CHAPTER V

 

ST. SAVIOUR' S, LEEDS--THE FIRST HARVEST

OF DISAPPOINTMENT.

 

1847.

 

THE Church of St. Saviour' s, Leeds, was the offering of a penitent. But no penitent, intent upon providing him–self with those opportunities of a true self-discipline which arise out of the disappointment of our dearest hopes, could have done better for himself than was done for Pusey by the early history of the church for which he had made so many sacrifices. That history was full of bitter morti–fications. Two series of secessions to Rome in 1847 and 1851, and the outward estrangement of his old friend Dr. Hook during a long term of years, might at that time have seemed to be the only results of Pusey' s great effort.

It would be unnecessary to enter into all the wearisome details of the disasters at St. Saviour' s and of the personal differences between two good men like Pusey and Hook, if it were not for two reasons. The events at St. Saviour' s, some account of which has already been given to the world, have always been supposed to reflect seriously on Pusey' s character for wisdom and loyalty; it seems required there–fore that a more complete narrative should now be given. But there is a more important reason for entering into the matter. The troubles at St. Saviour' s illustrate very aptly the difficulty, at the moment, of an understanding between the different sections of Churchmen, and the variety of their methods, if not of their attitude, towards Rome.

The first Vicar of St. Saviour' s was the Rev. Richard Ward. His appointment had given great satisfaction to Dr. Hook, who at this time knew more of him than Pusey did, and who also recommended him for the appointment. In Lent, 1846, there were at the Vicarage of St. Saviour' s four clergy besides the Vicar; the number was increased in May. Besides the daily morning and evening Services in the church, they observed some of the Hours of Prayer at home. The Holy Communion was celebrated on Sun–days and Holy days. Their poor neighbours welcomed them with the generosity with which, when left to them–selves, the poor will welcome any effort to help them to higher things; and, at first, the neighbouring clergy were friendly, some of them even intimate.

Mr. Ward, however, finding himself unable to control and make the most of this concentration of religious force at St. Saviour' s, invited Pusey to spend a considerable portion of the Long Vacation at Leeds. This was, of Course, impossible. In the late autumn, however, Pusey sent the Rev. R. G. Macmullen to Leeds, in the hope that he might be able to organize and invigorate the work. When he arrived the situation was somewhat strained. Mr. Ward had just published a Manual for Communicants, some features of which gave umbrage to Dr. Hook; he had also, with questionable prudence, intro–duced into the Parochial Library the Littlemore  'Lives of the Saints.'  A translation of the Breviary, or of portions of it, adapted to the use of the English Church, was in use by the clergy of St. Saviour' s in the prayer-room at the Vicarage, in addition to the morning and evening service of the Church of England at the church. And, with regard to all this, a great many incorrect rumours had reached the ears of the Vicar of Leeds. Mr. Macmullen' s arrival threw new life and energy into everything. The schools were better organized and attended to; the Wednesday class rose from twenty or thirty to double that number; catechizing on Sunday afternoons was commenced; and the church was crowded on Sunday, evenings with listeners to his pointed and effective sermons.

But he also helped to bring matters to a crisis, On All Saints'  Day he preached a sermon on the Intercession of the Saints. It would be very difficult to prove the sermon to be condemned by any formulary of the Church of England; but a complaint concerning it was made to the Bishop of Ripon. The Bishop ruled that it was not contrary to the doctrine of the Church of England, but that its silence on certain points was  'objectionable.'  Hook wrote a somewhat bitter remonstrance to Pusey. The clergy of St. Saviour' s, he said, were undoing all that he had been endeavouring to do for ten years. They were strengthening the hands of infidelity; they were using the Church of England to propagate the principles of Popery; in fact they were unprincipled men, against whom he would wage a war of extermination. Of Pusey himself Hook complains that he had planted  'a colony of Papists'  in the heart of Leeds.

 'You have sent Mr. Macmullen here, and he is acting as Curate, without the Bishop' s licence; I hope the Bishop, now that he knows this [respecting the sermon], will send him to the right-about; so that when, having done Romish work in England, he goes over to the Popish Church, where his heart is, he may not refer to this clandestine act as a proof of there being no discipline among us.'

Hook wrote strongly, as feeling indignant: he could, he said, honour open enemies; he despised traitors. He was no longer as heretofore  'yours affectionately,'  but only  'yours truly.'

Pusey, however, knew how to turn away wrath by a soft answer.

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

Christ Church,

22nd Sunday after Trinity [Nov. 8], 1846.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

There is some dreadful misunderstanding somewhere. We have been labouring together these many years for our common Mother, have  'walked in the house of God as friends' ; you formerly have risked your life for her and for her children. I have in the last year. I felt before my illness that I had been overworked, I was worn out: I laboured often night as well as day; I had not a feeling of health for more than a whole year of toil and sorrow. I felt that I could not stand it. But what could I do? God brought me at that perilous crisis work to do, often thankless; I cast away everything, so that I might, by God' s mercy, retain children of our Church within her. What the extent of misgiving was then, you probably can never know. There was an extensive gloom and despondency among persons who loved our Church and desired to remain in her. I speak strictly when I say that people (clergy also) seemed (in the language of Holy Scripture)  'like the ripe fig, ready to drop into the mouth of the eater' ; they were panic-stricken; and as men in a panic needed to be reassured. They seemed bewildered. What a gap they stood in, who at that time cheered their brethren by their own confidence and faithfulness to the Church of England, God knows : I suppose man will never know. May He forgive the imperfections of any of us in so doing, Whom in it we desired to serve, and accept our imperfect service, although men call us  'traitors'  for it. We are men, my dear friend, frail fallible men; I am a sinner, chief of sinners; I cannot doubt that I have not the discernment I should have had, had I been holier; I do not vindicate anything I did; it was, of course, full of imperfections; but I was not and am not a  'traitor' ; I risked, as I said, everything for the Church of England: had I had any mis–giving, I could not have done what I did; I did faithfully, according to the wisdom which God gave me, what I did, as to Him, and for His Church, of which He has made me, unworthy, a minister, and I do trust that He overruled my imperfections to His ends, and that you, my dear friend, will live to see the fruit of our joint toils and of those of His other servants.

All this is a long tale about I; I do not, in itself, mind if any one blames me; I deserve it, if not for what they blame, yet for something else; but these  'unhappy divisions'  are doing countless harm, and therefore I wish to clear myself to you, not of miserable imperfections, but of having any other end than that of performing, according to the ability He has given me, the office He has assigned me as a minister of the Church of England.

The conflux of clergy at the consecration of St. Saviour' s was no doing of mine; my only thought in the course of sermons which were preached was to win souls to Christ. But God did make it an occa–sion of strengthening many a faint heart; and if you could know how devoted ministers of the Church of England, not yielding to yourself in loyalty to her, have thanked me with tears in their eyes for my labours during the past year, you would think otherwise of me than you do.

And now, my dear friend, let me tell you that I stand on no other ground than yourself, that of Ken, Andrewes, and Bramhall--the primitive, undivided Church...

In principle, surely then, my dear friend, we are one; and if in details we differ, or if you think it your duty to speak against the Church of Rome, and I think it best to be silent, surely this difference is not such that you should change  'yours affectionately'  into  'yours truly.'

After dealing in detail with all the charges, Pusey passes to a more interesting topic which had been raised in Hook' s letter, and often since--the relation of Newman and his friends to the young Rationalistic school which was then growing in Oxford.

Will you listen calmly to one word about Rationalism and Infidelity? I do not say that there has not been some great sin in Roman Catholic countries which has occasioned infidelity in France, Spain, and Italy; and I have been accustomed to appeal to the state of things in France when people were harassed by the much lesser evils among ourselves. But you must not be one-sided. Modem Rationalism is not the growth of Romanism. It had its root in English ground, whether in the hypocrisy of degenerate Puritanism or the licentiousness of the Cava–liers. By God' s mercy it was removed from us; but it was translated to France, and in Germany it,  'far more than  'French frivolity'  (although Voltaire had his miserable influence), was the parent of German Rationalism. The decayed Lutheranism and Pietism resisted for a while, but, having no intrinsic life, while resisting fell into its arms. Whatever Rationalism there is at Oxford or Cambridge (and here, I trust, its extent has been much exaggerated) is of German origin. I dreaded it twenty-one years ago. It was repelled for a time, when it showed itself in Dr. Hampden' s Lectures, but they who chiefly opposed it were put down, and it has sprung up afresh through pupils of Dr. Arnold' s. Its origin is ultra-Protestant in Germany; it was brought here by those who Germanized, Liberals. It existed indepen–dently and anterior to any teaching of Newman' s (these are simply matter of fact and dates), it shows itself among those, of course, who are opposed to Catholic truth. The  'Fathers'  find no more favour at its hands than the Middle Ages; you and I no more than Newman. Of course, it is glad to take hold of the secessions to justify itself; but it hates your teaching just as much as it does mine, and speaks with contempt of both of us, and says that Rome is, at least, clearer and more definite. Forgive me then, but it is not (as matter of fact) true that  'N. and those others were (God forbid) the agents of the Evil One, in bringing Rationalism into Oxford.'  It is clearly contrary to dates and facts. Newman, while he was with us, was its most powerful and successful antagonist.

I have tired your patience, my dear friend. You have turned my  'joy into heaviness' : there is enough to weigh one down now, and you add to the burden. I was gladdened at the prospect of new churches in Leeds, and the good of which I know St. Saviour' s has been the instrument (although it would only seem mockery to tell you of this now), and you write me a letter enough to break one' s heart, but that, notwithstanding my sins, I still trust in God.

And now, in the Name of our Master and only Saviour, Whom we both alike wish to serve, to Whom we are each to render an account,  'judging nothing before the time,'  and  'not judging Another' s servant,'  may I ask you to pray Him, the God of all peace, that if it be to His praise and glory, He would make this to end in peace? Or would you use, if you do not, the prayer for Unity in our Common Prayer-book?

God be with you and bless you always.

                                                     Ever your affectionate friend,

                                                                                             E. B. PUSEY.

I am quite sure, however it has come about, that this misunder–standing is the work of Satan, and that Ward, Macmullen, and Case are devoted servants of our Church.

It would be too much to say that Hook was satisfied. But a man of his generous nature could not but be touched by Pusey' s appeal.  'I am sincerely sorry,'  he wrote,  'that I have hurt your feelings, and I pray you to forgive me.'  Pusey must not suppose that Hook meant to call him a traitor, or to imply that he had acted dishonourably. He thought, however, that appearances were against the clergy of St. Saviour' s, and added,  'I have now stirred you up, and shall remain quiet for the present.'

Pusey set himself to find out, if he could, the true state of the case at St. Saviour' s. But he found that the matter had passed out of his hands. A long series of complaints against St. Saviour' s had been brought before the Bishop of Ripon. Mr. Ward had had an interview with the  'Bishop, had explained the story about the Lives of the Saints and the use of the Breviary, and had submitted his own tract on the Holy Communion to the Bishop' s judgment. The Bishop was taking time to consider his decision with regard to the book, and the continuance of Mr. Macmullen at St. Saviour'  s.

Pusey then turned to Hook, whom he hoped to per–suade to adopt a more tolerant and unsuspicious attitude towards the clergy of St. Saviour'  s.

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

                                                         Christ Church, Nov. 14, 1846

MY DEAR FRIEND,                     .

I thank you for your lucid letter. I will not enter any more into controversy now; it does no good: what we want, by the mercy of God, is peace and charity and humility. Things are, by His mercy, in a better state than they were last year: I hope that the worst is over. But if you would believe me, who have seen more of their minds than you, the one thing which above all the rest has been shaking men' s minds, is the embittered temper of men against each other. There must be a secret Presence of His Good Spirit, which keeps the ship together; else it seems that it must go to pieces, so little is there of that pitch with which the Ark was held together, Christian love, of which the Fathers say that the pitch wherewith it is recorded that the Ark was covered within and without is a type.

I am sure that we must bear with one another, and not assume that what one' s self sees or thinks to be the teaching of the Church of England must be so clear to others, that they are dishonest if they do not hold it. I believe that if you were to select any one portion in the Church and make it a standard for the whole, so that all who do not agree with it should leave the Church, you would leave it a mere handful. We cannot afford to part with the Evangelicals as a body, nor all who at present deny Baptismal Regeneration. Our sins have brought us into this state of confusion; and we must pray God to pardon them and bring us out of it. I never could use the language, that Low Church [people] ought to leave the Church. If we could but obtain rest, not  'biting or devouring one another,'  we might hope, while we each seek God, to meet with one another in Him. But while there is all this bitter railing, and people are  'throwing dust into the air,'  they will never understand one another, nor come to the truth. Many in the Church of England think of you just as ill as they do of me. They cannot help it. The Church of England was, in great measure, asleep, and let them learn earnest religion where they could, and so many an earnest mind sucked in truth and error together. We cannot turn round now upon the Evangelicals, when but for the sin of the Church they would (at least the good among them) have learnt from her the full Gospel of Christ. We must have patience with one another and pray God. The Evangelicals think you are not of the Church of England; you that they are not. You think that I go beyond the Church of England and the Fathers, I suppose; I believe that because, as the Church of England directed me, I follow the  'old Catholic Doctors,'  I teach and hold the doctrines of the Church of England. Who is to judge between us? If you were to appeal to the Bishops, many of them would condemn yourself. You think I have left my old principles; I aver that I have not. . . . We look at things, prominently, from two different points of view; you have one set of evils chiefly in your eye, I (may be) another. Let us each pray for grace to do what God gives us to do with a single eye to His glory, and not to judge one another, and (as in the case of Midian) every one turn his sword against his fellow. .

I have entire confidence in Ward, as a loyal son of the Church of England; but one must set one' s  'face like a flint,'  else it would be enough to bewilder any one to be told,  'You do not belong to us' ;  'go' ;  'it was an honest act in those who went,'  &c. You recollect the story of the Dervish, who was persuaded at last that his dog was a sheep, every one telling him so; if it were not for one' s love for the English Church, and for strong feelings against some things in the Roman, and for real sympathy in some people, it were almost enough to make one doubt whether one stood on one' s head or one' s feet. I am sure many who might have been good members of the English Church have been edged overboard so.

God be with you and .bless you, my dear friend.

                                                   Ever yours affectionately,

                                                                         E. B. P.

But Hook seems to have regarded Pusey' s letter as a'  declaration of open war.'  He himself, without claiming to be Pusey' s equal in learning, had read the ante-Nicene Fathers, the chief works of St. Chrysostom and St. Augustine, and our best English divines. He could not agree with Pusey in thinking that we can go to the old Catholic doctors to judge the Church of England.

 'The Church of England,'  he continues,  'took them for her guide when she reformed herself--here was her principle. Upon her prin–ciple we may act, but then we must always act in subjection to what she ruled at the Reformation--i. e. provided in her Formularies. With all deference to you, I think that the Reformers were as likely to know what was really Catholic and primitive as you are; and what, accept–ing their teaching, Convocation was overruled by Divine Providence to adopt--that I receive as the voice of the Catholic Church.'

After some further observations, he proceeds:--

 'And now, my dear Pusey, let us continue to respect and love, but at the same time to understand, one another. I shall continue to oppose the corruption of one Sacrament when the grace of Baptism is denied, and the corruption of the other Sacrament when the doctrine of the Mass is introduced. I shall contend against Romanism in our Church, as well as against Evangelicalism. You may do, and your friends at St. Saviour' s, as you think proper. My people will be warned, and that is enough for me. As by my carelessness they have been exposed to danger, I must be doubly diligent on this point....

 'I repeat it. Take your stand openly against me at St. Saviour' s, and I shall be the greatest of all possible friends with you all. We can go down and hold conference with the officers in an enemy' s army, as was often done in the late war. But I cannot permit light and dark–ness, sweet and bitter, to be confounded, and whether the light and the sweet be with me or the good folks of St. Saviour' s, I must proclaim that the difference between us is on essentials. Ward is not loyal to the Church of England. He has himself told me and written to me that to the Church of England he could not defer. He is, therefore, to me a heretic.

                                              'Yours affectionately,

                                                                     'W. F. HOOK.'

In the postscript to this letter, Hook formally states his complaint against Pusey:--

 'And what do I complain of? I complain of your building a church and getting a foot in my parish to propagate principles which I detest--having come under the plea of assisting me to propagate the prin–ciples I uphold: I complain of your having selected one to oppose me and my principles who approached me as a friend, and who now admits that in so doing he did wrong, and that before he undertook to oppose me by causing a division in Leeds, he ought to have reflected that he was not the proper person to have been your agent. I have said to him and he has wept--Et tu Brute?

 'It is really cruel, mere Jesuitism, thus to misrepresent the injured party--the party injured through an excess of charity, as the perse–cuting party. It is wicked.

 'Now that you declare open war you will find me liberal enough; but while you were stabbing me under the fifth rib with a smile I had a right to speak out. Oh! Pusey, do seek for simplicity of mind--but even here I am charitable: I hope you are deceived.'

There was no doubt at bottom a theological difference between Hook and Pusey. Pusey thought that the appeal of the Church of England at the Reformation to antiquity was to be taken seriously; Hook practically regarded it only as a useful controversial weapon against the Church of Rome. If the Church of England appealed to antiquity, so Pusey argued, she meant antiquity to be studied and followed by her children; Hook maintained that the ideas of the Reformers about antiquity were practically final, and that to differ from them was disloyal to the Church of England. Thus they read the ancients with different eyes: Pusey desired to know exactly what they meant and to follow it; Hook was willing to agree with the Fathers so far as they were in agreement with the Re–formers of the sixteenth century. Pusey had no doubt that on such grave subjects as the Papal claims or the cultus of the Blessed Virgin Mary, antiquity, honestly cross-questioned, was distinctly favourable to the Anglican position; although there were other subjects, such as prayers for the faithful departed, or the Eucharistic Sacri–fice, as to which the English Church does not speak with the clearness of primitive antiquity. Hook thought that Anglican silence involved a prohibition of primitive doc–trine. Pusey was convinced that it ought to be interpreted by the appeal of our Reformation to antiquity, and that single divines were at liberty to go beyond English formu–laries in this direction, so long as they did not contradict any explicit statements.

He therefore could hardly accept Hook' s language as to the documents of the Reformation being practically infallible and irreformable. After elaborating his own belief, he continues:--

 'Forgive me, my dear friend: I know, in your love for the Church of England, it pains you if it be not thought perfect; yet others may, with good George Herbert, sigh over that in  " the second Reforma–tion which did not reach the first" and yet be true sons of the Church of England.'

He then adds, with reference to matters at Leeds:--

 'You talk about fighting, protesting, Popery, &c. I really do not know what you are fighting about, what you wish to protest against. The Breviary was never used, the English Lives of the Saints was withdrawn the little book on the Holy Eucharist is before the Bishop.

Surely, since the appeal has been made to the Bishop things may be left with him. St. Saviour' s is (as you intended by the Act you pro–cured) a distinct cure. You are no more responsible for St. Saviour' s than for London. True, it was built because you wished it, and, out of love for you, there rather than elsewhere. Yet, legally, you gave no consent to its being built. it was built under an Act for building Churches, without leave of the incumbent. You have diminished your income (God be praised Who put it into your mind) and your responsibilities too. You and I, I imagine, have no further responsibility as to St. Saviour' s. It is with the Bishop. But I do hope well, and that you will find hereafter, that St. Saviour' s has taken from you a heavy weight, 6000 souls, and will not prove a thorn to you.

 'It makes my heart bleed to see all this division; when I had hoped that much good would be done both by this and the Church of All Saints, and another, which will be the fruits of St. Saviour' s.  " O pray for the peace of Jerusalem," and, I speak in deep, real earnest, that God will forgive me those sins, for which what I had hoped to be to His glory, seems to become an occasion of further division.'

Hook had his rejoinder :--

                                                               Nov. 18, 1846.

 'You tell me I have no more to do with St. Saviour' s than with London. Be it so. But if my neighbour has a hornet' s nest close to my garden gates, and my children are likely to be stung by them, I must ask him to remove the nest or I send to the constable. And if there be Romanizing at St. Saviour' s I shall send to the Right Reverend Constable--come what will.'

After discussing Pusey' s statement that St. Saviour' s was built under an Act of Parliament, and after pointing out that, had he chosen to do so, he could have built the church himself, Hook proceeds:--

 'I must beg to inform you that I am not a Cranmerite--neither can I look upon our Reformation as you do. It seems to me to be the Low Church view. I receive the Formularies as reformed by Convoca–tions of the English Church--the last Reformation being in 1662. I am glad to know that the Reformers in all the Convocations took for their principle the Bible and the Primitive Church. They knew what was best. They acted under Divine guidance, and I wish not to go beyond them. I do not think the Church of England perfect, and if a Convocation is called to carry on the Reformation further, I shall probably take my place, if elected as a proctor, on the Reform benches.'

It is not necessary to quote more than the conclusion of Pusey' s reply.

[Nov. 19, 1846].

It is not for me to dissuade you from appealing to the Bishop as to St. Saviour' s whenever there is real ground for it. But, my dear friend, you must know full well that the major part of what we hear is a lie.  'Fama rnendax'  urges Tertullian, when people believed lies about Christians. I never heard a story about myself which I did not know to be more or less a lie. . . . But again, it is very different to tell the Right Reverend Father of a diocese and to warn people against a church. If he on closer inspection pronounces the supposed hornets to be bees, even if the honey be not quite of the same colour and taste as yours; yet still if he allows them to get their honey where they will, or to make it, why then you must be quiet, and not say that the honey is poison. We are forbidden by a wise Canon to preach against neighbours'  sermons, without first going to the Bishop. What else is it to warn people either publicly or privately against St. Saviour' s? I am sure one cannot be too cautious about what one repeats. What if one should have sown dissension, by repeating unwittingly of a brother what is untrue?

God bless you ever.                    

                       Yours very affectionately,

                                                          E. B. P.

I wish you could have provided all Leeds with churches without any help from me. If churches are built even out of envy and strife I hope God will overrule it to good.

Hook replied:--

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

MY DEAR FRIEND,                                                                            Vicarage, Leeds, Nov. 20, 1846.

As I have no time to waste in special pleading, I shall tell you what I shall do.

Knowing St. Saviour' s to be a semi-papal colony, however careful the clergy there may be to keep within the letter of the law, I shall take an early opportunity, and I expect one soon to offer, of speaking of it as I think, and so of disconnecting it in men' s minds from Leeds.

I must warn persons against having any connexion with the estab–lishment there, because it was through my blindness that the church was permitted to be built; and I am, therefore, in duty bound to prevent the mischief from extending further. The affliction and curse hath befallen me because of my sins--but these sheep, what have they done?

That I shall repudiate St. Saviour' s is decided--how will depend on circumstances.

Do not write upon this subject any more, for it is useless. When I compare your defence of St. Saviour' s with what goes on there, you only make me the more suspicious. You are either incorrectly informed, or you have got into the habit of defending a cause. I am not going to argue with you. If you are, as you say you are, agreed with me in principle, instead of writing, you will set to work to eradi–cate Romanism at St. Saviour' s. If in your attempt to do so you fail, then we shall be in the same boat. I do not care for what men say: I look to what they do. What you have done is to send Romanizers here--one of them the friend of some of the late perverts;--if guided or in ignorance, try to prevail upon them to resign. Undo what you have done, or at least attempt it. If you either cannot or will not, do not write any more. All you can say is that you think that they are not Romanizers--and all I can say is that, as I know them to be Romanizers, I shall warn all men of the danger of touching pitch.

As to yourself--you tell me that our principles are the same. I rejoice to hear it, as I, of course, believe mine to be right.

                                    Yours affectionately,

                                                           W. F. HOOK.

Bennett writes me word that Dodsworth' s three curates are going over to Rome. How long before the clergy of St. Saviour' s will follow them?

Pusey was ready to break off the correspondence about St. Saviour' s as Hook desired.

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

MY DEAR FRIEND,                                                                                 Christ Church, Nov. 21, 1846.

Once more, do not hastily believe reports. Mr. Bennett' s information is inaccurate. One of Dodsworth' s curates, Gordon, has left him: the other two have not, and have no intention of doing so. When will there be an end of circulating groundless reports?

I shall not trouble you again, in private, about St. Saviour' s. But let me earnestly ask you this. You say  'this affliction and curse'  and your previous  'blindness'  befell you  'because of your sins.'  Then let us humble ourselves and pray God to guide us. I hope to do so, and especially this Advent, and you will pray for me. And you, my dear friend, while you attribute the building of St. Saviour' s to your sins, do not seem even to suspect that your vehement excitability, and hard judgements of others and readiness to believe evil of them, can be in part from the same infirmities.

I have no reason to fear lest Ward and his friends should leave us. But your (forgive me) intolerance is enough to disturb any one who is not firmly settled. Do let us humble ourselves, and remember the Judgement Day when we must give account of all our acts and words and want of charity and  'believing evil,'  and pray God to  'guide our feet into the way of peace.'

Will you use with me the Seven Penitential Psalms daily and give yourself wholly to God to guide you, not forestall what it ought to be? Anything done against St. Saviour' s will shake very many hearts through the kingdom.

Farewell.

                                   Yours affectionately,

                                                             E. B. PUSEY.

There can be no doubt that Hook was better informed than Pusey as to the drift of Ward' s mind. If Hook was too suspicious to be always capable of an equitable judgment, Pusey was too sanguine to be accurate in his estimate of what men, whom he loved and trusted, were likely to do. The day before Pusey last heard from Hook, he received a letter from Ward, which showed that there was more reason than he had supposed for anxiety as to Ward' s position as regards the English Church.

The Bishop meanwhile had decided on the matters sub–mitted to him. He took exception to the particular form in which Ward had stated the Eucharistic Sacrifice and Presence, and he desired Mr. Macmullen to retract the assertion that the Blessed Virgin intercedes,--a retractation for which it surely would be difficult to allege authority either from Scripture or the formularies of the Church of England: Hook, in the meanwhile, made up his mind that the present administration of St. Saviour' s must come to an end. On his return from Bishopthorpe, where he had been on a visit, he wrote to Pusey as follows

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

MY DEAR PUSEY,                                                                               Vicarage, Leeds, Dec. 12, 1846.

1 call upon you in the name of God most solemnly, to persuade Ward to resign, to withdraw Macmullen and Case, and to give the patronage of St. Saviour' s to the Bishop.

This, after serious reflection, I am convinced is the only way in which you can make reparation for the mischief which you have, unintentionally, done to the cause of Christianity in Leeds.

If you refuse to act on this solemn appeal made to you in the name of our God and Saviour, we must labour for Ward' s suspension, and the Bishop, having sequestered the living, will I trust place a man there who will do his duty.

You have made me a truly wretched man. What my course ought to be, whether to leave Leeds or not, I do not yet know.

Yours still affectionately, in the hopes that you will take the honest straightforward course I have pointed out.

                   W. F. HOOK.

Before Pusey' s reply could reach Hook an incident had occurred which put an end to any friendly relation between Ward and the Vicar of Leeds. On December 15, Hook delivered a lecture at the Leeds Church Institution on  'The Three Reformations, Lutheran, Roman, Anglican,'  by way of making his own position clear in the eyes of his parishioners. A scene which took place at the close of his lecture is thus described by himself, in a more than usually vehement letter to Pusey.

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

[Dec. 19, 1846.]

Mr. Ward came out of St. Saviour' s parish into the parish of Leeds on Tuesday, and after I had read a lecture to my parishioners on the Via Media, attacked me with a fierceness which nothing but a doubt of his sanity at the time could justify, exhibiting a specimen of a want of recollectedness and self-control not creditable to your party. But I have forgiven him, and he saw, I hope, his error. He then publicly asserted that in vindicating the Via Media I was opposing principles for which the clergy of St. Saviour' s were responsible. They have not only, on this ground, shaken the faith of persons unfortunately con–nected with them, but in spite of the Homilies they proclaim that it is sinful to speak against the Church of Rome. But when I say this, I know that I shall be silenced by special pleading.

But now comes a point on which no special pleading can be avail–able. Mr. Ward deliberately declares, and has written to me stating the fact, that he and the clergy of St. Saviour' s were sent to Leeds for the purpose of opposing my principles: that my principles of the Via Media are precisely those which they are commissioned to oppose more strongly than the Evangelical. On my remonstrating with him on the impropriety of a person like himself; under many obligations to me, and always having expressed gratitude--taking a situation for the very purpose of opposing me in my own parish--he has been overwhelmed with grief, and says that such is the fact, though he cannot justify it.

Now, dear Pusey, did I deserve this at your hands? I have stood by you when you were, as I thought, misrepresented and persecuted: I have placed my own character in jeopardy as a sound Anglican to defend you. And you repay me by approaching me as a friend, offering to obtain a new church for me--in my parish--while all the while you were organizing a plan to oppose me!! Is this acting like a Christian? Is this (which I had strong grounds to suspect long since, but which is now not only admitted but proclaimed) conduct that can be justified by any but a Jesuit? Do not mistake me--I do not think you are a Jesuit; but I believe you to be under the influence of Jesuits. Your own representatives here say as much; they seem to admit that you were only the puppet while others pulled the strings.

You say that if you cannot carry all your points against the Bishop many will leave the Church of England. This is a thing to be desired. The men at St. Saviour' s, if honest men, must leave the Church of England; and I suspect now that they are prohibited from serving Rome through the Church of England, they will do so. Whether you ought to go, I cannot take upon myself to say.

You must not wonder at my not signing myself yours affectionately.

                                                                                         W. F. HOOK.

Pusey could but immediately deny, with the most solemn emphasis, any intention of offering the slightest opposition to the great work which Hook was doing at Leeds.

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

MY DEAR FRIEND,                                                                                  Christ Church, Dec. 20, 1846.

I am just returned from the Ordination and Holy Communion. I only write this line to say that what you tell me about Ward' s being sent to oppose you, is wholly unintelligible to me. I never dreamt of anything of the kind. The one object for which I selected Ward was as a laborious parish priest; who, I hoped, would lead a self-denying strict life, and practise the Cross he preached. I had not one thought of controversy or of anything but of souls being won to Christ. You will recollect how carefully I avoided any topic of controversy, in preaching myself, at Leeds.

I had not a thought of opposing you, but of carrying on the same work you were doing. There must be some terrible mistake, but wherein it has arisen I know not. You and Ward do not seem able to understand one another. However, before God, at Whose Altar I have just been, and Whose Presence I hope I know, I never had even the remotest thought of opposing you in Leeds or anywhere else, either when I asked Ward to accept the charge of St. Saviour' s or at any subsequent time, nor, in recommending any whom I did recom–mend, did I act from any other motive, or had any bye-end in view, except simply to send persons who, I believed, would give themselves wholly to the work of their ministry. To have done as you think I have done, would, of course, have been rank hypocrisy. I would have come to Leeds to explain; only now, my being there would make matters worse.

                                 Yours affectionately,

                                                             E. B. P.

P.S. I hold Ward' s teaching [in his tract on the Holy Eucharist] as Patristic and not against our Formularies.

On Christmas Eve, Hook wrote once more, and much to the same effect as before.

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

Dec. 24, 1846.

Ward has let my people know that his principles and mine are wide as the poles asunder. This known, when the St. Saviour' s people go over to Rome, which I hope they will do soon, persons worthy of con–sideration will see that it has not been the result of my teaching: for the abuse of names I care not a straw, but I am bound to take care that my usefulness here is not interrupted. And so, my good Pusey, let us forgive and forget, and after this Christmas Eve let us only remember that we have agreed to differ, and that we will love as differing friends.    

Yours still affectionately,

                          W. F. HOOK.

A blessing to you this Christmas. Depend upon it you are mistaken in Macmullen.

On this point Hook was right. If he expressed himself with unguarded vehemence, he took the measure of men more accurately than Pusey. Still, it is probable that at St. Saviour' s, Hook, by his vehemence, helped in some degree to precipitate the result which they both deplored. Whether the secession could have been ultimately prevented it is useless to inquire: as a matter of fact it was precipitated.

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

Vicarage, Leeds, December 30, 1846.

You are aware by this time that Macmullen and his dupes have gone over to the Mother of Abominations, guilty of the deadly sins of heresy and schism.

Ward and Case remain, I suppose to make more dupes: though strong measures must be taken on my part. I cannot permit a church and establishment to remain in Leeds for the destruction of souls without seeking to abate the nuisance.

I called upon you most solemnly in the Name of the Great God to persuade Ward to resign, and to withdraw your other people. It is now too late to do this entirely, but if you have any sense of honour or of justice you should withdraw Ward and give the presentation to the Bishop.

I must take steps to denounce you and your followers as being my opinion heretics.

I regard you as such from your last letter. If your view of the Eucharist be not that taken by the Church of England, instead of bending your own spirit to the Church, you must, as you say, leave the Church. .

And so farewell. I believe you will be sorry for the incalculable mischief of which you have been the cause: not so your advisers.

                                        W. F. HOOK.

On Jan. 1, 1847, Mr. Macmullen and two laymen from St. Saviour' s were admitted into the Church of Rome. Had it been possible for Pusey to go and help towards quieting minds at St. Saviour' s, it would have been, on account, desirable that he should have done so. But, as matters stood, his presence in Leeds would only have embittered the breach with Hook; and with char–acteristic unselfishness, Charles Marriott, as one of the trustees of St. Saviour' s, placed himself at Pusey' s disposal to be sent to Leeds whenever Pusey wished. Marriott seems at once to have appreciated with accuracy how serious the situation was. His singularly calm and penetrating mind was less liable than Pusey' s to that disturbance of the judgment which strong affections often involve; and men who were awed into reserve by Pusey' s position and character, often showed themselves to Marriott in some light which allowed him to see the real state of the case.

On Jan. 7 he went to Leeds, and on the next day, before seeing Hook, reported to Pusey as follows:--

 'St. Saviour' s, Leeds, Jan. 8, 1847.

 'There was more to complain of here than you thought for, through Macmullen' s indiscretion (to say the least). And at last, the state of things being what it was, the Bishop was right in strongly pressing his removal. I shall know more before I see you, but I must also say that I am convinced Ward is unequal to his post, and can only be safe here with a man able to lead him in a wise and quiet course. I still deprecate his resigning at present, because it'  would shock so many, and might harm himself.'

That same evening Marriott saw Hook. Hook told him that St. Saviour' s was a nursery of Romanism. Ward must resign, and the presentation be placed in the hands of the Bishop. Hook  'wished to be considered henceforth an opponent not only of Romanism but of Puseyism.'  Marriott' s real trouble was to get at the facts.  'I am most puzzled,'  he wrote to Pusey,  'by flat contradictions about what Ward has himself said.'  Hook' s information was second or third hand; and he was too excited to review it critically.  ' Hook,'  wrote Marriott,  'is so hasty in conversation that I do not report him to have said what he has not said twice or three times, and under strict, questioning.'  When Marriott subjected Ward to what would appear to have been a severe cross-examination, he could discover in Ward' s memory no trace of some of the most irritating things which he was reported to have said. But he also had spoken on the impulse of the moment; and there can be no doubt that his memory was largely at fault.

The result of Marriott' s mission to Leeds was that Ward agreed to resign St. Saviour' s. It went sorely against Marriott' s inclination to advise this course; but he thought that with a more patient and less variable man, the trustees might ho e to  'quench calumny by lack of fuel.'  Marriott saw the Bishop of Ripon, who was of course much pleased at the resignation. But Mr. Ward' s own parishioners were by no means satisfied. It is not often that a year' s work can command such an expression of confidence and affection as that whereby  322 communicants of St. Saviour' s endeavoured to persuade the Bishop not to accept Mr. Ward' s resignation.

 'During the whole period,'  they plead,  'that Mr. Ward has had the charge of us, we have never heard from him either in public or private any teaching which would induce us to join the Roman communion, or tend in any degree to shake our confidence in our Mother the Church of England; and we beg most respectfully to state our deep conviction, that by the removal of Mr. Ward from ministering among us, whenever it may occur, we shall be deprived of a blessing and a privilege which will not easily be replaced.'

But the Bishop was inexorable. Mr. Ward had  'weakly yielded to sinister influences' ; and had  'attempted to establish at St. Saviour' s a system foreign to the spirit of our Church.'  In such cases it would be unfair to scan too closely the terms in which Bishops announce the decisions at which they have arrived.

Pusey' s next letter to Hook is a very generous acknow–ledgment of his own share in these troubles.

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

Feb. [5], 1847.

I own myself quite mistaken about Macmullen, and that I did much mischief in sending him to Leeds. It will happen to one that one sees one side of a person only, i. e. that he involuntarily shows one side only. It has been indeed (as I wrote word to the Bishop) a severe warning not to recommend for any important place any one who had been seriously shaken as to the English Church. I be–lieve still that Macmullen did go to Leeds honestly meaning to preach the truth only, but that he and Wilk[inson] mutually unsettled each other....

About Case, my dear friend, I was not mistaken.

I think about Ward you were right so far, that it was of importance that he should have good Anglicans about him, and his mistake in one or two instances was in following the wishes of others instead of ruling them. Macmullen took the lead (as being intellectually a superior person) in a way that he ought not.

One of my greatest sorrows about the past is, that as far as I have contributed to the confusion by recommending Macmullen, it has involved the failure of Ward in a place to which he clings affection–ately, and where he might have been eminently useful...

                                E. B. P.

 

Hook was again as affectionate as ever. He was perhaps  'making an idol of his parish,'  and he  'accepted the punish–ment'  which St. Saviour' s had inflicted on him  'with gratitude.'  He had good hopes.

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

Feb. 6, 1847.

Let the past be buried in oblivion. Let us all be more prudent for the future.... The chief damage done to me is one in which you cannot sympathize. I have lost the confidence of the good old Church and King men, who used to support me because they thought me a supporter of our constitution in Church and State. They have fought my battles; they have felt disgraced by the late proceedings; and henceforth they will adhere to the Evangelicals. . .. It has been by the support of these men that I have advanced, and of late years it has been chiefly from them that I have made converts to godliness. May God bless you, my dear friend.

It might have been hoped that peace was fully re-estab–lished between Pusey and Hook. But further correspon–dence having been necessitated by complications, in part the result of the secessions at St. Saviour' s, Hook' s excitable spirit could not refrain from replying in the following terms :-- ' I deserve,'  he wrote to Pusey,  'the worst sus–picions; and no one can be blamed for suspecting me to be a Romanizer and a Jesuit because I allowed myself to appear as a friend of yours.'  After a letter of singular vehemence he ended by declining all further private correspondence. Pusey of course could not answer this letter. But within three weeks Hook himself re-opened private correspondence with Pusey, to claim £212--the balance of the collection at the Consecration of St. Saviour' s, of which he said Ward had  'defrauded'  the church by placing it in Pusey' s hands, while he himself, as Vicar of Leeds, ought to have had control of it. In order to recover this sum he threatened proceedings in the Ecclesiastical Courts immediately after Easter. Hook added:--

March 15, 1847.

Since I wrote last things have taken a turn here. All my people have rallied round me; the Bishop is quietly putting down the Evangelicals, and we shall all be prepared, to make our stand against any one whom you and Ward may send to head what you must pardon me for calling the faction which was formed at St. Saviour' s.

Yours truly,

      W. F. HOOK.

As to the £212 Pusey' s explanation was complete. Before the service at the Consecration, Hook had given up his legal claim on the collection to Ward. The £212 had been placed in the offertory, on behalf of another person, by Pusey himself; and the money, with the Bishop of Ripon' s consent, was being retained for a chapel in St. Saviour' s parish. Pusey added characteristically:--

 'If you, notwithstanding your consent on the faith of which I put in the £212, claim it and the Bishop approves, I will pay you £212 out of my own income, involved as I am. £212 is not a sum to quarrel about, much less after so many years.'

For the rest, Pusey was

 'very thankful to hear of the turn things had taken, or rather which I hope God has given them. I was deeply pained at the persecution which Jackson told me you were undergoing.'

Hook dropped his vehemence without changing his tone of suspicion and defiance. He was satisfied on being assured that the money would go to build a church in Leeds. He frankly told Pusey, however, that he must view with distrust any one whom Pusey might appoint to the incumbency of St. Saviour' s. A burnt child, he said, dreads the fire.

The condition of things at St. Saviour' s in February, i847, is thus described by Pusey to Keble

 'Feb. 3, 1847.

 'St. Saviour' s is a complete wreck. The daily service given up, and [the services] only precariously supplied on Sunday by a clergyman of another church, who must be soon worn out, if this goes on. Now the sick are not visited; the children not taught; no one can take charge of them.'

Keble had suggested several names. He advised Pusey to apply to some one whose name would not be associated with their own;  'some Cambridge man, or some one from St. Columba' s.'  He added,  'I almost think I would rather let Hook and the Bishop nominate, than incur any serious chance of another outbreak.'  All the persons of whom Pusey had at first thought had failed him: Mr. George Williams, of King' s College, Cambridge; Mr. J. H. Pollen, of Merton College, Oxford; Mr. Hickley, of Trinity College, Oxford; and others.

Pusey then fell back on one of whom he had thought at first, the Rev. A. P. Forbes, of Brasenose College, Oxford. Pusey had heard that Mr. Forbes was to be offered some work at St. Augustine' s, Canterbury. On finding that this was not the case, he offered St. Saviour' s to Mr. Forbes, who began his work there on Trinity Sunday, May 31, 1847. But the new Vicar did not remain long enough at Leeds to justify Pusey' s choice. He soon entered on that distinguished career which will be remembered as that of the man who in piety and learning stands first among the modern Bishops of the Church of Scotland.

St. Saviour' s brought Pusey into trouble with many other persons besides Hook. He asked the Bishop of Ripon to allow Mr. Case to remain at St. Saviour' s; and was met by a peremptory refusal, accompanied by a stern reference to  'the danger of the course which'  Pusey  'had been long pursuing.'  He begged Archdeacon Churton to pray with him that the appointment of a successor to Mr. Ward may be to the glory of God, and to the saving of men' s souls, and to tell him if he knew of any simple self-denying (unmarried) priest who would labour to gather in his Master' s lost sheep, and preach energetically from the heart to the heart, without technicality or undue love of ceremonial.  'I am very anxious,'  Pusey added,'  that Ward' s successor should be one in whom the Bishop could place confident.'  Archdeacon Churton' s reply must have shown Pusey how isolated he was at this moment.  'I will be no part' ,'  he wrote,  'not even by a prayer, to an appointment which is to be made, as it now seems, in contrariety to Hook' s wishes. I will therefore only pray that you may be directed to see clearly what the present exigency does really require.'  In a second letter Archdeacon Churton makes an earnest appeal to Pusey to turn the tables on his calumniators, and right himself in the eyes of all true Anglicans, by resigning the patronage, either altogether or for this turn to the Bishop. But Pusey could not do this. He was pledged to the plan of a college of priests at St. Saviour' s; and although the Bishop would allow him to attempt this on his own responsibility, Pusey had good reason to think that the Bishop would not himself appoint a man who would be favourable to it. Indeed he had been told that the Bishop  'thought daily service a loss of time in a large parish' : what then would become of the fuller devotional life which it was desirable that an associated body of clergy should lead?

Pusey also asked Archdeacon Manning to suggest a new incumbent  'who could, ever so slowly, build up St. Saviour' s after this hurricane from the desert which has swept all away.'  Pusey added,  'It is heartbreaking, but one must not choose one' s own chastisements.'  Manning was ready to try to find a man for the vacant post. But his reflec–tions on the import of what had happened could not but add to Pusey' s distress.

ARCHDEACON MANNING TO E. B. P.

Jan. 23, 1847.

As to the Leeds event I have felt very truly to share in your disappointment and distress--(yet, my dear friend, is heartbreaking a word of the Church ?--I know you only used it esoterically to me)-- and, indeed, I regard it as a real disaster to us all. I almost fear to say what my thoughts are about it Lest I should seem to censure, or should renew your pain. It appears to me to bring out many sad facts, such as the real disunion among those who were united--I mean Hook, and your friends--the real change of Hook' s tone--and the im–possibility of uniting with him on the basis he had laid down in his late lecture, &c. All this reinforces those who desire to depose both him and others from all public respect. And I cannot but feel that such events happening one by one at the Altars which have stood as chief signs to be spoken against, do reasonably throw upon the whole body of men we most hold with a public imputation of uncertainty, and secret unsteadiness. I cannot wonder that great and extensive mistrust has grownup.

You know how long I have to you openly expressed my conviction that a false position has been taken up in the Church of England. The direct and certain tendency, I believe, of what remains of the original Movement is to the Roman Church. You know the minds of men about us better than I do, and will therefore know both how strong an im–pression the claims of Rome have made on them; and how feeble and fragmentary are the reasons on which they have made a sudden stand or halt in the line on which they have been, perhaps insensibly, moving for years.

It is also clear that they are  'revising the Reformation' : that the doctrine, ritual, and practice of the Church of England, taken at its best, does not suffice them: that the theology of Andrewes, Thorndike, Overall, and Bp. Forbes is too strait for them. All this proves to me that the waters have overpassed the bounds of the Church of England taken at any time since Henry VIII. Of course all this would be found variously and in various measures in various minds--no three exactly agreeing together--which is a chief danger.

I say all this not in faultfinding but in sorrow. How to help to heal it I do not pretend to say.

One thing, I trust, will be done. I mean, that no men may be sent to St. Saviour' s as to the Infirmary. It is a work too great and good to be risked for the sake of any individual minds.

I. fear this letter will add heavy thoughts to you, but how can we be free from them?

May all peace and strength be with you--my dear friend.

                                                       Ever yours affectionately,

                                                                                H. B. MANNING.

As was suggested at the commencement of this chapter, the troubles at St. Saviour' s were typical of the difficulties that beset the Church Revival at this moment. It had stirred forces the right guidance of which was a task of no slight difficulty. Some of the young, ardent, unbalanced'  minds which were influenced by it were in continual danger of following Newman' s example. Older and abler adherents, like Manning and Churton, were watching anxiously, but with widely different feelings, to see what would be the final outcome of the Movement. The Bishop of Ripon and Dr. Hook, being themselves in authority, could not but be influenced by the vast mass of excited and suspicious Puri–tanism with which they had to deal; and, not entirely at one with Pusey on theological principles, they failed to distinguish his present attitude from the general Roman–izing position. Pusey, meanwhile, was endeavouring, with his usual patience and loyalty, to vindicate the Catholic traditions of the English Church, about which he had himself never seriously hesitated.

It is satisfactory to reflect that, after the troubles and losses of the next few years, the principles which Pusey maintained had vindicated their claim within the English Church; and Archbishop Longley, Dean Hook, and Dr. Pusey were found working side by side in strengthening and building up the Church to which they were all alike devoted.

 

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