Project Canterbury
Life of Edward Bouverie Pusey
by Henry Parry Liddon, D.D.
London: Longmans, 1894
volume four
Transcribed by The Revd R D Hacking
AD 2002
CHAPTER VII.
OXFORD ELECTION OF I 865--KEBLE COLLEGE--SPEECH ON THE DAY OF ITS FOUNDATION--RELATIONS WITH MR. GLADSTONE.
1865--1872.
SINCE 1847 Mr. Gladstone had represented the University of Oxford in Parliament. He had been elected six times, on each occasion after a severe contest. The opposition had been in the main purely political, because of Mr. Glad–stone' s connexion with Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell. For a long time the High Church party had loyally voted for him; but it was evident now that he could not rely much longer on their united support. The passing in 1861 of the Universities Election Bill, which allowed non-residents to record their votes by proxy, made his rejection at the next election more than a remote possibility. Accordingly already in March of that year Mr. Gladstone had written to Pusey, to sound him on the subject of his retirement from the wearisome contests for the University seat; he desired to know what were his prospects at the next election, for it was quite possible that he might be asked to offer himself for the new constituency which was about to be formed in the Southern Division of Lancashire. Pusey found it hard to forecast the future.
E. B. P. TO RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P.
March 17, 1861.
We none of us here can doubt that you would do everything loving and thoughtful for the University which we know you love. As for contests, I do not suppose that your retiring would put an end to them. The Liberal and Conservative parties are, I suppose, more balanced than they used to be. The country Clergy are, I suppose too, wearied of Conservatism.
For Conservatism has long not had a principle left, and, when in power, is revolutionary. I think that the country Clergy see this more than they did. So, a good many members of Convocation being in–different, I suppose that if you should retire, whether Conservative or Liberal should be returned, the other party would dispute the seat. However, if this new Bill should pass, giving non-residents the power to vote by proxy, there will be a new element introduced which no one can calculate. My first thought was, whether it would introduce less careful voting than now, when voting involves a good deal of trouble to most. My second was, how it would affect your seat. I suppose if any recent act of yours should vex the country Clergy, the change might have a considerable effect, and probably on the first occasion the D' Israeli party would try their utmost.
One or two other letters passed between them on the subject, Pusey urging him to remain, and Mr. Gladstone showing how tired he was of the contested elections. At last Pusey ceased to urge his point.
E. B. P. TO RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P.
March 30, 1861.
…An uncontested seat for South Lancashire may be much better for a Minister of the Crown than a contested, though retained, seat for the University. I hoped that the opposition to you would wear itself out (but for the new Bill as to our votes). I think that a large proportion of our Clergy are weary of Conservatism, and glad to have a representative (whatever his politics) of religious principle, as your–self. But I thought that if those who dispute your seat thought that they would tire you out, they would not be tired out themselves. It was just your not being able to 'hide your weariness of the Oxford contests' which I thought likely to prolong them. For weary as an opponent may be, he will still struggle on, if he have any hope that by so doing he will gain his end.
Forgive me, but the one thing I wanted you, not to do was not to balance in public.
Now, do not let me make you write any more. I do not pretend to see what is best for you. As for Oxford, I should think that your retiring would rather perpetuate contests. The days when a member was elected for life are, I should think, except in the case of some felicitous combination, over. They were the days of Toryism. Conservatism has no hold over the affections, or principles, having neither principle nor enthusiasm, in its present form.You have a hold from personal character, from the affections of a. good many of us, from your having held the seat thus long, from the respect in which a good many M.A' s hold you. Even that malicious Times says, that you are just the member for us.
But what is best for you is another matter: and, since I cannot judge, I have no opinion. The contests must be wearying, and yet each successive contest has only drawn out the fact that a decided majority of your constituents thinks you our best representative.
Consequently, when in July, 1861, a deputation from South Lancashire presented a memorial signed by 8,000 electors asking Mr. Gladstone to represent them, he declined the honour on the ground that he could not quit his Oxford constituents, 'except in a manner which would enable me to feel that I had exposed them to no prejudice by the act.'
When the General Election came on in 1865, feeling ran very high against Mr. Gladstone among a large portion of the Churchmen who had votes for the University, and his chances of election were from the first doubtful. An active Committee of ardent Conservatives and of dis–appointed Churchmen had already been working against him for twelve months. It may have been that they had expected too much from Mr. Gladstone' s influence in Liberal ministries, or they may have been disappointed at the readiness of Liberal ministers to sacrifice what they themselves considered safeguards of the Church and her teaching. When then the natural results of the University legislation of 1854 were beginning to be felt, when surviving disabilities of Nonconformists were being swept away, as in Mr. Had ley' s Bill, when the 'Abolition of Universities Test Act' was coming into view, their dislike in any way to support a Liberal ministry was increased. They were still further alienated by Lord Palmerston' s Episcopal appointments, and the cynical manner in which Lord Westbury, as Lord Chancellor, had emphasized the Judgments of the Supreme Court of Appeal in the cases of 'Essays and Reviews' and of Bishop Colenso. As Bishop Wilberforce, writing to Mr. Gladstone on July 18, 1865, says--
'Of course f half of these men had known what I know of your real devotion to our Church, that would have outweighed their hatred of a Government which gave Waldegrave to Carlisle, and Baring to Durham, and the youngest bishop on the bench (Thomson) to York, and supported Westbury in seeking to deny for England the Faith of our Lord.'
Still Pusey and Keble both joined Mr. Gladstone' s Committee. Keble was not well enough to take any active share in the canvass. H was on what proved to be Keble' s last birthday that Pusey sent him the following message
E. B. P. TO REV. J. KEBLE.
April 25, 1865.
…I have said that you will be on the London Committee for Gladstone: it being understood that this is not to involve the slightest work, only to express your interest in him. I am on the resident Committee.
I am writing on purpose to-day to express my thankfulness for the many and great mercies which God gave us through giving you to us to-day and my hope for their continuance.
But Pusey did all he could to secure Mr. Gladstone' s return, writing letters to any whose votes he might be able to influence. To one he writes on June 3, 1865:--
'The more I think of it, the more it grieves and alarms me to think of what is going on against W. E. G. Besides all the rest, I think him the only statesman, so far as I see, who really understands as well as loves Church principles.'
To another correspondent, now the Dean of Chichester, he sends a fuller appeal:--
E. B. P. TO REV. R. W. RANDALL
Christ Church, Oxford, July 4, 1865.
A friend of mine tells me that he thinks that you would not dislike to hear from me about Gladstone' s election. You will have seen, perhaps, that I am deeply interested in it, and that from my personal knowledge of him, which reaches back to his Undergraduate days. We cannot expect that any statesman will fight the battles of the Church, exactly in our way. But all must be right, in the end, where there is that single-hearted loyal love of God and His Church, of His Faith and Truth, which there is in Gladstone. It would be an ill day if Oxford were to snap the relation of eighteen years of faithful service. Recently too we owe him much. Before his political weight was felt, the canon would have been altered, without any expression of the opinion of the Church. In the trying days, which may be before the Church, we may be sure that he will act out of a devoted love for God and her.
In spite of the efforts of all those who still supported him, Mr. Gladstone was rejected at this election. Pusey thus expresses his thoughts on the result to an old friend, who had felt obliged to remain neutral in the contest
E. B. P. TO THE VENERABLE ARCHDEACON CHURTON.
Ventnor, July 25, 1865.
I think that Oxford has made a terrible mistake, which she will soon have to rue. Of course, a large accession to the support of Goschen' s Bill will be an immediate fruit. But the mistake, I think, is, in itself, to cast away one loyal and devoted to God, the Faith, and the Church. His affecting farewell must have given a pang to many hearts, as well as to mine. The case of a bond which had lasted eighteen years is very different from the question of forming one for the first time.
It has, I think, too, gone far to commit Oxford Churchmen (for they turned the election) to Establishmentarianism. Some Low Church–men, at least, held aloof because they expected Gladstone to be Prime Minister one day, and not to make Low Church bishops. So far their concern was for the Church, as they understood its interests. Some High Churchmen rejected him, because he could not see his way in all the perplexed questions about the Establishment. I could have been a Tory; but 1830 ended Toryism. I could not be a mere Con–servative, i. e. I could not bind myself, or risk the future of the Church on the fidelity or wisdom of persons whose principle it is to keep what they think they can, and part with the rest. I believe that we are in the course of an inevitable Revolution; that the days of Establishments are numbered, and that the Church has to look to her purity, liberty, faithfulness to Catholicism, while I fear that the Conservatives would corrupt her in order to increase the numerical strength of the Establish–ment. Gladstone did more for the Church, by gaining the recognition of the non-established Church of Scotland, and obtaining freedom for Convocation (against others in a divided Cabinet) to debate on the alteration of the canon, than any other statesman I know of. This formed a great precedent, full of important consequences (as all prece–dents are), that changes. in the canons of the Church be not made by the State without her concurrence. Oxford requites this by rejecting him. Do not trouble yourself to answer this. You, as a member of Convocation, are in the battle, not I. Gladstone' s rejection has severed my last link with earthly politics; I fear it has broken other links too; or rather has shown that it only wanted a pull to sever what was only seemingly held together. The High Church are broken to bits.
But if his interest in general politics was at an end, he was profoundly interested in all measures that affected the Church and the University. During this time he was, regularly returned at each election as a member of the Hebdomadal Council, and took the greatest pains about all the business of the University. His letters to Liddon and Bright are full of allusions to his work as a member of that body, where he watched with eagerness everything that might affect the interests of Religion at Oxford. The decision in the Jowett case had practically convinced him that it was hopeless to attempt to enforce the old religious character of the University; but he felt that he could at least keep vigilant guard over all that promoted Religion within its walls.
It was during these years that Mr. (afterwards Lord) Coleridge' s Bill for abolishing all those religious tests at the University which had been retained by the first University Commission was first brought forward. It was practically a measure of Church disendowment, for its effect would be that offices which had hitherto been tenable only by Churchmen would in future be thrown open to all candidates irrespective of their religious opinions. Two letters from Pusey, one to Liddon and one to Mr. Gladstone, will show his view of the measure as affecting the future of the University.
E. B. P. TO REV. H. P. LIDDON.
March 21, 1868.
It seems to me a marvellous proposition (to limit myself to this only) to require that the Church of England should have immediate notice to quit, and to decide either to educate her future clergy in some as yet unformed Clerical Colleges like Stonyhurst or Highbury, or to have them educated by those who need have no religious belief, not even in the God Who made them.
I have long foreseen that some form of Denominationalism must sooner or later replace Establishments. Denominationalism sacrifices money, not principle or faith. Secularism destroys all religious teaching altogether, perfect or imperfect.
It is but a little portion of the evil that the Church will have to detach itself from the Universities unless it consent to risk that its future teachers should go through the ordeal of an unbelieving teaching, when their minds are unripe to cope with it. This principle Indeed occasioned the Bishops of France to obtain the emancipation of the future clergy from the University of France--we think to the disadvantage of both.
A like cause must produce consistently a like effect; although it is not a little hard upon the Church to wrest from her the only places of education which she has for her clergy, and upon the retention of which the provisions of the last University Reform Act taught her the more to rely.
But this is only one part of a large whole. There lie before our legis–lators three possible lines only--(1) the continuance of Establishments, (2) Denominationalism, (3) Secularism. The experiment on the University is not in corpore vili, and will naturally be the precedent for the line which the other changes shall take. Denominationaiism, rude as it is, has something earnest about it. Let us be in earnest, and England will be saved, though it has abundance of elements to produce a worse than the first French Revolution. But an indifferentist education can but unnerve all earnestness and energy for good.
E. B. P. TO RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P.
March 24, 1868.
I had long seen that things were driving to some sort of Denominationalism in lieu of Establishments, i. e. since the Church had lost so many of her children through her neglect, it was probable that she should be punished, at least temporally. But J. Coleridge' s Bill and Bright' s speech on the Irish Church (as I hear) and a saying of Mr. Lowe' s, point to a much worse evil, Secularism. For rude and rough as Denominationalism is, endowing every error which can gain adherents, it still presupposes that people are in earnest; for without some sort of earnestness they would not have adherents. But Secularism can promote only indifference. I had far rather see the money of the Colleges taken, and Socinian, Baptist, Wesleyan, Presbyterian, and of course Roman Catholic Colleges endowed with it, than have Coleridge' s Bill, according to which our laity and future Clergy are (as a condition of University training) to be exposed to Atheistic or any sort of God-denying teaching.
If they mean by 'the Church' which they say this absence of security of any religious belief on the part of our tutors is not to injure, an undogmatic Church of the future in which persons are to believe anything or nothing, to deny a life to come, and count themselves Christians, while they speak of Christianity as a thing of the past, which has served its time--this would be intelligible, but it is not the sense in which the House of Commons would understand the word 'Church.' But to say that it cannot hurt the Church that her laity and future Clergy should be taught by Atheists and others who deny the claim of the Gospel as a Revelation from God, is such mockery, and that aggravated by the provision that nothing is to hinder the religious intercourse of the young men with their tutor! As if any Act of Parliament could hinder the intercourse of any one with any one! But what is to be the religious intercourse with one who denies God or His Revelation?
To-morrow' s Guardian ought to have letters from Liddon and myself avowing our preference to Denominationalism over Secularism. I fear no battle (though I believe that the party who would gain most are the Roman Catholics)--any battle, at whatever disadvantage, at what–ever close quarters, rather than indifference and corruption at the fountain head of education.
I think that the measure is specially hard to the English Church, because we were taught by the Oxford Act, twelve years ago, to rely on the Universities as the place of education for our Clergy; and now, unprepared with any Colleges like Stonyhurst or Highbury, with all our clinging to the old Universities, we are bid to take our choice, either go on with a system which necessarily involves God-denying teaching to a greater or less extent, or abandon them and all the reminiscences of the past, and try a system as yet untried by us, and which we have always been told will narrow our Clergy and diminish their influence, at least among the higher classes.
A Liberal said to me, 'Your weak point is that you have such already.' No system can bind those who accept obligations and violate them. But this is but a passing evil. Coleridge' s Bill stereo–types it. It is asked for to soothe the consciences of those who are uneasy under obligations which they set at nought. But Coleridge' s Bill would not only justify them in retaining their tutorships, it would justify them also in denying Christ to their pupils.
It may be understood that with such changes in con–templation Pusey shrew himself with all the more zest into the work of the establishment of an institution like Keble College.
It has been mentioned that, immediately after Keble' s funeral, his friends met at the house of Sir Wm. Heathcote, and Pusey propounded his scheme for a College which should emphasize the principles of religion and economy and thus advance University extension in the best way possible. It will be remembered, as described in the last volume, that a scheme of this kind had been discussed as early as 1845 amongst certain Churchmen--Mr. Keble, Pusey, Mr. Gladstone, Sidney Herbert, Charles Marriott, and others. It had advanced so far as a proposal being laid before the Hebdomadal Council, but it had not met with a favourable reception. Efforts were made again to facilitate the coming to the University of a poorer class of students at St. Mary Hall under Dr. Chase, the Principal. A further plan was in contemplation which Dr. Shirley had discussed with Keble himself, only a short time before his death, securing his full sympathy.
It seemed only reasonable that any memorial to Keble should be advanced on these lines; and accordingly at a meeting shortly after the funeral, held at the Arch–bishop' s palace at Lambeth, the scheme began to assume a definite shape. A body of trustees was formed, of which Pusey was one, and committees, both general and execu–tive, were appointed to carry on the work.
Every step of the preparation for the College was most anxiously watched by Pusey. It seemed most appropriate that the memorial to Keble should aim at securing for the Church a firmer foothold in the University at the moment when it was contemplated to secularize in great measure the endowments of the older Colleges.
On St. Mark' s Day, April 25, 1868, the anniversary of Keble' s birthday, the first stone was laid by the Arch–bishop of Canterbury. On that occasion a great meeting, at the Sheldonian Theatre, publicly inaugurated the under–taking. Pusey amongst others made a very impressive speech, and expressed his grave anxieties for the position of the University and his ardent hopes for the New Foundation:--
'Some time after I knew of the loss, in which I myself had more than a common share, the thought would obtrude itself, " They will propose a memorial to him. What memorial can befit him? What memorial would not be mere mockery?" A monument, in (which was spoken of) Westminster Abbey? The two letters " J. K.," author of " The Chris–tian Year," would speak more to the heart than any monument, however beautiful. For, as avdrov epifanon pasa tafos, so, and much more, a work which in words of simple beauty had awakened and would awaken in human hearts, as long as our language shall endure, thoughts of truth and awe and chastened love, and pure faith, and deep reverence and spiritual devotion, was a monument aere peren–nius written anew in the souls of successive generations, who would bless him who taught them. I should have been glad at the time that " The Christian Year" should have been his only monument....
'It was not a mere plan to bring up those who could not afford the expenses of ordinary Colleges. It was to extend the College system, but it was more. It was to found a College which would react upon the rest of the University: which should have a character of its own, of which all our members should, whatever their several capacities, be real students; in which none, except for some accident, should fail in any examination, or fall short of that distinction for which his natural capacity fitted him; which should not be divided into good and bad sets, of which the bad would be ever trying to absorb the freshmen into itself, but whose esprit de corps it should be to knit in one by the mutual intercourse and friendship of all with all; in which the Head and Tutors should be the friends of the undergraduates, live with them, live for them, have all interests visibly in common with them. I believe that such a plan would be eminently successful. The cords of love bind much faster than any chains of discipline.... It has been said: " Found a College which must needs in some way abide when everything is reeling around you? Give it his loved and revered name, when you know not into whose hands it will pass--whether the plan of secularizing the University and its Colleges may not prevail, and the College which you stamp with his name may not be directed by Indifferentists, by those who believe that there is nothing to believe, that every definite system is sure to be wrong, or that Christianity is a thing of the past?" All which man or the law can do to prevent this has been done; and, I believe, done securely. Parliament can, but will not willingly overrule a recent deed of trust. The poverty of the College is also a security. Men covet wealth, not poverty; the pomp of Herod, not the white robe of Jesus Christ. But the argument goes much further. Were such counsels to prevail, not a Church or School could be built, for fear the Church should be alienated, the School secularized; every work for God would be paralyzed, and this religious paralysis would bring about the decay which it dreads. Let us not part with this prerogative. No! Viewing steadily in the face the awful life and death struggle around us and among us viewing that more personal, yet in one way more miserable, strife whereby some who love their Redeemer, Whom we too love, are, by an inconceivable infatua–tion, bent, if they could, to expel from the Church of England those who hold the Faith which Keble held and taught--our confidence is not in ourselves, not in man, but in Him Whose Truth he taught. But be it that things around us are whirling ever so giddily, be it that all things seem to be borne swiftly on a steady and ever-swelling tide, we know not whither, yet such reeling strife is ever the time for the ventures of Faith. We remember still how it startled the Carthaginian conqueror to hear that the soil on which the camp of his victorious soldiers stood, was sold at an unbated price within besieged Rome. On higher authority we know how Jeremiah, while yet in prison, and with the certain knowledge that Jerusalem should be taken by the Chaldaeans, was taught of God to buy the inheritance of his uncle' s son at Anathoth, and bury the title-deeds for many days. So now, be Oxford beleaguered as it may or by whom it may--be it that, as the writer of the " Christian Year" said, with presaging mind, some thirty years ago, viewing it from Bagley encircled by the overflowing waters,--
" The flood is round thee, but thy towers as yet
Are safe,”--
yet safe, as he thought and felt, only by prayer--the stone which has been placed this day by our Church' s Primate has, we trust, been founded on the firm Rock, Which is Christ, and the College to be raised thereon will be like that far-famed beacon on our southern shores, built stone by stone out at sea, amidst the tumult of the waters, well knit together.'
It had been one of Pusey' s great hopes from the time the College was first mentioned that Liddon should be its first Warden. 'The one idea I have had,' he wrote to him on June 3, 1868, 'was that you could give a stamp to it such as he would wish.' Bishop Wilberforce, Lord Beauchamp, and others who had taken great interest in the memorial joined with Pusey in urging Liddon to accept the post; but he resolutely declined. He felt that his true vocation was elsewhere, that he was unable to accept for himself a life of academical struggle such as Pusey' s had been, and further, that he was unfit for many of the duties which must devolve on the first head of a new foundation. It was a profound disappointment to Pusey, and seemed for the time to damp his hopes about the whole scheme; but when in the following year, Edward Stuart Talbot was, chiefly on the urgent recommendation of Liddon, nominated Warden, Pusey warmly welcomed the appoint–ment, and again renewed his intense interest in every detail of the preparations for the opening of the College.
It was an unfortunate circumstance that at the particular time when the College was about to be opened Pusey was somewhat alienated from Mr. Gladstone. In the early winter of the year 1869, on the death of Bishop Phillpotts, Mr. Glad–stone nominated Dr. Temple, one of the writers in 'Essays and Reviews,' to the see of Exeter. Upon this, Pusey, most sorrowfully, felt it necessary to dissociate himself finally from Mr. Gladstone' s actions as a politician. With our present knowledge, it is perhaps equally difficult to do justice to the courage of the appointment and to Mr. Gladstone' s dis–cerning confidence in the character of his nominee, and on the other hand to estimate the grounds of the outcry which it caused. Nearly all who had attacked 'Essays and Reviews' were loud in their disapproval. Churchmen varying as much as Pusey and Lord Shaftesbury alike protested. No doubt the agitation was founded on a mis–take as to what were the opinions held by Dr. Temple; but it cannot be denied that the blame for the mistake lay really on the Essayists. A number of men cannot combine to publish their Essays in one volume, without leading others to the conviction that their union extends beyond the sewing of the pages. All the Essays were naturally judged by the tone of the volume as a whole. It must be remembered that even Dr. Tait had taken this view, and writing to Dr. Temple in 1861, had expressed himself as follows:--
THE BISHOP (TAIT) OF LONDON TO DR. TEMPLE.
Feb. 22, 1861.
I shall be ready to state publicly, if you desire it, what is my opinion of your essay taken by itself. But the public appears, I must say not unnaturally resolved to regard the volume as one whole.
Without entering on other points to which I object, I will say that when taken as a whole the teaching of the volume is in my judgment not consistent with the true doctrine maintained by our Church as to the office of Holy Scripture. I feel convinced ~that there is much in this volume of which you as well as others of the contributors dis–approve, and I therefore the more regret that your high character and deserved influence should, as matters stand at present, seem to give weight to the volume as a whole. . .
Mr. Gladstone, indeed, may have known that Dr. Temple was very far from sharing the opinions of the writers who had been chiefly attacked; but as a matter of fact he had never done anything during the eight years since the volume appeared to separate himself from statements which incurred the condemnation of such an intimate friend as Dr. Tait. It was only by his sermons after his Enthrone–ment and the subsequent withdrawal of his Essay that Dr. Temple publicly reassured his friends and the main body of aggrieved Churchmen. It would seem that the misunderstanding had much apparent justification, although every allowance must be made for the extreme difficulty of retreating from such a position under such peculiar cir–cumstances. In reply to Pusey' s warm protests Mr. Glad–stone contented himself with pointing out to him that he could not see the evidence for the charges which were urged against his nominee: while Pusey refused to ac–knowledge that there was any distinction to be drawn between the various contributors to the offending volume. And when Mr. Gladstone persisted in defending the nomination, nothing remained but to bid him farewell. Loyalty to what he believed to be the requirements of the Truth was the ruling consideration of Pusey' s life. He never allowed anything to come in the way of it. A deepening friendship of forty years was sacrificed to it. It will suffice to quote only one letter on this subject.
'Oct. 7, 1869.
'I have written to Gladstone to say that I had clung to him during all those years when my friends at Oxford left him. Now I too must bid him a sorrowful farewell, until such times, if we should live to see them, when, Church and State being severed, he should be free to act according to his better conscience.... I should have nothing to say to any one, unsettled as to the Church of England, except to bid them hope for the time when we shall be free from the tyranny of the State at any cost. I must henceforth long, pray, and work, as I can, for the severance of Church and State. If we are to have such an infliction from Gladstone, what shall we not have from irreligious Liberal Premiers? Gladstone has ventured on what Lord Melbourne with all his wilfulness did not do. . .
'If some vigorous resistance is not made thousands must take refuge in Rome from an " Essay and Review" Church.'
Such a separation was a deep personal sorrow to Pusey, but he thought it a duty to the Faith. For two years he seems to have had no communications with Mr. Gladstone. But at the most critical moment of the Athanasian Creed controversy he received the following letter from Liddon:--
REV. H. P. LIDDON, TO E. B. P.
Nov. 13, 1872.
Mr. Gladstone is in Oxford for one night. . .. He says, 'I cannot bear to be in Oxford without paying my respects to Dr. Pusey, if I could think that he would like to see me.' May I bring him to you at ten to-morrow morning? . . . It is of the greatest practical impor–tance, in view of all our immediate dangers, that you should if possible be on terms of confidence with him again; and I would give any–thing to see this. And God seems to have given an opportunity of re-establishing such terms.
Pusey could not altogether refuse this appeal.
E. B. P. TO REV. H. P. LIDDON.
Nov. 13, 1872.
It would look like anger, or I know not what, not to see one whom I loved as I did Gladstone. I bade him farewell because I wished to separate my line from his wholly. I felt that he had inflicted a terrible wound and scandal wantonly upon the Church. As a public man, he is a lost friend; as an individual, I love him still; and we hope, by God' s mercy, to meet in Heaven. On 'terms of confidence' we can never [be]. His doctrine of 'yielding to the inevitable' must lead him one knows not whither.
But, as an individual, if, in memory of old times, he has a kind wish to see me, I shall be most glad to see him, suppressing the past. The Athanasian Creed is, I trust, common ground.
The following morning, Mr. Gladstone called with Liddon and they found the common ground where Pusey had hoped. But the constant correspondence of earlier years, in which each had applied for and received the assistance and advice of the other, was never renewed.
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