CHAPTER V.

 

NEWMAN' S REPLY TO THE FIRST EIRENICON--DEATH

OF MR. KEBLE--ROMAN CATHOLIC COLLEGE AT

OXFORD--CHOLERA IN BETHNAL GREEN--BISHOP

FORBES'  EXPLANATION OF XXXIX ARTICLES--

PRO–POSED VATICAN COUNCIL--ANGLICAN ORDERS-- THE SECOND EIRENICON--APPENDIX: LETTERS ON TRANSUBSTANTIATION.

 

1866--1867.

 

As soon as Pusey returned from his second visit to France, in the middle of January, 1866, he received a copy of the printed Letter which Newman had told him he was pre–paring. It would be out of place here to recapitulate the details of the line of argument taken in this reply, for it is now well known that they were dictated by the difficulties which arose from the internal dissensions of the English Roman Catholics, not less than by Pusey' s project of Reunion. But so far as concerns Pusey' s book Newman explained that he felt obliged to answer it, partly because of its allusions and supposed allusions to him, and partly because it treated Faber and Ward as if they were repre–sentative English Roman Catholics. With regard to these well-known writers, Newman said that however much they might be personally respected,  'the plain fact is, they came to the Church and have thereby saved their souls; but they are is no sense spokesmen of English Catholics.'

Newman' s gravest charge was aimed at the way in which Pusey dealt with the practical system of the Roman Church on the subject of the Blessed Virgin. He objected that Pusey did not state his own opinion or that of the early Fathers on this subject: and that the quotations which he held up to reprobation were nearly all taken from foreign books, sometimes from books which Newman himself had never seen, and which contained sentiments quite unfamiliar to him until he read the Eirenicon.  'I do not,'  he says,  'speak of these statements as they are found in their authors, for I know nothing of the originals, and cannot believe that they have meant what you say; but I take them as they lie in your pages. They seem to me like a bad dream. I could not conceive them to be said.'  At the same time he complained that Pusey had given only a one-sided view of the Roman teaching about the Blessed Virgin, in a manner which was little suited to win the sympathy of Roman Catholics.  'There was,'  he said,  'one of old time who wreathed his sword in myrtle; excuse me--you discharge your olive branch as if from a catapult.'

Rarely has rhetorical skill been more ingeniously employed than in this half-playful banter. The expression about  'the catapult'  lives in memory more easily than the rest of the controversy; but its injustice is generally over–looked. Pusey had certainly laid, bare without reserve the serious defects in popular Romanism; for, as has already been said, it would have been useless to approach the question of Reunion without frankly stating the great obstacles which some Roman teaching had put in its way. But Newman' s epigram cleverly diverted attention from the fact that the sting lay in the obstacles themselves and not in their enumeration. However, in acknowledging the Letter, Pusey contented himself with assuring Newman that, except in direct quotations, he had no personal reference to him in the Eirenicon. He added that he had habitually looked upon him as a exception to the rule that  'converts'  go further in the way of extreme opinion than old Catholics.  'I got your  " Letter,”'  he adds,  'on my return from the cathedral, where in celebrat–ing the Holy Eucharist I had been praying for union.

This led Newman to explain that he had honestly intended in his Letter to meet Pusey' s challenge that members of the Church of Rome should come forward and say that they did not accept the extreme statements about the Blessed Virgin which Pusey had quoted. But in doing this, he had had to state his  'whole mind,'  and explain the points in the  'Eirenicon'  with which he could not agree. So far, however, Newman' s  'Letter'  was a real justification of Pusey' s demand for some kind of authoritative repudiation of extreme language; but its open hostility to the domi–nant form of Roman teaching brought no little trouble upon the writer from his  'co-religionists'  in England. These attacks naturally drew out an expression of Pusey' s sincere sympathy; at the same time he asked him to join in the common use of prayer for the reunion of Christendom. Manning had objected to any union in prayer, but Mgr. Dupanloup had promised to circulate for use in his diocese the forms of devotion which were being used by some mem–bers of the English Church. Newman replied as follows:--

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

The Oratory, Birmingham, April 2, 1866.

...       Thank you for your sympathy about the attacks on me--but you have enough upon yourself to be able to understand that they have no tendency to annoy one--and on the other hand are a proof that one is doing a work. I hail the article in the Times with great satisfaction as being the widest possible advertisement of me. I never should be surprised at its comments being sent by some people to Rome, as authoritative explanations of my meaning, wherever they are favourable to me. The truth is, that certain views have been suffered. without a word, till their maintainers have begun to fancy that they are de fide--and they are astonished and angry beyond measure, when they find that silence on the part of others was not acquiescence, indiffer–ence or timidity, but patience. My own Bishop and Dr. Clifford, and I believe most of the other Bishops are with me. And I have had letters from the most important centres of theology and of education through the country, taking part with me. London, however, has for years been oppressed with various incubi; though I cannot forget, with great gratitude, that two years ago as many as a hundred and ten priests of the Westminster diocese, including all the Canons, the Vicars-general, the Jesuits, and other Orders, went out of their way (and were the first to do so) to take my part, before the  'Apologia'  appeared.

I am sorry the Jesuits are so fierce against you. They have a notion that you are not exact in your facts, and it has put their backs up, but we are not so exact ourselves, as to be able safely to throw stones.

As to union in prayer, it is not allowed. Not that it is positively unlawful, but any application to Rome is answered in the negative. The Jesuits used to allow converts to go to family prayers in Anglican houses :--whether they do so now, I do not know: but I have heard those, who had received leave, express their regret afterwards that they had availed themselves of it, under the feeling that the practice bad put them in a false position, as regards their friends, out of which they could not get without innicting pain. And most people feel that it is honestest and most straightforward, not to smooth over difficulties which really exist.

What is prayer but communion? to pray together is to be in the same Communion. If the two bodies form one Communion, all controversy ceases: differences become little more than pious opinions, or incidental defects: and for three hundred years the whole world has been under an enormous hallucination. This few people will grant: they will think it not common sense. And at Rome, as in Cardinal Patrizzi' s letter, they call it  'indifference.'

At this moment, when both Pusey and Newman were, in their respective Comrnunions, alike exposed to attack from various quarters, their dearest mutual friend Keble was lying on his deathbed at Bournemouth. He had gone there for the health of Mrs. Keble, when on March 22 he was seized with a paralytic stroke, which, after a momen–tary rally, terminated fatally a week later.  'It is to me a stunning blow,'  Pusey wrote when the news of the serious illness reached him.  'I had so hoped that we should have had him by God' s mercy, for years to come, if I should see years myself.'  On Easter Eve, on receiving the news of Keble' s death, he could only write of it that  'it is past words.'  On the Thursday following he started for the last of his many visits to Hursley to be present at the funeral. Liddon had arrived there earlier in the day, and the fol–lowing extracts from his diary will best describe the sad but eventful evening and morning that followed

 'At 8.15 we [those who had already arrived] went out on the Southampton Road to meet the hearse, coining from the Chandler' s Ford Station. It left Bournemouth at four, and came via Christ Church, Ringwood, and Bishopstoke. It was a beautiful and starlight night, and the silent movement along the road in front of the hearse, filled me with wonderful thoughts ... Dr. Pusey arrived last of all from Ampthill [? Ampfield] where he had left the Bishop of Brechin. He wishes the College at Oxford to be the Memorial, and to be called Keble College. I trust that this will be so.

 'Before going to bed, we (Dr. Pusey, I and Tom Keble) went into the Study where the Body is laid out with a Cross of white primroses stretching the entire length of the coffin, and a Cross and candles at the end. We remained there in prayer for an hour.'

On the next day, April 6, he writes:--

 'The  " Body" was taken to the Parish Church and placed in the Chancel before the early Celebration. The Celebration by Mr. Richards at 8 a.m. Afterwards I found Dr. Pusey in his bed–room ... quite overcome, unable to speak. With great difficulty could I persuade him to take any food. We went up to the Park and saw the Bishop of Salisbury, and the plan of a College at Oxford, which I bad started the night before at Hursley Vicarage, was agreed upon. It is to be called the Keble College. Matins at 11.30 followed by the actual Burial Service. The Dr. again nearly broke down when the Coffin was lowered into the grave. After the funeral a fuller meeting of ten persons at Sir W. Heathcote' s at which a series of resolutions were drawn up. I never saw Dr. Pusey so broken as to-day. He seemed to feel quite terribly the weight of responsibility which had devolved on him. I had much talk with Butler of Wantage.'

As soon as he returned from the funeral, Pusey wrote briefly to Newman.  'The Church was full of mourners, as you will think. But there is nothing to add. For he was away.. . . When he was wandering, he spoke of the re–union of the Churches, and I think that he spoke as if he were present at it. But I will ask more accurately.'

Thus passed away the simple, retiring, holy man who had exercised more influence on the history of the English Church than any other man of his generation. Pusey and Newman naturally filled a larger space in the popular view of the Oxford Movement; but, as has already been described, Keble was  'the true and primary author'  of it.  'I compared myself with Keble,'  Newman used to say when speaking of his work before 1845,  'and felt that I was merely developing his, not my, convictions.'  Pusey also always held that the real source of the Movement was to be found in  'The Christian Year.'

More than thirty years had elapsed since these three friends had embarked on a work, which had changed the whole aspect of the English Church, and the two who were now left behind were outwardly separated by the barriers of religious differences, and in open, if friendly, conflict on matters of vital importance. They differed on that which had been the first principle of the Movement; to the one the claims of the Catholic Church seemed to give an imperative summons to complete submission to the See of Rome, while the same claims kept the other stead–fast in his allegiance to the Anglican Communion. The last meeting between the three friends in the preceding October was now remembered with special pleasure.  'I feel,'  wrote Pusey to Newman,  'that it was very good of God to bring about our meeting at his house. It is a bright spot.'  But to Pusey Keble' s death was of necessity a far more serious blow than it could have been to Newman. To the latter, except in deep personal affection, Keble had been as it were dead ever since the great separation in 1845; while to Pusey it was the loss of one who had been through–out the whole period the wise and keen-sighted counsellor and guide, the  'dearest father'  as he always addressed him in his letters. And outside the circle of these most intimate associates, his influence as an adviser, if not a guide, in all kinds of difficulties--ecelesiastical, parochial, theological, and personal--had been felt up to the end.  'When all else had been said and done, people would wait and see what came from~ Hursley before they made up their minds as to the path of duty .'

Pusey returned to his ordinary work, and his answers to Newman and the recent Pastoral of Archbishop Manning. But all went slowly; and in his loneliness he grew weary of the distasteful controversies which were inevitably stirred up by his project for Reunion. It was while he was in this frame of mind that Newman told him, in confidence, that, after all, he would probably be sent to Oxford to found a Roman Catholic College. Pusey' s reply reflec his feelings at the moment.

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

Christ Church [April 21, 1866].

Thank you for the information which you have given me. The one thing which I have desired is not to be in collision with you. Perhaps before you come, I shall be gone. A little more than four years will complete the threescore and ten.

The memorial of dearest J. K. seems likely to take the shape of a College for diligent students living simply (too of them). I took a part in promoting it. Had I known the intention of your authorities, I don' t think I could have done it, i.e. had the heart to do it.

But an unexpected work in the Long Vacation of 1866 turned for a time the whole current of his thoughts. There was then a severe visitation of cholera in the East End of London; and in the beginning of August, Pusey took a lodging at No. 18, City Road, to see if he could be of any help in tending the sick in Bethnal Green. He had intended to stay there only a week: but October finds him still writing from the same address, for he found there abundant occupation. He divided his time between working at his Answer to Newman in the British Museum and nursing his  'cousins in Spitalfields'  as he called them.

 'Those I have visited,'  he tells his brother,  'have been all such nice people--all better than I. They have been very happy visits.'  Later on he was joined by his son Philip and by the Hon. C. L. Wood, the present Lord Halifax, who stayed and helped him in his work for three months.

Dr. Sutton, the physician at the Cholera Hospital, recalls how Pusey busied himself first in establishing the Cholera Hospital, and then in visiting the patients.

DR. SUTTON TO VISCOUNT HALIFAX.

May 4, 1889.

One incident I well remember. I bad just finished, as physician, going round the wards, when he came up to me, and in his own gentle, encouraging manner, asked me how the different patients were progressing. I answered that I could not lead some Jewish patients to do what was necessary: and he smiled and said,  " I will go and speak Hebrew to them, and then perhaps ,we shall succeed better." That was only one of the many occasions in which he showed his heartfelt desire to assist in their relief.

A graphic account of some incidents in his life there, as also in a similar work at Ascot, is given in a letter to Liddon from the Rector of Bethnal Green, written soon after Pusey' s death:--

REV. S. HANSARD TO REV. H. P. LIDDON.

Rectory, Bethnal Green, Nov. 18, 1882.

In your letter to the Times you make mention of Dr. Pusey' s  'practical kindness.'

It will more than interest you to read my reminiscences of him sixteen years ago, when there came upon the East End of London what may be called a sudden explosion of cholera in a more virulent and  'plague'  like form than had hitherto been experienced in England. It became my duty as official chairman of the Vestry of Bethnal Green to seek for a building which would serve the purpose of a temporary cholera hospital.

The members of my Vestry were giving time and trouble ungrudg–ingly to the work in which I found I could give them but little substantial help.

The cholera was raging round the Parish Church and Town Hall where the Vestry, under the Rector, assembled daily. Within a few yards of the Rectory and Town Hall, there were six sudden seizures and deaths in one morning.

My curates were ill, unable to do any duty--I had been up for several nights running to two or three in the morning, attending to the sick, and more especially to the timid and fearful,--who would not go to bed for fear of  ' the pestilence that walketh in darkness.' --Wearied and at my wits'  end as to how I could possibly help my Vestry through their arduous duty, I had come down to a late breakfast at nine o' clock, when my servant announced Dr. Pusey. He had with him a letter of introduction from the Bishop (the present Arch–bishop) [Dr. Tait]. His pleasant smile, his genial manner, his hearty sympathy expressed in a manner so winning and sincere, at once intro–duced him. He needed no letter. He not only put me at my ease at once, but he made me feel at one with him directly. During breakfast he said he had heard of my working single-handed just then, and as I must give a great portion of my time to my Vestry, upon whom fell all the sanitary work of the Parish and this special work of providing doctors, medicine and hospital, &c. as well, he offered to act as my assistant Curate to visit the sick and dying whom I could not visit in my stead, and to minister to their spiritual wants. And he did so. Quietly and unobtrusively this true gentleman, this humble servant of Christ, assisted me in this most trying duty of visiting the plague-stricken homes of the poor of Bethnal Green.

But this is not all--He came with the offer of a large temporary hospital for cholera patients. Miss Sellon, the Mother Superior of that most excellent Sisterhood, the Devonport Sisters, to whose wise beneficence and unweariness in well-doing, it is a lasting pleasure to be grateful. would take charge of the hospital with her Sisters,--and so she aid; as she had done at Devonport, so she did at Bethnal Green.

Well practised skill, unremitting energy, and self-sacrifice in little as in great things, of the Devonport Sisters under the Mother Superior, and of their wise and skilful physician, Dr. Sutton, saved scores of lives which would otherwise have perished miserably, and they stayed the plague from our people. I served on the committee of the hospital with Dr. Pusey, and very often I met him at the bedside of the patients--simple, tender-hearted, and full of sympathy; he was always ready at the committee meetings with practical advice on such matters as raising and managing funds, and always cheerful, always hopeful. If the word  'sweet'  bad not become somewhat canting--I should say that there was something inexpressibly sweet in the smile and quiet laughter which so brightened his face when be was pleased and hopeful. I remember going with Dr. Sutton to Ascot hospital, previously to my writing a short appeal in the papers for that excellent institution. After our work was over the Sisters would not hear of our leaving without giving us dinner. How well I remember that simple, hospitable and comfortable meal in the picturesque guest-chamber. We were wearied and hungry, and while Miss Sellon was entertaining us, Dr. Pusey waited on us. I remonstrated and made efforts to wait on myself. No, he said, he must wait on me; when I said, perhaps somewhat conventionally, that that was an honour I must not let him pay me, he said, No, it was an honour, a pleasure to him to wait on a clergyman who, &c. &c. &c. And so he handed me the potatoes and the bread, and poured out the beer, and made it froth, and helped me to the cutlets &c. &c., smiling all the time, and saying all sorts of little playful things of kindness to us, which made us all the more refreshed and encouraged; and then he walked home with us to the station, talking with us as to the best way of supporting the Hospital in which he took so great interest, and where I am told he died.

I hope I am not wearying you with these reminiscences. I am sorry to say I can only find one letter of those I had from him, and that relates to a suggestion I made him of compiling an account or history of Sisterhoods in the English Church, such as would enlighten and encourage Churchmen.

This time last year I went to Christ Church to see Dr. Pusey. He received me with outstretched hands, shaking mine most cordially. His voice trembled with emotion as he referred to the danger I had recently incurred from a virulent attack of typhoid. I need not repeat the encouraging words he used about my ministry to the poor, past and present. I can only say that the interest he showed in the work of the Clergy of the East End of London, the sympathy he had for them in their discouraging work, and the respect and esteem he expressed for those many East-End clergymen who work on year by year without the slightest acknowledgment or recognition from any respected authority, I thought far more encouraging than all the Charges and Visitations of Bishops and Archdeacons that it had been my duty to listen to. My letter is too long or I would tell of what he said about the Atheists and the Salvation Army, which are both at work in my parish--and of his request that I would always do what I could to help the Devonport Sisters and in Ascot Hospital. His bequest to me, his last hearty shake of my hands, his last words to me, so full of sympathy and truest kindness, and the sweet expression of his face, I shall ever remember.

From this congenial work of succouring the poor and suffering, Pusey had to return to the work of controversy about the Eirenicon, which was still pressing on him. In fact the difficulties of his position were increasing daily. Current Roman gossip, claiming first-class authority, denied Pusey' s pacific intentions, and represented him as desiring only to attack Rome so as to prevent conversions; and hence the printed replies to the Eirenicon from the Roman side began to take a personal form and to be tinged with a bitterness which promised ill for peace. And this was made still worse by the widespread rumour that the Eirenicon had been placed upon the Index' . At the same time, the movement in the Convocation of Canter–bury against  'Ritualism'  was rapidly gathering force, and loud voices were identifying Pusey with the ceremonial which they denounced, openly accusing him of having written the Eirenicon as part of a conspiracy to Romanize the country. Pusey found himself between two fires. On the one hand, there was the hostility of one section of English Roman Catholics which nothing could appease; on the other, there was the unreflecting Puritanism which learns nothing and forgets nothing. The accusations which were hurled recklessly at him by these opponents, although mutually destructive and flagrantly untrue, must needs have been perplexing and galling. He laboured for peace, but when he spake unto them thereof they made them ready for battle. Yet he still pursued his plans of peace, and there is a touch of humour as well as of pathos in the allusion to both classes of his assailants, in a letter to Newman about this time.

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

May 2, 1867.

Yesterday I was in London about a new Association for prayer for the Reunion of Christendom, the well-being of the Church, especially the English. Of course R. C.' s cannot join it; but prayers which go up apart may meet in Heaven.

I saw my name  'P--ism'  on large placards carried about the streets, charging us with a  'conspiracy to bring England under the Pope.'  So the Dublin and Weekly Register might be a little more merciful. However it is all one: only I wish they loved us a little better.

Thank you for your Easter blessing. All good be with you alway.

Throughout 1867 he was engaged in helping Bishop Forbes in his  'Explanation of the Thirty-nine Articles,'  a work which was intended as a further contribution to the cause of Reunion in the way of simplifying difficulties. It followed in the main the lines of Tract XC, but Pusey revised the Bishop' s work throughout, correcting it minutely, besides himself writing the explanation of some of the Articles. He supplied almost the whole of the passages which under the head of Article XXII deal with the subject of Purgatory and the Invocation of Saints; and it was arranged that he should also contribute the section on Transubstantiation With a view to this work he had some–what earlier in the year begun to correspond with Newman on the subject…

When the book was printed, the Bishop of Brechin paid a visit to Rome, and was not a little distressed at the un–compromising attitude of those to whom he was introduced. Newman explained to Pusey that this was natural. Rome itself can only speak to individuals  'according to the strictest rules of ecclesiastical, principle and tradition' : to a large body she might perhaps lend a more appreciative ear. The right procedure for individuals, he said, is to approach the Roman Church through the Roman Bishops -in England. Pusey had had some hopes that this  'Ex–planation of the Thirty-nine Articles'  might at least win a hearing from these Bishops; but instead of this, every–thing had been done to increase difficulties rather than to soften them. He soon found that, although Roman Catholics of authority, like Newman, Lockhart, and others, were willing to listen and assist, nothing whatever could be looked for as helping towards Reunion so long as Ward used his powers as proprietor of the Dublin Review in propagating extreme Ultramontanism, and so long as Archbishop Manning was the official counsellor of the authorities at Rome.

Very different was the reception of this work by the most distinguished German theologian in the Roman Church.

DR. DOLLINGER TO BISHOP (FORBES) OF BRECHIN.

 

MY DEAR LORD BISHOP,                                                                      Munich, Oct. 5, 1868.

It is high time to let you know that I have received two months ago your second volume. I would have acknowledged your kindness before, but a lengthened absence from Munich prevented me from writing.

The impression which your work left on my mind is, that you have given the best and certainly the most Catholic Commentary on the Articles. I wish only that it may be read, or rather studied and pondered in wide circles.

I think, and by several communications I am confirmed in the opinion, that the binding authority of those Articles, which were evidently framed to favour or to introduce the Protestant system, will be weakened, loosened, more and more, and that the rising generation of the clergy of England will not be prevented by those three or four Articles from adopting views which, under God' s gracious dispensa–tion, may lead to a future reunion. On the other hand, if that  'consummation devoutly to be wished'  is to be made possible, several important changes or reforms must take place in the Roman Catholic Church of the West. The declaration of that Article of yours, which says that  'the Church of Rome'  (evidently only that particular Church)  'has erred,'  will not then be a real difficulty; for it is historically certain, and no one familiar with ecclesiastical history can deny, that the Church of Rome (meaning the Popes and their Roman advisers) has erred, and erred in very serious matters: for instance, in declaring the deposing power as a doctrine of faith, in prescribing, as Eugene did, false definitions of the Sacraments, their materia and forma, &c. I could wish that our friend Pusey had mentioned more distinctly those serious stumbling-blocks, for the Ultramontane party (particularly in France and England) refuse to see the beam in their eye, and talk constantly as if they were invulner–able and immaculate, and as if the Oriental and the Anglican Churches had only to say with contrite heart and mien,  'mea culpa,'  and to submit unconditionally to every error in theory and every abuse in practice.

lf you think it worth while to let our friend Pusey see these lines, you are perfectly free to do so.

The approaching Council fills many reflecting sons of the Church with anxious dismay, for there is a mighty power at work, which intends to use the Council as an engine for the corroboration of their favourite views.

My hope and consolation is, that a small but resolute knot of bishops who will make resistance is quite sufficient to frustrate their designs; but there must be some moral courage.

Believe me, yours sincerely,

                                 I. DOLLINGER.

On June 26, 1867, Pius IX had made the momentous announcement that he had decided to call a Council of all the Roman bishops. Newman told Pusey that this was his opportunity  'if a large and strong body of united Anglicans would address the Council, being willing to be reconciled.'  But the growing attack on Ritualism was distracting attention so greatly that Pusey despaired of getting the ear of any number of English Churchmen. Even his Answer to Newman had been put aside for nearly twelve months. As an alternative, if he was unable to get many to join him he himself was urged to make strong representations to the Council; such a course might even prevent that declaration of Papal Infallibility which it was expected one party at the Council would un–scrupulously push forward. At any rate, Newman, as the following letter shows, expected that such an appeal from a number of Anglicans might have a deterring effect on the Ultramontanes.

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

                          July 21, 1867.

... As to what you could do, I fear the Council is called too soon for any effect you might produce on the minds of the assembled Bishops. No one or two men, however great, could expect to have any answer made them, but  'Submit to the Church, become one of us,--that is your duty--and nothing more has to be said.'  But, as there have been always  great concessions, when some great obvious object was to be accomplished, so now too they would put themselves out of the way, and go as far as ever they could, if great questions depended on their determination. I don' t suppose the Infallibility of the Pope would have a chance of being defined, if the alternative lay, between defining it and the reconciliation of the Anglican Church. Nay, I do not think it would be defined if a large body of men pledged themselves to submit to the Church, on condition that it would not be defined in the Council. I am not going into the question of the logical consistency of men who thus conducted themselves--some people would think them consistent, others not--I only say, that if as a matter of fact a thousand Anglican priests of reputation and influence said to the Council,  'It will make all the difference whether we consider the Roman communion the Church or not, that you profess the Pope to be infallible,--or that you do not--we are so firmly persuaded that the Papal Chair is not the seat of infallibility by itself, that we think that your ruling it to be such will be a proof, a critical test, that the Roman Communion is not identical with the Church; we will join you if it is not defined, we will not if it is,' --well, I don' t think this would be a satisfactory way of entering the Church, not a generous way, and it certainly would give a weight and prominence to the doctrine that the Pope is not infallible which it never has had, and many Bishops and theologians certainly would repudiate such transaction, independent of this ac–cidental accession of probability to a doctrine which it is difficult to think probable; still I think it would make a number of them pause and consider whether it was expedient to define a doctrine which nevertheless they considered true. And so of other points which are difficulties to Anglicans, points of ritual or discipline or devotion, everything would depend on the number and characteristics of the body presenting itself, and the definiteness, and firmness of their representation. But in saying this, you must not suppose, (as I have implied,) that I could myself ever have been induced so to act-- I should say myself,  'The Roman Communion is either the Church or it is not; if it is not, don' t seek to join it,--if it is, don' t bargain with it--beggars must not be choosers.'

I am disappointed at tour not bringing out your Letter to me --certainly as regards tile subject of the Appendix, which you told me. Those who do not love you, give out that you ought either to answer your opponents or to allow you cannot--and they give out that they are suspicious of you. The first step at negociation is mutual con–fidence. I should add too, that, as to such  'grievances'  as you might be supposed to prefer against our teaching or acting, I consider that the longer you all considered them, the less they would appear, and at length they would quite fade away from your minds, as worth little or nothing, and you would see that you had no reserve or condition to make in becoming one with us.

Pusey gathered from this letter that Newman supposed that there was a desire on his part to be admitted into the Roman Church, if only certain doctrinal difficulties could be cleared up. He wrote at once to remove such a misunder–standing. He did not desire to enter the Church of Rome: he wished for her union  'with the Church of England.

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

Chale, I. of Wight, Vigil of St. James, 1867.

My feeling is just the same as yours. If I believed the Roman Church to be the Church, I should not dream of making an inquiry or a condition. I should submit as a little child. And here lay my difficulty,  'Would the Pope or Bishops of weight, or any who could speak with authority, consider any questions as to doctrine put by any body of men, unless it was understood that the submission of that body would follow upon a satisfactory answer?'  I felt this when Mgr. Dupanloup so kindly offered to take any proposition from myself and other Anglican clergy to Rome [secret, you remember]. I feel no individual need to be in union with Rome,  'but I do feel the evils of division; and so I wanted a pou sto, to work from. I should have been glad to say to the English people,  'On such terms the division might be ended. You dread this and that; but you see that all which you need accept, all which is practically required of you, is to believe that and that. Look at it and see whether you object to it.'

Newman had expressed his sorrow that Pusey had not finished a reply to his  'Letter,'  and had urged the necessity of answering other Roman attacks. The summoning of the Council made Pusey decide to finish his Letter to Newman, but as for the Appendix in answer to Father Harper he says,--

 'I cannot feel the slightest interest about it. Man' s Opinion is not worth a breath with the Judgment-seat of Christ before one. I hate personal controversy. It is so petty and unprofitable. Of course, if I believed that I had made grave blunders I ought to own it as matter of good faith. I have not yet seen that I have. I went carefully through the parts of the book on the Immaculate Conception, and found partly that Fr. H. had misunderstood me, partly that he made blunders himself; e. g. his own statement as to the meaning of the active and passive Conception is, I believe, wrong: certainly his translation of Pope Innocent III whom he quotes against me is flagrantly wrong. But Fr. H.' s book has not shaken people' s con–fidence in me among my own people; and the English R. C.' s who write, except yourself and Lockhart and Oakeley, have been Writing against me ever since the Eirenicon. So there seemed to me no good in any defence.

 'Some few slips I have, I suppose, made.... But as for the impression which Fr. H. gives or states that  " nearly all his [my] quotations from Scholastics, Theologians, and Fathers have been gathered together from other secondhand sources and not from the authors themselves" (Contents, p. xxvii), and that  " without my being at the pains to verify them”; it is simply untrue. I think too that it is very unfair to repre–sent a book which was written in defence of the doctrine of the Real Presence, which (as being the last) has the fullest collection of Patristic testimonies to it (in addition to the common sources and my own knowledge of the Fathers, I went through such books as the Spici–legium Solesmense, Cardinal Mai' s different collections, Cramer' s Catenae, in fact what anekdota I knew of, and I looked through St. Ephrem' s Syriac works), as if it were a mere attack on the doctrine of Transubstantiation, which, moreover, I did not attack. since I pro–fessed not to know whether the dispute was not a question of words, and expressed my own opinion that it was.

 'I see other mistakes in references. Fr. H. makes the most of these. His charges of suppressio veri are grossly unfair. I suppose that he is not a Hebraist, and so that he does not know the valuelessness of what he produces upon Gen. iii. 15; but as far as  " suppression" goes, it is all (I think) in De Rossi (the great Catholic critic) whom I quoted, and who attaches no weight to it. Again, he calls me guilty of a suppression because I did not mention the names of those later great names who believed in the Immaculate Conception. If the question had been decided the other way (as those who employed Car–dinal de Turrecremata to write hoped) there would have been occasion to name them. All which I said was,  " A matter is made a point of faith which even at a late period was disbelieved by such men as A. and B. and C. (some of them Saints)." It did not seem to me to come into the question whether the contrary was believed by D. and E. and F., because I did not speak against it as matter of  " pious belief”; but I thought it hard that it should be made a dogma against such and such authorities, who were thus in fact adjudged to have spoken against the truth, though innocently. He finds fault with me for misstating the number of the Bishops who answered the Pope about the Immaculate Conception. I counted very carefully all those in the Pareri. It was, anyhow, no fault of mine that I did not know that they were [?not] all; however Perrone came to the fact that there were, he states, 150 more.

 'I give you these as specimens, my dearest friend, but cui bono, to spend a life, which must be ebbing out, in pointing out such things? Fr. H. says I  " probably stole a barrowful of quotations from the Calvinist Blondel," whom I never looked at,  " and discharged one cartload from the Calvinist Albertinus and another cartload [from] the Lutheran Gerhard:" Albertinus (Calvinist as he was) was a really learned man; so was Gerhard. I looked into Aubertin for two things, (1) to see whether he had any passages in support of the Real Presence which he combated, and which I had missed, and (2) I took from him what I thought a really remarkable collection of passages as to the words mataballo, metaskeuazo, &c., [showing that they] did not necessarily mean a physical change. But I both verified and acknowledged them, and omitted (I think) certain which I could not verify.

 'I give you, my dearest N., all'  this explanation: but I do not in the least care about giving it to the world. If your people would listen to me more, it might be another matter.'

Newman persisted in urging that Pusey should complete his work.

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

Aug. 4, 1867.

Your character is not your own, nor does it cease to be after your lifetime; and though you do not find that others are alive to the arguments of Fr. Harper now, they may and will be so years hence, when to-day' s doings are matter of history. I have already implied that in being silent you are unfair to your own people: but further, you are thereby unfair to your own cause. It is very desirable that the large question you have entered on, so far as opponents have taken up your glove, should be worked out--desirable in the cause of truth. If you have strong points, let them be put forward; for myself I do not sympathize at all in the policy of suppression. I have no fear that it will harm the cause of what I think truth, that some things, nay, strong things, can be adduced against it. There are objections, and grave objections, to the simplest truths, and the cause of truth gains by their being stated clearly and considered carefully. Lastly, for myself personally and others of my own friends on my side of the question, I don' t like you to be thought of as a man who had said things rashly and at second hand, and then by his silence had virtually admitted that he had done so.... As to your question, whether it would be worth while to publish a statement of points of doctrine which are touched upon in the Thirty-nine Articles, e.g. in Art. xxii, all would depend upon the number of persons who signed it. Did a thousand of the Clergy, headed by the Bishops of Salisbury and Brechin, sign a Latin profession of faith, it would attract the attention of many influential persons at Rome and elsewhere--though I don' t know enough to say more. The Bishop of Orleans would certainly welcome it, and I am told there is a reaction beginning in the French Episcopate which would tell at a Council. The Cardinal most likely to be interested in you is Cardinal de Luca: he is at the head of the Congregation of the Index--he reads and almost speaks English. He was secretary or something of the sort to Cardinal Acton; he has been about four years a Cardinal, and so prominent a member of the Sacred College already that men talk of him as likely to be the next Pope. He is sixty-two years old. St. John, who was lately at Rome, formed a high opinion of him. He has far larger views than Manning has.

However, as to all statements, I fear I must repeat what I have said before, that it is a first principle with us, which no one can hope to put aside, that the Pope is the centre of unity,  'totius Ecclesiae caput et omnium Christianorum Pater et Doctor,'  and that he has a universal jurisdiction.

A few days later, alluding to a question that he had been asked about Pusey' s relation to the Roman Church, Newman wrote again.

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

Aug. 9, 1867.

It is a question often asked me, and I have one answer. I am accustomed to say that you never have felt that the Pope is the neces–sary centre of unity, or that the Church of England is outside the Catholic Church because it is out of Communion with the Holy See. But if you saw that, that I did not doubt you would join us without hesitation.

Several months passed, however, before Pusey' s many engagements allowed him to resume the Reply to Newman. Since Pusey' s visit in 1865 to Monseigneur Darboy, the Archbishop had kept up the liveliest interest in the Eirenicon and the hopes that it represented. Many letters of the greatest interest were received both from him and from Bishop Dupanloup; but unfortunately all the letters of the Bishop of Orleans and nearly all from the Arch–bishop of Paris have been destroyed or mislaid. Of one of them, Bishop Forbes writes to Pusey:  'Thank you for the perusal of this most interesting letter which I return. You have got much more from the Archbishop of Paris than I expected you would get from any R. C. Bishop in view of the terrorism of the Jesuits. So far as I see, the Archbishop takes the place of Du Pin. The Archbishop and the Presbyter only have changed places.'

When in March, 1868, the Bishop of Brechin was about to go to Italy, he took with him a letter of introduction from Pusey to the Archbishop of Paris. His visit was the cause of the only letter to Pusey from the Archbishop which has survived; it gave him new hopes by its promise of an assistance which he had good reason to regard as of great value.

THE ARCHBISHOP (DARBOY) OF PARIS TO E. B. P.

          Archevéché de Paris.

Monsieur,                                                                                                      Paris, le 21 Mars 1868.

J' ai vu, It son passage It Paris, Mgr. l' Evéque de Brechin : sa visite m' a fait beaucoup d' honneur et de plaisir. Je vous remercie de m'  avoir procurd l' avantage de connaitre ce prélat, qui m' a paru un homme considerable par sa scEence et sa droiture de ccnur. Il s' est mis en route pour Rome, oil je lui ai mdnagd l' entrde de notre Ambassade, qui pourra l' adresser a des personnages dminents de la Cour pontificale.

J e ne crois pas que le Concile puisse se reunir aussi promptement q' u' on l' avait d' abord annoncd. Vous aurez encore le temps de discuter vos affaires et de preparer mieux le résultat que vous avez en vue.

Ii ne me semble nullement difficile d' obtenir la chose spéciale dont vous parlèz dans votre Iettre, It savoir qu' une Congregation Romaine se prononce sur la valeur doctrinale des propositions qui lui seraient soumises et qui repre' senteraient le maximum de vos concessions possibles. Si cela pent vous étre agréable, je me chargerai trils volontiers de mener très discrètement l' affaire It bonne fin et de vous faire avoir une rdponse authentique. Voyez si vous voulez rddiger It votre point de vue les propositions et me les adresser: je les prdsenterai en mon nom et sans rien dire qui fasse penser que vous on les vôtres y soyez pour quelque chose, et je serai heureux de vous transmettre Ia decision qui me sera donnee.

Veuillez, Monsieur, agréer l' assurance de mes sympathies pleines de respect et d' affection et me croire tout a vous en N. S.

             + G. ARCHEV. DE PARIS.

Thus encouraged, Pusey attempted to draw up a sketch of some propositions, and submitted them to Newman, who in reply addressed himself to the previous question of the chance of an audience.

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

The Oratory, Birmingham, Sept. 4, 1868.

... I don' t think that at Rome they will attend to anything which comes from one person, or several persons, however distinguished. If the Archbishop of Canterbury were to say,  'I will become a Catholic if you will just tell me whether what I have drawn up on paper is not consistent with your definitions of faith,'  the only question in answer would be,  'Do you speak simply as an individual or in the name of the Anglican Church?'  If he said  'as an individual,'  they would not even look at his paper.

Therefore I do not think the Bp. of Orleans, &c., could get the Bishops of an Ecumenical Council to listen to any proposition from you as such. The initial step would be an address to the Council signed by a great show of names. Say you could present a petition from three or four Bishops of the Church of England, fifty Professors (Fellows of Colleges would count as such), 200 clergy, stating that they, the undersigned, with certain congregations of the Church of England, say 150, were desirous of coming into communion with the Holy See, that they were willing on the question of the Anglican Orders to submit to the decision of the Council, and that they presented statements of some of their articles of belief in the hope and belief that they would be found consistent with the definitions of former Councils, including the Council of Trent, and that in the sense of those statements they accepted what was there defined:  moreover, that they received the doctrine of the Im. Conc. B. M. V. provided so-and-so was to be reckoned a right explanation of it, I think your cause must be taken up. But I think you will be putting yourself to bootless trouble, if you draw up statements which are to be presented in the name only of half a dozen, however eminent.

You will say perhaps that the conditions which I have set down are simply impossible --both the number of signatures and the admissions to be made in the Address. Of course I grieve if this should be the case; but consider how full a Council is of work, and whether it can be expected to go out of its way except for some great end. The reconciliation of the Church of England would be such an end, but then you must bring proof that it is the end of the conversion of a certain number of individuals. It must be recollected too that such an Address as I have supposed cuts off the subscribers to it from the existing Establishment, and, if it were listened to, would gain that attention for its own sake, from the actual body of men it spoke for, not as leading to the reconciliation of the Church of England. But not only a Council, but the ordinary ecclesiastical bodies at Rome, have not time except for great objects. All large systems fall into routine, and at Rome the Sacred Congregations go by rule, by precedent, by law, by reason, but not by that fine attention to indi–viduals, particular cases, actual combinations, which is implied in the froesis, agxinoia, sunesis and gnomosune of Aristotle. In this age of the world individual greatness and self-action is superseded by routine. The routine at Rome is the routine of 1,000 years--nay, Rome, except in the case of some great Popes, has never shown any great gift of origination. It has (I believe surely) a divinely imparted instinct and a promise of external guidance as regards doctrine, but while it listens to practical plans brought before it, it does not go amid hunt for them. Cardinal Barnabo says that only three countries give him trouble--viz, the Turks much, the English more, and the French most. That is to say, routine won' t do in those countries. Under these circumstances it is a great thing for him to have an Archbishop like Manning, who makes everything easy to him by doing his best to work by routine and to make routine work in England. As I have said before to you, the local authorities are they who should encourage any aspirations in England towards unity, and the Archbishop has taken the opposite line.

Here is another disadvantage to you--the French Bishops are not the natural organs for your Address; and the natural question which would be asked at once would be,  'Why does not Dr. Pusey apply through the Bishops of England?'

However,, that the Bishop of Orleans, &c. are willing to take up your cause is a great point. Could you through Dollinger interest any German Bishops for you? The Archbishop of Mayence is a great man, and, though an Ultramontane, is far from narrow in his notions and measures. But Dollinger would tell you all about Germany. Professor Reusch (I forget his name, he is Professor of Exegetics) at Bonn is also a moderate man. Your knowledge of German would almost be a reason for your going there on this matte; if Dollinger gave you any encouragement. The state of religion (Protestant) there is so sad that they look with yearning toward England, are very kind to me, and I am sure would listen to you. But all depends on your being able, even if confidentially, to show them a list of educated people and congregations who on  given terms would enter into communion with them. Are there such terms?

You know I deeply despair that terms could be named between you and them. The more I think of it, the more sure I am that unsurmountable difficulties (i. e. at present'  unsurmountable) would show themselves. E. g., you can' t belong to two Communions at once--but if you cannot promise in the name and for the Church of England, how can you be in communion with Rome without separating from the Anglican Church, how in communion with the latter without coming short of the former?

Still, my feeling of these obstacles is no reason why I should not give you as much information as I can.

Pusey explained that he was not intending to send any propositions direct to Rome.

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

[Sept. 1868.]

The Bp. of B[rechin]' s report of the state of the ecclesiastical mind in Italy made me give up the idea of sending propositions to Rome. The Bishop of O[rleans] undertook, in his great kindness, to go himself to Rome, take the propositions, and obtain an opinion about them--the whole in secrecy. I do not think that my name was to be used. I think that he meant to ask the abstract question; and that he understood that what I wanted was an authoritative exposition on certain doctrines, that I might be able to say,  'What is required for reunion is that you should acknowledge this, and no more.'  I know that the Abp. of P[aris] understood this, and he certainly offered to send the propositions to Rome in his own name, without in the least committing me. (This was his own offer, for I did not care about being committed.) But the Bp. of B[rechin] brought back the im–pression that those who were not Ultramontane before in Italy had been driven into Ultramontanism by the wicked proceedings of the kingdom of Italy, and that the Abp. of P[aris] was in very bad odour. So, he being indisposed to it, I gave up the plan, and yet, unwilling not to do anything, I thought that at the end of my second Letter to you (i.e. in the book) I would print as an Appendix, in Latin, propositions which I thought would gain acceptance with at least a large body, and so try to get them known, or perhaps send them to the principal Archbishops and Bishops in Germany and France. If we had a Cardinal Wiseman now, a great deal might be done in England; but Manning appeals to God to avert such an evil, as he thinks  'organic reunion'  to be. I should like myself to try the original plan of committing them to the Bp. of O[rleans]. It was his offer to take them; but it was to be an absolute secret. He evidently feared the counter-working of some in England; I suppose Manning.

In fact, what I wanted is what Bossuet did for the Lutherans. No one was committed but Leibnitz and the Lutheran Abbot of Lokktun. Having got such propositions accepted, I should have a pou sto, and could set to work. This might add to the Protestant uproar, and might end in a split, to which things look very much as if they were going: those represented by the Church Association would drive it to this if they could. But then the Bishops won' t let it come if they can help it.

As for inducing others to declare their adherence to any propositions, there is the extreme difficulty of getting any one, except under very imminent pressure, to adopt or agree upon any voluntary proposi–tions. . .

Mgr. Dupanloup entered with so much love into the plan. I loved him much; he is so marvellously sweet and tender, although possibly not with the political (I do not mean secular) grasp of the Abp. of P[aris]. . .

As you say, any such attempt is full of untold difficulties, but, after. all, truth is truth, and it must be good that truth should be known. If (as Bossuet believed) a good many difficulties could be re–moved on explanation, then it must be good that they should be removed. It cannot be for the glory of God that untruth should be believed for truth, and that as hiding His truth. Bossuet failed in both his attempts: (I cannot help misgivings as to the sincerity of Leibnitz:) the result was (they tell us) in France the conversion of a good many of the Calvinists through the  'Exposition.'  It may be so again. With results I have nothing to do. I only see this longing that there could be union in eminent persons in the Greek Church, in the United States (though there rather setting towards the Greek Church than to you), among ourselves, among some of yours. This must come from God, for thoughts of peace and love can come from Him only. So I wish to do what I can.

At this moment, it was announced in the Weekly Register that invitations to the Roman Council had been issued to all the Eastern Bishops, and that the English Bishops were left out. Pusey wrote to Newman at once to know if this was true.

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

Holy Cross Day, Chale, Sept. 14, 1868.

The Weekly Register puts me quite out of heart as to any negotiations. For the Roman Curia has prejudged the question as to our Orders (at least if the W. R. is right) by inviting Nestorians and other heretics, because they own their Orders, and not our Bishops, because they are laymen. To refer the question of our Orders to it then, is simply a way of having it decided for us that we and all our sacerdotal or episcopal acts are one great sham, indeed of owning it ourselves. And yet Roman controversialists have shown themselves ready to take up any stone, so that they had something to fling: I think, I counted over eight or nine different objections, which had been raised and afterwards abandoned. (1) The fable of the Nag' s Head; (2) Lingard (who was blamed for giving up this) said, that the words  'Receive the Holy Ghost'  were not used, which (a) were used,  according to the Lambeth Register, (b) are said not to be required; (3) that the words,  'for the office and work of &c.'  were not there at first. It is since said that they are of no use, but the designation of the office somewhere else in the Service (which there was); (4) that Barlow was not consecrated: though I have no doubt that he was, nothing turned on it, since all four consecrating Bishops said the words and imposed hands; (5) that the Lambeth Registers were forged: their genuineness is confessed, being so supported by collateral and incidental evidence; (6) that there was a break in the time of the Republic, (I think); (7) absence of intention, but, as Bossuet says, Theologians define intention, men would be in doubt any how.... I forget the rest.

Now, I do not want to waste your time by a discussion. But how can we refer the question of our Orders to be decided by those who have shown this kind of animus, alleging what they might have known to be untrue, had they been at the pains to enquire? How–ever, this does not discourage me from what I am about, if one does, but  'arbores sent quae alteri prosint saeculo,'  preparing in a far-off way for Reunion, by breaking down prejudices, if God enable me. I could not perform another priestly act, if I were prepared to accept the decision of Roman controversialists on my Orders. I do not count you, of course, among Roman controversialists: I mean, persons who take up any stone, to fling at a dog. Haddan, who is accurate, says that the first precedent of re-ordaining, or any how that now acted upon, was set on the occasion of a Scotch Bishop, who asked to be re–-ordained at Rome, himself alleging the Nag' s Head fable. So that the precedent was founded on mistaken facts. If that fable had been true, there would have been no more question than about Lutheran Orders. Every Absolution which one pronounces, though in good faith, is, according to them, material blasphemy. It is not the opinion against our Orders, but that readiness to take up any instrument which comes to hand, before they examine whether it is good or bad, which seems to me to disqualify any from judging. Who is to be arbiter? However, this is not for you or me to settle. I only say it, because it ,makes me so hopeless as things stand; but God can bring it about in His way if we pray.

The report to which Pusey referred turned out to be true. It seemed as if in the issuing of the summons to the Council, the Pope had assumed the whole question of the status of the Anglican Church to be already settled. Besides the Bull of June 29, 1868, which commanded the presence of the Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots and all others who by right or privilege are entitled to sit in general Councils, he issued two letters, one on September 8, 1868, inviting the Bishops of the East  'who are not in com–munion with the Apostolic see' ; another on September13, addressed  'Omnibus Protestantibus aliisque Acatholicis,'  who, in place of an invitation to attend the Council, were urged to join  'the one fold.'  Since no summons was issued to English Bishops, it was understood that they were in–cluded among the  'Acatholici.'  In the face of these facts Pusey hardly thought it worth while to attempt to send any propositions to Rome except as an individual.

E. B. P. TO REV. H. P. LIDDON.

(Secret) Chale, I. W., Oct. 6 [1868].

You will remember that Mgr. Dupanloup offered himself to take to Rome any propositions as to our maximum, which I would send him, and to obtain an opinion there, whether they were Catholic. The outburst of that storm of Protestantism made me delay, I think. I hoped it might spend itself. And a year ago I hoped that'  the Bp. of B[rechin] would do something at Rome itself. The Abp. of P[aris] made me the offer to send any propositions in his own name, withholding mine.

Now, I suppose that, in the event of this Council, something ought to be done, and the Protestant storm seems increasing. The Bishop returned from Rome utterly discouraged. The wickedness of the Italian Government had made even his friends at Mte. Cassino Ultramontanes. They said,  'The only question is, whether you will submit or no; if you will, you won' t want propositions: if you won' t, propositions will do you no good.'  So, as he was indisposed to move, and rather dissuaded me from moving, I stayed. But you know how out of heart he always is. However, I did not like to act alone. So I settled to publish them [the Propositions] in Latin as an Appendix to my Second Letter to Newman  'on Corporate Reunion.'

Now the question is between these two plans. I explained to Mgr. Dupanloup that I did not want these explanations for my own satisfaction; that I was at rest in my own Communion; but that I felt that this state of disunion was very weakening and injurious; that our Lord' s prayer was not fulfilled as it should be; and that therefore I wanted them in order to act upon my countrymen: that they thought that, in order to be in communion with Rome, they must believe this and that, and that I wanted to tell them that they need only believe that and that. In fact, it would be authenticating such statements as those of Veron or the De Walenburch. He evidently thought that there would be efforts on this side the water to prevent it. For he enjoined repeatedly absolute secrecy; and spoke of the different position of French and English (R. C.) Bishops. I think too he was afraid of the Jesuits, whose organ I suppose M[annin]g is.

Now then the pros on this side are (1) the gaining of time; (2) a certain probability that it would be done in a period of comparative leisure, whereas it [was] said that, during the Council itself, nothing could be done which did not promise an immediate result, as if a certain number of bishops, priests, and people promised to submit, if such and such propositions should be accepted; (3) that such men as the Abp. of P[aris] and Mgr. Dupanloup think it practicable; and the ecclesiastic who spoke to C. (whose letter you showed me) seemed to suggest overtures on our side.

Now I do not think that many would subscribe to all these pro–positions beforehand. But I think that they might accept them afterwards. I should send them on my own responsibility.

I shall see you; 1 suppose, please God, on Monday week. I am to arrive by the 11.30 train. So I do not want you to write, only to think it over. I have written most part of that Second Letter to Newman. It consists mainly of extracts from Bossuet and Molanus.

I have not seen the Pope' s Bull, and only know that we are lumped in under the general title of  'Protestants.'  Your Bishop said that he should go, if invited. If you think well to see him and show or send him this, I should be glad that he should see it, only as an absolute secret. I have scarcely spoken to any one for fear of their letting it out: I think only to dear J. K., the Bp. of Brechin, and yourself as to the propositions. I did not like to trust even G. W[illiams].

This attack on our Orders is a great difficulty. How can we submit the question to those who have prejudged the question? The R. C. Bishop of Chicago told De Koven that it would be proposed to have the question examined by a commission, half theirs, half ours.

The two propositions on the Seven Sacraments and Purgatory, one theirs (whose name I offered not to quote) accepted; and on the Invocation of Saints he only suggested an addition about their merits. The explanation of substantia and species had also been said to be adequate to the Catechism of the Council of Trent.

I see to-day that the Times is willing to make a present of us all to the Pope; but his present would be more large and costly than, I imagine, he thinks.

What an absorbing and anxious move this is of the Pope' s. It throws every other anxiety into the shade.

Liddon recognized with regret that the whole claim on behalf of Anglican Orders had been treated as settled in an adverse sense. But he thought it possible that the Pope might yet issue a third Letter to English Bishops, as such: if this were not done, Pusey might circulate his propositions at the conclusion of his Letter to Newman. But if none of the English Bishops were present, what would be the use of the propositions?  'The Council would not take up propositions with no one to back them. The only question seems to be whether they would do privately beforehand what they would not do publicly.'  Pusey then thought that Newman might help, if he went to Rome; but Newman explained that he was not going: Mgr. Dupanloup had asked him to go, as his  'theologian' ; and more recently the Pope sent a message offering him the office of  'Con–sultor,'  but he declined both offers.  'I am not a theologian, and should only have been wasting my time in matters which I did not understand.'

Pusey was at least certain of one step. He would send to the press the Answer to Newman' s Letter which he had all but finished when helping the cholera patients in Bethnal Green. Hitherto he had left the work incomplete, because of, the  'disdain or condemnation'  with which English Roman Catholics had received  'the far-off sugges–tions of reconciliation,'  and because of the storm which the Low Church party were attempting to raise against the Ritualists. He thus alluded to these reasons in the first page of his last Eirenicon

 'The disdain has not been mitigated; the effort to raise a storm has been aggravated. What will be the issue? He alone knows Who  " ruleth the raging of the sea, and the noise of the waves, and the madness of the people." Yet, in view of the Council which is to be held among you at the close of next year, I have thought it not amiss to continue to put together the evidence on the Immaculate Conception which Cardinal de Turrecremata was prevented, by the confusion of the times, from presenting to the Council of Basle, and which, although originally published with the sanction of Pope Paul III, is, I suppose, now with difficulty to be procured, though at Rome, I suppose, you have access to everything. But, in order to do justice to the evidence at all, it has been necessary to produce it at such length (considering also what has been opposed to it) that what, in its commencement, I intended to be only  " a brief explanation" to yourself, has become a volume, and necessarily wears a controversial appearance.'

These words really describe the Second Part of the Eirenicon, which was issued in Lent, 1869, under the title  'First Letter to the Very Rev. J. H. Newman, D.D. In explanation, chiefly in regard to the reverential love due to the ever-blessed Theotokos, and the Doctrine of her Immaculate Conception.'  It will be remembered that Pusey' s treatment of the Roman popular teaching with regard to the Blessed Virgin was the main point of Newman' s objection to the first Eirenicon: Pusey, he complained, had touched them, like an Exeter Hall con–troversialist, on a very tender point in a very rude way. In his reply, Pusey explained that he had not said a single word in derogation of the honour due to the Mother of our Lord; he had spoken only of the offices assigned to her in the popular Roman teaching which went so far beyond what was required de fide, and was contrary to the language of antiquity. This popular system represented her as Mediatrix with her Son, as the Channel of all grace as the only Gate of Heaven, as the Hope of sinners, a restraining her Son that He might not inflict chastisements.

At very great length, Pusey shows the Scriptural and Patristic position on this subject, and reproduces the enormous mass of evidence contained in Cardinal de Turrecremata' s comparatively unknown but most valuable work on the Immaculate Conception. He maintains that in itself the Bull  'Ineffabilis,'  which decreed that doctrine, needs explanation, for it appears to assert only one side of the doctrine. If it means more than what it asserts, it will have to be in acknowledged contradiction to the whole teaching of the universal Church in all ages, with the exception of the Roman Catholic Church at that moment.

In arguing thus, no one knew better than Pusey that he was appealing to one of the causes of disunion among Roman Catholics. He was fully aware (and the discussion on Reunion had given abundant evidence of the fact) that there was an irreconcileable  'Marian'  party within the Church of Rome, and it was a delicate matter to write about them to Newman. They would give no explanation, and evidently wished that much which had hitherto only been taught as part of the popular system might hence–forth be made of obligation de fide. Still he appealed to Newman to help him in the effort to bring the English and Roman Churches to a mutual understanding by  're–quiring of one another the least which fealty to our God requireth' :--

 'We have one common enemy. His instruments on earth are banded together at least by one common hatred of the truth, which Jesus revealed or sealed; which Apostles, taught by the Holy Ghost, proclaimed; which the Church has, by a continuous succession, taught; and which the Holy Ghost teaches in her. Satan seems to have organized his armies more, and to have learned from the Church the necessity of union. Devil does not cast out devil. And shall not we, who hold together the same body of faith, who believe the same mysteries of the All-Holy Trinity, of the Incarnation of our Lord and God, of the operations of God the Holy Ghost in man' s regeneration and restoration, the same Word of God, inspired by Him; the same offices of the Ministry instituted by Him; the same authority given to the Church to bear witness to, uphold, maintain, transmit the same truth; the same Real Presence of our Lord' s Body and Blood; the same Atoning Sacrifice of the Cross; the same plead–ing of that one Meritorious Sacrifice on earth, as He, our Great High Priest, evermore pleads it in heaven--shall we not seek to be at one in the rest too?'

The book was sent to Newman on May 14, 1869: and on June 9, Newman thanked him from his heart for the affectionate words it contained about himself, and acknow–ledged the research which the book showed. He declined to recognize the positive value of it; but still he had himself suggested to his Bishop (Dr. Ullathorne) some words of explanation on the doctrine of the Immaculate Concep–tion of the Blessed Virgin which he thought would satisfy Pusey if the Vatican Council would accept them.

This, however, in no way inclined Pusey to modify his position.

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

[June 10, 1869.]

I published the book because I thought that your people had not the case fully before them, and that those who prepared for the decision were one-sided. The grave question now seems to me the tradition. The decision, unless it can be explained, seems to me a heavy blow upon the  'quod semper,'  which concerns you as much as it can us.

I stated the difficulty fully, in case the Council should consider the question, that it might qualify the statement in whatever way God the Holy Ghost should teach them, so as to get rid of this seeming contradiction. I have no prejudice against the supposition that Almighty God infused grace into the soul of the Blessed Virgin at the first moment of its creation. On the contrary, considering what He did for Jeremiah and St. John Baptist, it seems the most likely. My only difficulty is the counter-tradition.

Pray thank the Bishop preliminarily for this kind thought of me.

It would certainly be a great gain if the Council could declare that, although the B. V. had, by reason of the mode of her conception, original sin in the cause, yet Almighty God, for the foreseen merits of her Son, infused grace into her soul at the same time that He created and infused it into her body.

Newman in his reply, while suggesting Bishops to whom the book might be sent, described the effect produced upon Roman Catholics by the evidence that Pusey had amassed.

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

July 4, 1869.

I should not be acting as a friend if I did not say that I have not found any one (I think) who has not been repelled by what has been thought your hostile tone. I know how different this is from your intention. Since your new book came out, a priest, who is more hostile to Ward, Manning, &c., than perhaps any one I know, has written to me about your part in the controversy in quite violent, and I know most mistaken, terms. Men seem to think that you are not really seeking peace, but indoctrinating Anglicans how to accost, to treat with, to carry themselves towards, the Roman see; what points to make, what to concede, what not to concede; also, as saying to the Evangelical body,  'You see, we don' t agree with, and don' t mean to give in to, the Romanists.'  In a word, that your books are really controversial, not peace-making. You may be sure I take your part-- without any merit of mine, because I know how loving your heart is-- but it has sunk deep into the minds of all Catholics,  'He has got an arriere pensée.'

It seemed to Pusey almost hopeless to think of Reunion with the Roman Catholic Church when the vast majority of their number were not inclined to believe his single-hearted desire for peace. Yet he still intended to publish a third, and he hoped a more successful, Eirenicon, in the form of a second Letter to Newman.

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

Chale, I. of W. [July 19, 1869].

... What pity that people should waste time in judging one another. People compliment my abilities at the expense of my sincerity, which is alone of value. I never had organizing talent, and am very thankful for not having any talent which I have not. I never was in any sense a party-leader. People used my name; but I never had any influence with them, else in many ways things would not be as they are or were.

I hear the Dublin Review and Month are angry with me. I expected it, and was sorry to publish my Letter I to you without Letter II, which is, please God, the Eirenicon.

 

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