rev. John Parker, of Sweeney, the true relation of Conversion to Baptism. He answers as follows

E. B. P. TO REV. J. PARKER.

I have not read through the Bishop of Bangor's tract: what I have seen I regard as an improvement upon Waterland, whom I think cold (i.e. his times were so). But W. makes Regeneration too merely a change of state, a being brought into covenant, not an actual birth: on this the Bishop improves, but uses the same phraseology, which would efface very much of the mystical character of Baptism. I think the best explanation of Baptism that of the Catechism, 'Wherein I was made a member of Christ, a child of God, &c.,' and so it places its value in our being thereby engrafted into Christ, made members of Him, and so being actually born sons of God, of water and the Spirit. The Low Church would explain how Regeneration is by making it a change of nature: better to have it as it is set forth; a new birth implies a new nature, existence imparted; and this is actual, not meta–phorical, and by virtue of the Incarnation of our Lord Who took our nature that He might impart to us His.

I cannot by any means admit that 'conversion, if it follows at all, does not follow until the heart is conscious of its corruption.' I do not think that if there were more Christian education there would be need of any such process as conversion; the child for the most part loves to hear of God and to obey Him, if not at the moment of strong tempta–tion, yet, if encouraged, even then often; and very often children will deny themselves, punish themselves, restrain themselves, by the thought of God; help each other and be helped by them in doing their duty, by the thought of God. It is our faithless education which leaves us so many unfaithful Christians, and which checks the power which Baptism imparts. People corrupt their children instead of teaching them to amend.

I am revising the second edition carefully, so need not say more here, only this: something is meant by there being 'one Baptism for the remission of sins.' There are many comforts in the way: Abso–lution, the Communion, good thoughts put into the heart, having been raised up again, &c.; but there is no second plenary Absolution of all sin such as Baptism is, until the final Absolution at the Day of Judge–ment, which God grant us and all our friends. Again, God, I doubt not, will comfort people when it is good for them, but not at once, nor in the summary way in which people nowadays are wont [to ask for comfort].

                                                Ever your very sincere friend,

                                                                                  E. B. PUSEY.

Again, at the beginning of January Pusey received from the Rev. J. H. Stewart, Rector of St. Bride's, Liverpool, an invitation to join in a 'concert for prayer on the first Monday of the year, for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.' Pusey welcomed the invitation, so far as it implied a

'value for united intercessory prayer, especially as coming from those who, by their practice and words at least, have seemed to set preaching so much above prayer, and have habitually disparaged the intercessory prayers of the Church.'

But the plan recommended private prayer before day–break; family prayer; private assemblage of members of the same communion for prayer; and 'public worship with an appropriate discourse' in the evening. Pusey seized the opportunity thus presented to point out, in the British Magazine, that the Church already offered in her daily offices, prescribed for both clergy and people, more than all the devotional advantages which this well-intentioned but crude proposal was intended to secure. 'The Church,' he says,

'has provided for this as well as for other wants of her children, and has--not on one day in the year, but for every day--furnished them with a service wherein they might ask, not this only, but for every other blessing upon themselves and the whole Church. Her daily service leaves none unheeded; her extension and purity form part of the "Prayer for all conditions of men"and the Litany. Nor need it be said that this can be only through the manifold gifts of the Holy Ghost. This descent of the continual dew of the Holy Ghost on the whole Church is especially the prayer of that "for the Clergy and People."The prayer enters again into the Te Deum and the responses after the Creed; it is involved in the very "Gloria Patri,"which is so often repeated; inculcated by the very frequent praying of the prayer of our Lord ("Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth,"&c.), contained in so many of the Psalms which the Church provides as her children's daily food. For the Lord's Day there is, at all events, in addition, the "Prayer for the Church Militant,"and, if men will, the Holy Eucharist. What, then, foreign Protestants have at–tempted in this new way once in the year, the Church has every day. And what if, through the unfaithfulness of some of her ministers, past or present, prayer has grown cold, and daily service been often disused? The Church has not been unfaithful; she, too, in her rubric and ordination vows, which she prescribes to her priests to take, that they should be "diligent in prayer,"has been uttering her voice, whether men would hear or whether they would forbear; and so soon as her ministers keep their vows those blessings, which negligence only suspends, will be realized day by day. Whatever may be the case with villages, if a call, much less loud than this now made, were made by each minister to his flock, there would be congregations day by day in every church of every town; but now, ministers often look coldly on, grudge the time occupied even on the Litany days, and themselves the privilege of praying with two or three, where "a Fourth is with them,"and fall in with the listlessness of their people, instead of drawing on their people, so that one could scarce say which cared least about the privilege--minister or people. But "the Church's prayers have become a form!"But to whom are they "formalities,"; except to "formalistsä? and do they not rather "form"those who will be "formed"after the heavenly pattern, and for heaven--"form"through the "dew of God's Holy Spirit,""Christ within them,"and them after the form and likeness of God? And if they become for–malities; whose fault is it? Again, this foreign "Concert for Prayer,"is it not a form? What is a stricter "formä? The very order of the whole day is pointed out. Not that this is objectionable, if it came from authority; only it is a strict form, and so they who adopt it must not object to forms.'

But Pusey was not merely concerned with theoretical questions of Church principles: he was eager for their application at home and abroad, in order to save the souls of men. He had a plan for missionary exhibitions on the one hand, and a scheme for Church building in the poorer part of Oxford and for colleges of celibate clergy in our great cities on the other. On the exhibitions to help missionary education, he writes to his wife:--

                                                                                                                  'June 19, 1838.

'I have been talking to some people about reviving that plan of Dr. Burton's for exhibitions here, for the education of missionaries to go to India, and I have a little pet plan of our having a missionary of our own, or rather that we might give up one of the two upper rooms to a person on the plan of Mr. Barratt, who might be educated here for a missionary. The want of men for missionaries is greater than that of funds, but I have not yet breathed a syllable of this to any one, nor shall unless, when we talk it over together, you altogether like it.'

He wrote to the same effect to Newman and Harrison; but Mrs. Pusey's rapidly failing health made it impossible to take any of the practical steps which he contemplated. With regard to the new church in Oxford:--

'I have been to-day,' he writes to his wife, in the same letter, 'to a meeting about one or two churches in St. Ebbe's, but would not speak, though much pressed by Churton and Hamilton. It is not my line, and I do not like the speechifying which we have·.

'Hamilton made a fair speech, except that he talked about the Estab–lished Church of Scotland, that is, the Presbyterian Kirk.'

Pusey however was put on the Committee.

'I went,' he writes on August 11 'at twelve to a meeting in St. Ebbe's vestry, where, after a good deal of debating, all was carried which I wished. But it lasted three and a half hours. . . . However, we carried some very important points, one by six to five only, and things are set in a good train.'

This was the first stage of the effort which led to the building of Holy Trinity Church.

The larger project of colleges of unmarried clergy occupied his thoughts a good deal. The need of some such agency was suggested to Pusey by his keen interest in Bishop Blomfield's efforts in the east of London. The form which the proposal assumed would have been sup–plied by the statutes of the colleges of Oxford, as they existed before the recent academical revolution. In 1833 Hurrell Froude had remarked that

'colleges of unmarried priests, who might of course retire to a living when they could and liked, would be the cheapest possible way of providing effectively for the spiritual wants of a large population .'

Conversation often turned on the subject; but about 1838 it seemed that something practical was in view, and Pusey's letters to Newman refer to it not unfrequently.

E. B. P. TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN.

                                                                                                                      July 19, 1838.

I hope Wood, &c. are not aground with their plan for colleges of twelve clergy in our large towns. (N.B. it should be twelve, not ten, notwithstanding the convenience of decimal notation.) I think it would take uncommonly, and must, of course, do a great deal of good. It will do people good to see another thing started on a large scale.

Again, three weeks later:--

                                                                                                   Weymouth, Aug. 9, 1838.

Robert Williams called here, I talked to him about the colleges for manufacturing towns. I have opportunely enough received a book from Mr. Parkinson at Manchester, which makes an opening there. The more I think of Froude's plan, the more it seems to me the only one, if anything is to be done for our large towns. I had come to the same conclusion for missionaries, that they ought not to be married men. As he says, the exhibition of the domestic graces is not enough to make an impression upon persons in such a state.

Now perhaps it might make least splash if it were connected some–how with the existing college at Manchester, and it would be a good hint to the Bishop of London to begin endowing colleges, while he is proposing to pull them to pieces. It might show what might be made of St. Paul's. What I should like then would be a place for (ultimately) twelve Fellows, but beginning with not less than two, with an endow–ment of £1,000 for each, which would give a permanency to the plan, and so enable one to make rules for them. The Bishop might be Visitor, which would place it under proper sanction; and they might be self-elective, like other colleges, so that there would be no difficulty about patronage. Williams proposed, as a rule, that all income which they had above a certain amount should, so long as they remained members, go to the purposes of the establishment. This, I suppose, would lead to endowments and prevent luxury. Also that as soon as their income amounted to a certain sum, they should send off colonies elsewhere, which would both extend the system and prevent accumula–tions. Then, I suppose, they should be under the parochial clergy, so as to avoid introducing the mischiefs of regular and secular clergy. Williams proposed also their having a common refectory, which would diminish expense, and at the same time might introduce regulations as to fasting-days. But these things might be kept to ourselves and them–selves; it would only be necessary to ask the clergy of the college whether they would like such an institution in aid of the cure of Man–chester, of which a large portion, I think, belongs to them. Perhaps they might aid as to lodgings. At all events, there would be a chapel ready built for daily service, besides Hours.

As for money, it is hard if the Apostohicals cannot raise £12,000 at least, enough to make a beginning; but my own finances are at a very low ebb, if not altogether dry, and I do not know when the tide will begin to flow again. I suppose, however, I should come in before you raised the £12,000.

Newman was cautious and critical.

REV. J. H. NEWMAN TO E. B. P.

                                                                                                               August 13, 1838.

As to the Manchester plan, I am suspicious of endowments. Some–how in this day, I do think we ought to live for the day, and rather generate an hqov than a system. £1,000 can be spent more to advantage as ready money.

Pusey was not to be silenced:--

E. B. P. TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN.

                                                                                                                      August 15, 1838.

It would be easier many ways to dispense with a foundation, and money is miserably wasted everywhere; on the other hand, there seem to me difficulties in carrying out the plan of a college by annual contri–butions. (1) We thereby make ourselves a society, and, in whatever degree the plan is carried out, more of a society. (2) We cannot make any regulations for the college ourselves, but must confine ourselves to acting with persons who altogether agree with us, of whom in towns there are few or none. (I should not like Leeds as the scene of operation, since the vicarage is very well endowed.) (3) Who is to be responsible for its continuance? Then by a foundation we might obtain legacies, in salutem animae. And how rapidly such foundations spread; our country had once more of them than any other; so I hope the root remains in the ground, though the spoiler has miserably maimed the trunk and cut off the branches. If we were to form a foundation, we should naturally be employed to get men in the first instance, and might make the bodies self-elective, so that one should get rid of patronage and appointment. I cannot help thinking we should in time have splendid contributions.

If we confine ourselves to an annual income I do not see how we are to make regulations, for this would be an imperium in imperio, and (unless you induced the Archbishop to make you General of the Order) unauthoritative, just like the Pastoral Aid Society, &c.; but I should like to know what your plan would be. It would certainly be a great gain, if we could not get all, at least to introduce the notion of a mass of clergy in our large towns. I doubt whether, without a foundation, it would give rise to any institutions of moment, for I suppose that the pattern given will be copied, whatever it is; and it seems beginning too far off to give rise to colleges. But it might, at all events, ameliorate the heathenish state of our great towns, and correct the stupidity with which people look on at such skeletons of the true fabrics--one clergy–man where there ought to be a Bishopric.

On second thoughts, however, Pusey appears to have felt that Newman's ideas on the subject were more practical than his own, and that they pointed to a quarter which he had before set aside.

E. B. P. TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN.

                                                                                                                  August 21, 1838.

I have been thinking that if you decidedly think that one ought not to attempt a foundation, that the only way will be to return to the original plan of assisting Hook at Leeds, in which case he must be responsible to the curates, and we to him; and he, I suppose, would be ready to do something towards the plan. But for your end of producing an hqov are not large plans, as being action, the very way to do? One College of Clergy founded for a large town is a great speaking fact; the Bishop of London's plan or the Additional Curates' Fund, in their way, are tending to produce an hqov just as these plans of the Peculiars,

their Canada or Colonial Church Society, their Pastoral Aid Society, and now their London Church Society, are produced by and repro–ducing a terrible hqov of selfishness and self-confidence, trusting them–selves, and trusting no one but themselves. However, perhaps we may meet soon to talk over these things; only, if you have made up your mind, I am here close by Williams, and so have the opportunity of talking with him.

In the middle of September the plan was so far matured that Pusey wrote to two clergymen suggesting that they should 'lay the foundation' of such a college as was pro–posed. For various reasons, chiefly of a personal character, both of Pusey's correspondents declined his invitation. The plan accordingly dropped for the time being. As far as Manchester was concerned, it fell through altogether. At a later date it had practical results on more than one church in London, through correspondence with Mr. Dodsworth; and it is to be traced as the inspiring ideal of the generous efforts which are connected with the establishment of the Church of St. Saviours, Leeds.

Already the principles of the Tracts were being pro–pagated in Leeds by Dr. Hook, and the following letter from Pusey shows the relations with Hook at that time. Early in 1838 the Tracts were attacked in the Leeds Intelligencer, and Dr. Hook remonstrated with the writer, and forwarded his remonstrance and the reply which it elicited to Pusey.

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

Thanks also for your defence of us; as for your being our disciple, the thing is absurd. Newman said in the Christian Ob–server that you had formed or received your views long before many of the writers in the Tracts (long before myself upon many points, though many, as Baptism and the Succession, I held as far as I understood them). We were led by different paths to the same end, and from our early separation had little to do in forming each other's opinions; and you have held them earlier than N. probably, and far longer and more consistently than ourselves. This I shall always gladly aver, if occasion offers, as N. has done...

Nothing could be further, probably, from the thoughts of those who started the Tracts, than that they would ever attain anything like the report, good or evil, which they have. They were cast out at first, like bread upon the waters, which they who cast it knew not when they should find. They we're a few earnest voices, crying 'Stop, stop,' to a people who were running headlong into new ways; they were little begin–nings, to become whatever God might will. Now, however, they must be taken as facts; people are curious about them ; want to know what is thought of them, or what to think of them; they have not access to much of the old divinity with which they accord; and they will be for a time one of the chief channels through which people will receive the old views. They and their history have become one of the phenomena of the day; when they have done their work they, or many of them, will be laid aside. But the present is the time for doing their work; and so, as one of the instruments employed now, it is well, I think, for persons who would influence their day to know their character and be able to give an opinion about them. All you say is, of course, perfectly true; they are not things to be made tests of right principles, badges of a party, to be received indiscriminately, to be looked upon as, of course, Catholic, &c., &c. This should be said: they wish, they profess to be Catholic; they disclaim anything as binding which is not Catholic, and would reject anything which should be proved to be anti-Catholic. But while you rightly caution people against them as tests of Catholicity instead of guides to it, this is still only half, only one side: people want to know not only what they are not, but what they are; whether they are sound or unsound; and there are many who would look to yourself to guide them to form a judgment on this. It is not sufficient for a teacher to say, ' "I call no man masterä; if any–thing is proved to be anti-Catholic I disclaim it': the learner wishes to know from his teacher something more definite; and so it would be well for you, I think, to read them, and to be able to instruct any who ask, 'this is certainly Catholic'; 'this appears to me to be a private opinion, or an opinion received in part of the Church only, and so not to have the same weight'; 'this is a practice of the Western Church only';  'this is an individual attempt to carry out and adapt to our times ancient services,' &c., &c., as the case may be. If you judge freely, as you are entitled to do, on our Tracts, you will not be looked upon as our pupil, but will take your station the more as the Doctor of those who ought to look up to you.

I have said the more on this because I think this general way of speaking unsatisfactory and calculated to throw suspicion upon our unity, and to weaken us by making people think we are not so united as we really are. One great source of the impression which we make is, humanly speaking, our union; the Record tries as much as it can to make out that we are but, three, that the Tracts are not Oxford tracts, but tracts of K., N., and P.; or it would give us one human head and call us N--ites or P--ites, but all will not do: I do not believe that they can thoroughly persuade themselves of it, and so not others. However, this may show us where our strength is--union, i.e. that omitting points of detail, we should be understood as pressing the same principles, that we urge what is Catholic, and that we are agreed what is Catholic; that while we need, not even restrict our–selves to what is Catholic (so that it be not anti-Catholic), but may hold severally even what has been received in parts of the Church, and so are not bound in all things to hold the same, yet that as the largest portion infinitely, as well as the essential, is Catholic, in the largest portion we must be agreed. This struggle is about the Catholic faith. What is called Papistical, what we are abused for, is Catholic; in speaking of anything human (since what is Catholic is not so) one must of course be understood to express one's approbation with a limitation; but still one would speak of certain things with approba–tion, e.g. Hooker, although in some things he may retain the Calvinistic tinge of the school in which he was educated. Now, without comparing small things with great, I think that those who do in the main agree with the principles of the 'Tracts for the Times' should be able to say that they do; let them make what limitations or restrictions they. please, it is of moment that they should be able to speak of them on the whole. An office has been given them in reward of the faith of those (of whom I was not one) who first sent them forth to do service against sight, and so it is well to wish them 'God speed,' and to avow that you do so.

I have written all this because there is a number of persons who think that they shall act best independently. I thought so once, but I found myself swept into the stream, i.e. I found that I was identified with Newman and with o[ makarithv Froude; and so I was the more comfort–able; my place was given me: before, I thought that I was bearing testi–mony to the same cause as a separate witness. There are many such, more or less: Sewell, who writes the articles in the Quarterly, is one. People do not know of petty distinctions; they class things broadly. We are congratulated at the Quarterly having admitted our (i.e.. Catholic) views, while Sewell is imagining that he is detached from us, and not committed to us. It is much better that a person should know in what position he is. While I denied that we were any party, that we were united by any narrower bands than Catholicity and charity, I denied not that we thought alike; I spoke not of N. or F. as third persons, but gladly joined myself with them; and so shall one most effectually break up what would be an evil, the formation of a party, by avowing and showing how much and how many it compre–hends. Rose wishes us well, but keeps rather aloof from us; yet the Record has long ago summed up Rose and you and us together. We must fight together; it is well to show that we fight under the same colours and in the same detachment.

I have ventured, on your long friendship to write this long letter, because from several indications I do not think that you exactly know the position in which you really are, and as another sees it better, I would frankly tell you. You are doing, and are placed in a station for doing more good. You are not altogether insulated, though you are a witness in the North of what they have not lately heard; but your witness will be the better heard not as the echo of our voices, but as joining in the same chorus.

In August, 1838, the Rev. B. Harrison, who had so long helped Pusey as his assistant Hebrew lecturer and in other departments of his work, was offered by Archbishop How–ley the post of his Examining Chaplain. In making the offer the Archbishop felt that Harrison's relations with the writers of the 'Tracts for the Times' required a word of explanation on his part. Harrison reported to Pusey what took place at the interview. After enlarging on the recommendations of the position to a young man, the Archbishop proceeded:--  'But, you are looked upon as belonging to what are called "the Oxford divinesä;' and therefore, he said, in such an appointment he would be regarded as giving his unqualified sanction to their views and opinions.

REV. B. HARRISON TO E. B. P.

                                                                                                                     August 11,1838.

·So he went on to express the great respect and regard which he had for the leading men among those he had spoken of, mentioning yourself, Keble, and Newman by name, at the same time that he said there were some points which he could not but think had been carried too far, and he heard much said, he knew not how truly, about certain things in some young men, such as crosses worn on their dress, and which would be apt to be regarded by uninstructed persons as an approach to Popery. He mentioned particularly the publication of Froude's 'Remains,' as one chief point which he regretted, having first, I should, say, spoken of the general principle which had been acted upon in a certain degree, of putting things in an extreme and startling way. He knew, he said, what was said in vindication of it, viz. the necessity of calling men's attention to neglected truths and duties; but he could not but think that the manner of our Lord's teaching set forth a different example; and with regard, again, to Froude's 'Re–mains,' he knew it was said that the editors were not responsible for every opinion, and that there was much upon which Froude had not made up his own mind altogether; but still he regretted that a handle should be given to parties of whose views and designs he highly disapproved. Then again, he said, there were certain practices derived from the pattern of early times, on which he held a somewhat different theory, such as fasting and the observance of the canonical hours of devotion. He had said somewhere before 'this in the conversation, I think, that it was very difficult to know oneself, and difficult to draw the line between moderation and lukewarmness, and that a person might seem lukewarm when he would desire to guard anxiously against it. And so in practice he might seem lax to some persons in regard to such obser–vances as those which he had mentioned--of fasting and the stated times of prayer; holding that there were some things in primitive practice which were especially required by the circumstances of the early Church when it was to be distinguished by very strict outward observances from the Pagans around; and that, especially, in regard to the outward observance of stated times of prayer, while he held strongly the duty of continual mental prayer, the necessary business which was entailed upon a person in these days prevented such a regular system of outward devotion. I think this was pretty much what the Archbishop said, and after so full a statement of his views, with the emphatic 'BUT' which introduced it, I thought he would be looking for something of a confession of faith on my part in return; but it seemed, when he had finished, that he merely wished so fully to express the points wherein he differed from those with whose views I was identified, as not to be understood, in making me the offer of this appointment, to be expressing an unqualified approbation of their whole system.

 

With the Archbishop's permission, Harrison asked Pusey's advice on the question whether he should accept the appointment.

E. B. P. TO REV. B. HARRISON.

                                                                                                    Weymouth [Aug. 13, 1838].

There can, of course, be no doubt about your accepting the Archbishop's offer, and I hail so early an appointment to so confidential and important an office as an earnest of extensive usefulness to be opened to you in whatever way the Lord of the vineyard sees fit. The way in which it was announced to you was very satisfactory; it is affecting to read the openness of one so long in the highest station in the Church, telling a young man his views about mental prayer and the rest, and tacitly comparing his own line with the more precise rule which others thought necessary for the most part. It opens a happy prospect of the relation which you will bear to him, so long as it shall seem good that it shall last. You need not to be exhorted to vigilance that you hold fast your own steadfastness; the past is a good earnest that you will have strength given you to do it. Yet, I suppose, that you will feel that you will have a good deal of trial in so doing; the very amiableness of the Archbishop's character would render it naturally the more difficult to hold on a line different from his, whom from character, age, and station you are bound to, and must, respect. Still, here again it has been a good preparation for you that you have during some years, I suppose, been thrown with people older than your–self; whom you had, in different ways, ground to respect, and yet had to form--by their help in several degrees, but still--your own line for yourself and He Who has conducted you thus far safely will guide you to the end. You will adapt, or carry on, your own private rules, which will, by His blessing, preserve your own simplicity amid the more varied trials by which it is now to proceed. On the other hand, of course, there is very much to be learnt from the meekness and gentle–ness of the Archbishop.

                 *               *                 *                 *                 *               *

While, then, you can be spared at Oxford better than at any former time, your presence about the Archbishop and in London may be of great service to us. Catholicity, as you know, has few representatives enough in London--no one, I suppose, among the clergy, except Dods–worth and your brother-in-law, though others (as Ward of St. J.) may be more or less approximating to it.

                 *               *                 *                 *                 *               *

It would stop all declamation against Froude, &c., were one to say in the midst, 'Neither Froude nor any of his friends wish for, or would have anything to do with, any change in our Liturgy, Articles, Rubrics. They only wish to act up to what we have.'

For myself, I am very glad of the publication of the 'Remains'; they may very likely be a check, but that in itself may be the very best thing for us, and prevent a too rapid and weakening growth; it may cast people back upon themselves, and make them think more deeply of the principles which they had half taken up; his careful self-discipline is, of course, calculated in this self-indulgent age to do much immediate good, as will his protest against change both upon his own friends and others, and his views will get sifted--ut alteri prosint saeculo.

                 *               *                 *                 *                 *               *

We have great reason to be thankful both for the training you have so long had in the courts of the temple, and in the air of devotion which yet breathes in them, and that you are now called to watch and ward. With regard to the separation, one's only feeling on those sub–jects must be, 'The time is short,' and we must be ready to go wherever summoned; the apostles abode many years at Jerusalem, and then separated, leaving St. James alone, except that 'Who had the Father and the Son, &c.' But in this case you are brought nearer to your family, and the invisible bond remains.

There is no doubt that Harrison's withdrawal from Oxford was a great loss to Pusey; but it can hardly be added that Pusey's sanguine anticipations of the results of his appointment at Lambeth were realized. Perhaps no one could have realized them: certainly Harrison did not. The traditional caution of Lambeth was too much for him: his tone became gradually more official and less sym–pathetic; he was, as years went on, less the friend of the Movement than its critic. Pusey felt the change deeply: their letters became less frequent, and, although they remained on terms of affectionate friendship with each other, Pusey always referred in later years to the move to Lambeth as 'an unfortunate' experiment.'

 

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